What Is a Marketing Brief and How to Write One?
What is a brief? An effective brief is a key element in the process of building client relationships and communication between both parties. Properly planning the document not only saves time, but also helps you better understand the client's needs, which is essential for creating a tailored offer. A brief works like a script for the conversation. Whatever type of brief you want to put together, whether it's an advertising brief, a promotional brief, a campaign brief, a creative brief, a media brief or a strategic brief, in this article we'll try to answer what such a document is for and how to write a good one (we'll focus on the types that fit our services, but you can easily carry the concept over to your own industry and services or products).
Below, we present detailed guidance on what a marketing brief should contain (paid campaigns) and a brief for a website. A clear document like this will help you plan activities for your clients better and clarify their current situation on the market. It cannot be a jumble of random information pulled from the internet.
Simplicity and Easy Editing (Where to Start With the Best Brief)
How do you write a good brief? Choosing the tool to create your brief is just as important as its content. It's the starting point for beginning a collaboration. The tool should be easy to edit and shouldn't discourage the client from filling in the brief. A brief for a website or marketing should be kept as short as possible (max 2 A4 pages), containing only the essential information. Your clients certainly value their time, so it's worth writing a brief that includes only the questions that are key to preparing a collaboration concept. Be creative 😉
General Questions About the Client's Company: Where to Start a Good Marketing Brief, and All the Rest
In the first part, a well-prepared brief should include questions about general information regarding the client's company. We ask concisely about the company name, website address, a short description (including of the product or service) and its market position, as well as information about key customers. This company data allows for a better understanding of the context of the client's operations, their goals and needs.
Questions About the Client's Goals and Challenges That a Brief Must Include
Next, to write a coherent brief properly, it should focus on the client's goals and challenges. It's important to find out what the client's current goals are (the project's goal), what has already been done towards them, and what challenges the client sees in achieving those goals. This allows you to understand the intentions of the client themselves and to create an offer that responds to their current needs and problems. In short, a brief simply must include these three questions:
- What do you want to achieve with, for example, a website? What is your goal?
- What have you already done to achieve this goal?
- What are the biggest challenges or problems you've noticed in achieving this goal?
The success of the concept you prepare depends to a huge extent on how well you manage to gather answers to the questions above. These guidelines are key to achieving client satisfaction and getting them to conclude that "this is a good collaboration with the agency".
Detailed Questions About a Specific Industry, Service or Product (Sample Brief)
After getting a general picture, a well-formulated brief should move coherently into more detailed questions that directly concern the service or product the client is interested in. This is the element that allows you to refine the offer and avoid random pieces of information.
Additional questions for gathering information about a website include, for example:
- What are your expectations for the collaboration?
- Have you worked with an agency before? If so, what did you like and dislike about that collaboration?
- Do you already have a concept for the website, or do you want our specialists to propose a solution as part of a workshop?
- Can you send links to websites you like, along with what you like most about them?
- Business or marketing strategy, does it exist? If so, can we receive it?
- Who is your target audience?
- Do you have a website structure mapped out?
- Does the website need to have any custom functionality or integrations?
- Do you already have a designed visual identity for your company (branding)?
- What is your budget for this project?
- When do you want to start work on the project, and when do you want it finished?
- Will you prepare the website's content yourselves, or would you like to use our copywriter's services?
Additional Questions for Gathering Information About Paid Campaigns Include, for Example:
- What are your expectations for the collaboration?
- What does the client want to achieve through marketing activities?
- What marketing activities are currently being run (social media, SEO, marketing campaigns, etc.)?
- Have you worked with an agency before? If so, what did you like and dislike about that collaboration?
- Have marketing activities already been carried out? If the answer is "yes", also propose a free audit.
- What is the goal of the marketing activities?
- Business or marketing strategy, does it exist? If so, can we receive it?
- Who is your target audience?
- Which products or services do we want to focus on?
- What are your preferences regarding results reporting?
- What margin do you have on your products?
- Do you have a set budget for marketing activities?
These are the key questions for our agency that we had in mind when writing the brief.
Open and Closed Questions in the Final Brief
A brief should include both open and closed questions. Open questions allow for a wide range of answers, from specific information to more developed opinions and insights. Closed questions, in turn, allow for quick, specific answers that can be easily analysed and compared.
Explaining Industry Terminology. Is It Worth Doing to Write a Good Brief?
If technical or specialist terms appear in the brief, their definition should be explained. This helps us avoid misunderstandings and ensures the client understands what the brief is about. When creating a brief, it's better to be sure the client is familiar with the basic concepts we use in the document, while also remembering that being too general is not a desirable form either.
A Section for Additional Information That a Marketing Brief Should Contain
It's also a good idea to include a space in the brief where the client can add additional information that we didn't ask about directly. This will provide a fuller picture of the client's needs and expectations for the given project.
Many People Wonder Exactly When to Use a Brief. Is It Worth Sending to the Client?
That depends on the situation between the client and the marketing agency (company). A brief should only be sent to the client when other forms of communication (an in-person meeting, a video call, a phone call) aren't possible. Direct contact with the client is usually more effective at gathering information, because it lets the salesperson communicate clearly during the conversation with the client. It's simply easier to ask someone to clarify something they don't understand, or to explain an issue, during a live conversation.
That's why the brief you prepare should be used in every conversation meant to lead to a collaboration between the client and the agency. Of course, this isn't a linear process. If for some reason you can't meet the client to gather the necessary information, for example because the client doesn't want to meet you in person, feel free to send them the brief. Once they've sent it back to you, you'll use this document as the basis for preparing a collaboration proposal and showing them how your services can help them deliver their project.
Summary
A well-constructed brief is an invaluable tool that helps reach an understanding with the client. Let's remember clarity, conciseness and adapting the brief to the specifics of the industry and the client's expectations. A brief isn't just a way of gathering information, it's also the first step towards building trust and understanding between a company and its client. The more time we spend on its thoughtful design, the more likely the client is to decide to entrust us with their project. Thank you very much for your attention, and all that's left for me is to wish that every one of your clients fills in their brief.
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