A marketing brief is the blueprint that keeps your team aligned from the start of any marketing campaign, big or small. Unfortunately, these briefs don’t always feel like the superhero that makes your life easier, rather, they tend to feel like a complicated task that takes too long to put together.
But hey! It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s time to ditch the traditional document that can be too complicated. In order to get you to a more efficient starting point, we’re going to outline how to write a marketing brief like a champ so you can get the ball rolling on success.
Why you need a marketing brief
Marketing briefs give creative team members, along with stakeholders, a foundation for the marketing strategy for each and every project. They provide a hard outline of what everyone needs to know to carry out your campaigns for advertising, communications, websites, public relations, etc.
With the right things included in the brief, you’ll get down to the nitty-gritty, like the target audience and budget for any marketing campaign. With a good marketing campaign brief template, you can also clarify roles and objectives so everyone you work with on the campaign knows exactly what you want and how you want it done.
It’s important to note that a marketing brief is different from a creative brief. A good marketing brief example is as follows: it explains the purpose of a marketing strategy, identifies the goals and audience of the campaign, sets timelines, and establishes measurements for success. Essentially, it’s the instructions for the agency or team you’ll be working with.
A creative brief is a separate document used for campaigns or projects that require creative strategy. A creative team uses it to outline aesthetic elements and address any other problems through a creative strategy. A creative brief can include your target audience, correct logo use, brand colors, etc.
What to include in a marketing brief
To make things easier for yourself in the future, create a simple marketing brief template. We’ve outlined the most important things you should always include in a marketing brief below. There may be some projects that require more information than what we’ve included, but this outline will be a great starting point to build off of.
1. Goals and Objectives
Use this section to outline exactly what you want to achieve with the campaign or project: Increase brand awareness? Gain 10,000 new subscribers? Generate $20,000 in new online purchases? Be as specific as possible. This section is also a good spot to highlight any potential risks associated with the project.
2. Background
This section of your marketing campaign brief is meant to help team members understand the significance of the project. Providing background context for why the work is being requested will influence their decisions and help the project reach its goals.
3. Audience
In every marketing brief template, you’ll find a section with information on the audience or target market. This is one of the most important sections because it will explain exactly who you’re trying to reach. The more specific you can be, the better.
4. Deliverables
Clearly list out what finished products are expected to be included in the campaign. This may include ads, designs, logos, social media posts, landing pages, etc.
5. Channels
Where are the deliverables going to live and how will they be distributed? Outline which channels you’re currently using and if you want to experiment with new channels. This will be influenced by your target audience.
6. Timeline
No matter how big the project is, you need to outline the timeframe for work expected. Include hard and soft deadlines and whether they’ll fall within a quarter or particular sprint. Break down every step as much as possible. Remember to include when the campaign will launch and end.
7. Budget
Remember to outline your budget for the campaign. You can start with a range and then map out expenses once the full execution plan is decided on. You may either need to scale back or have some wiggle room when comparing your final budget to the initial range.
8. Tracking and Measurements
A marketing brief template would be useless if it didn’t include a section for tracking and measuring success. At the end of every campaign or project, be sure to collect any necessary data to determine if the campaign was a success, to measure marketing performance, and to see if your initial goals and objectives were met.
A marketing brief template that includes these eight sections will provide any potential agencies you work with the right background to put together a plan that can achieve your marketing goals. Overall, your marketing brief is meant to help define, plan and evaluate the overall campaign or project. When you think about it, it’s really just as simple as outlining what all stakeholders involved need to be doing, how they need to do it and when they need to do it by.
Check out our free marketing brief template for help getting started.
