A short and sweet guide on writing a creative marketing brief…

“It did not convert! It did not drive sales! This is not my target audience! There is no engagement! Nobody liked the posts! My followers did not increase  and the list goes on. The common statements you will hear from entrepreneurs when they review their marketing activity. Before we investigate further, ‘Can you please show me your brief’?

One of my greatest takeaways from numerous marketing campaigns is, your campaign is only as good as your brief. Look, if you’re trying to get any tangible result from your marketing, you must know how to put together a brief. There are no shortcuts, it just has to be done. A lot of failed campaigns can be traced to an unclear brief or even or even worse, no brief at all.

You need a good brief to save time on projects, get you the results you need and reduce conflict.

Let’s start with all the things that briefs are not:

1. Verbal
2. Meant to be delivered on the phone
3. A voice note with no direction
4. ‘Something I’ll like’

Without further ado, I’ll jump right into defining what a creative marketing brief is and what the essentials should be.

What is a Creative Marketing Brief?

Hubspot defines a creative brief as a roadmap that takes a project from ideation to completion. It ensures the scope, timeline, key stakeholders, and purpose of the project are communicated clearly. The creative brief is the single source of truth for everyone working on a project. If questions come up or tasks become unclear, the creative brief will steer things in the right direction.

Adobe explains further ; Creative briefing isn’t just cobbling together a document, it’s wielding a tool that facilitates clear and thorough communication from the beginning of the design process. A clear brief can prevent last-minute changes, misunderstandings and conflicting objectives

Now that we know what a brief is, what should it entail?

Essentials of a Good Creative Marketing Brief

• Company background
• Objectives (Clarity is very key here and try not to make the themes too many)
• Deliverables( Posters? Ads? Videos? Spell them out here)
• Target audience
• Expectations (What are you expecting after the campaign? Sales? Awareness? Engagement?)
• Reference materials
• Budget (You must know. It cannot be nothing; at least a range)
• Timelines( When are you expecting the deliverables?)

Wondering how to write one? Hubspot has some great templates here. I wanted to keep this article short and sweet, because you have work to do!

Please promise me( in the comments section) that you will commit to using creative briefs today. Do it for  your business.

Now go and write some result inducing briefs!You have got this !???