STRATEGIC
WRITING

STRATEGIC
WRITING

Diagnosis

Strategy

Writing

Find out how people read you.

Find out how people read you.

Your brand and your name are public. People read them on your website, in campaigns, press releases, quotes and profiles. But what do they really read when they look you up? The diagnosis shows you that picture, and whether it matches what you stand for.

THE DIAGNOSIS

THE DIAGNOSIS

Get a full analysis of your messaging across every public touchpoint and an outside diagnosis from a strategic writer.

Get a full analysis of your messaging across every public touchpoint and an outside diagnosis from a strategic writer.

Apply for your diagnosis

It’s free. Five short questions, and the full diagnosis lands in your inbox. No sales call.

Why start with a diagnosis?

Why start with a diagnosis?

Every good strategy does. You can break it into three steps: name the problem, choose how to deal with it, then act on that choice.

Strategic writing works the same way.

Before I write a word, I find out where your message breaks, and why.

No portfolio, no client logo and no case study can help you with that.

It’s the job of the diagnosis.

WHAT YOU GET

WHAT YOU GET

01

A clear analysis of how you get read.

Your messaging as it is today. Not only your company or your personal profile, but every relevant voice of your business.

02

A diagnosis that shows you the gaps in your messaging.

This shows you where your message might break, where it might contradict itself, and where it might miss an opportunity.

03

A strategy draft and a first copy check.

A first read on how to deal with your situation, so you can act on it right away, plus a quick check on how well your copy holds your message. Yours to keep.

ABOUT

ABOUT

ME

ME

Hi, I’m Dom.

If we met in the real world, you wouldn’t hear my CV in the first sentence. You wouldn’t hear a list of clients or any other kind of name-dropping. You’d probably hear that I’m a dad, that I coach a youth football team, that I directed films and commercials for almost a decade, that I went to art school in Barcelona, or maybe that I co-founded a branding company before I became a strategic writer. It would all depend on you and the conversation we had.

I would never speak to you in frameworks or elevator-pitch formulas.

And I believe that writing for a person or a brand shouldn’t either. It shouldn’t feel like being pulled through a funnel, or read like a template that sounds like everyone else’s. It should be as unique as the person and the brand are.

So if we met and you told me your messaging might need help, I’d say: send me your website and a few lines about yourself. I’ll take a look and tell you what I think.

That’s why I built the diagnosis. No portfolio, testimonial or client logo can tell you any better how I’d work for you.

If you want to know more about me and how I think and work, read on.

THE
STRATEGIC
WRITER
MANIFESTO

THE
STRATEGIC
WRITER
MANIFESTO

A guide for the perplexed.
How to write for brands and the people behind them in the age of AI.

From the book

“Isn’t that done by AI nowadays?”

“Isn’t that done by AI nowadays?”

It’s always the same. Every time someone asks me what I do for a living, the first question is: “Isn’t that done by AI nowadays?”

So I know from the field that this is the very first objection almost everyone has when they hear the word ghostwriter. But is it actually true? Let’s take a closer look.

You have probably tried ChatGPT, Claude or another LLM yourself. You may even use it every day. So yes, obviously AI is taking over many of our writing tasks, no doubt. And to say it clearly: it’s really good at it. So why would you need a professional writer when AI can do it faster, cheaper and with more availability than any human writer? The answer may surprise you.

Three levels of AI writing

Level one. LLMs have taken over the mundane writing tasks: emails, summaries, transcripts, shopping lists and so on. There is not much to say about it. We have all experienced it. It’s fast, it’s convenient and it takes a load off our daily lives. It’s a win.

Level two. The second level is what I call marketing copy, to give it a name. The main difference: these texts are, primarily or secondarily, supposed to sell. In a company, this is the part that already runs every day. The website, the campaign, the release about the quarter, the post on the company account, on LinkedIn or any other channel that wants to leave a mark.

AI is really good at it. Potentially better than any human writer, because it has no identity. It can be David Ogilvy and Oscar Wilde at the same time. There is enough reference to mimic any of the greatest writers of all time, in no time. No human writer can keep up with that. You can argue with it, but you can’t keep up with it.

So why would anyone pay a senior writer ten times the cost? From a business point of view, it makes no sense. Or does it?

It may, because this is where the idea that AI does it for you starts to break.

It’s when people realize that no matter how well the AI writes, you still need someone to set it up, to watch it, to detect and to judge the machine’s output. In other words: if you don’t know what good means, you will never know if it’s good.

And yes, you can ask the AI. But you have probably experienced the problem that follows. It’s an endless loop, unless you can decide for yourself.

I have seen companies hire senior copywriters to set this up. Voice profiles, templates, frameworks and playbooks for every touchpoint and every asset. The goal was a system that no longer needs a costly senior writer. Just a junior, someone who runs it. And that’s where it starts.

“Please make it sound less AI”

I can hear the shouting from the stands while I write this. This can be fixed with better prompting. Better instructions. An anti-pattern list. A Claude skill that someone wants to sell you. An app that does it all for you.

Yes. Even if that’s true, someone has to take care of all of this, right?

And when a new model comes out, someone has to check if the setup still keeps up. You can install an AI agent to check and update it for you. You can install another agent to check on this agent, and another one to check on that one. Well, I guess you get the point.

So however you want to do it, the setup changes from “AI does it all for me” to “I design, build and supervise a system.” Which is the first baby step toward becoming an AI engineer. A long way from the $20 subscription that does it all for you, I’m sure you agree.

Still, you don’t need a professional writer if the writing is done by the AI. You just need the right setup with the right prompts, the right context files and someone who knows AI to supervise it. Thank God everyone is an AI expert these days, and you can buy all the skills and prompts on every corner of the internet. You just have to find the right one.

You may find yourself digging through the wild, wild web, facing offer after offer, and you may even have a hard time separating the good from the worthless.

But let’s assume you found the one that fits. You got it for free or for a handful of dollars, so no big deal. You hire a junior AI expert straight from LinkedIn. End of story. You are good to go.

Let’s assume your setup makes your AI write like your favourite writer. It avoids the most common AI patterns, so no one can tell it was written by a machine. There is a reason people want exactly that. In 2025, two researchers at the University of Arizona ran 13 experiments with more than 5,000 participants. Every time people learned that someone had used AI for their work, they trusted that person less. The steepest drop came when someone else found out.

So you have templates for speeches, keynotes, shareholder letters, press releases, LinkedIn posts. You have it all. All based on data that tells you these structures perform best. It writes the best headlines, the best first paragraphs, the best calls to action and stories.

The output is the best and most generic output you can imagine. Or can’t imagine, otherwise you would have written it yourself.

So what do people do now? They edit it. Or they call a professional to fix it. They say things like:

“Please make it sound less AI.”

What they mean is: make it sound like me. Or like us.

And here it breaks again. Or rather, it falls apart. Because that doesn’t mean using the right adjectives to dial in the tone. It means getting the message into the minds of the people it is meant for. Customers, clients, board members, employees, the press, politicians, whoever the message is supposed to reach. That isn’t achieved by better or faster writing. It’s achieved by decisions.

Just imagine they hire a senior writer. What will happen? Will he sit down and fix it?

No.

He will ask you questions. Most of them start with what and why.

Level three

The answer might surprise you. It’s because of AI.

Keep reading →

Keep reading →

Source: Oliver Schilke and Martin Reimann, “The transparency dilemma: How AI disclosure erodes trust,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 188 (2025), 104405. Participant count from the University of Arizona’s release on the study.

THE
GHOST WRITER
LETTERS

THE
GHOST WRITER
LETTERS

Weekly letters on strategy and writing.

“I am deeply honored to join …”

How to Write a First Sentence as CEO That Doesn’t Sound Like Everyone Else

I analysed the first public texts of twenty new CEOs. Here is what a first sentence looks like when only you could have written it.

October 2023, a new chief executive in Lausanne and her first public sentence: “I am deeply honored to join Logitech. It’s a well-loved global brand …”

Read the letter →

“I don’t want to post on LinkedIn.”

Serious People Don’t Post on LinkedIn. Here’s How to Be Visible and Stay Serious.

Manhattan, May 2024. Sam, the head of communications, puts three posts up on the conference screen. All written in David’s name, ready to go out under a picture of him at the conference. The first one opens: “I’m blessed to share…”

Read the letter →

“My title speaks for itself.”

Your Title Speaks for Itself. Here’s What It Can’t Say for You.

New York, February 2026. David R. walks down Bergen Street in Brooklyn to pick up a bottle of Julien Courtois “Ancestral” at his favorite wine shop. In front of the Bethel Baptist Church he stops.

Read the letter →

Strategic thinking & creative writing for brands and the people behind them

Frequently asked

Is this just AI?

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What does it cost, and what’s the catch?

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Find out how
people read you.

Find out how
people read you.

Apply for your diagnosis

Dominik Wieschermann · Strategic Writing

Diagnosis

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This website
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