Effective Briefs

At the start of the year there is always a flurry of marketing activity. Naturally, every company wants to have the best possible start and push ahead with marketing campaigns to promote their products and services. So here are a few pointers to make sure that you develop a great brief for us creatives to work with.

• Give a general overview of your current situation and what objectives you want to achieve
  
• Set realistic sales and profit targets. This will also drive how much you’re willing to spend marketing your products and services.
  
• Determine who your key customer target types are. Be as specific as possible. It may be that different messages will apply to different customer types.
  
• Any marketing campaign should be benefits driven.
  
• The easiest way to do this is to take your product features and add ‘which means that’ to turn them into benefits.
  
• Find the one benefit that is most motivating for your target customers. This allows the campaign to have a focus. (One main benefit might only be applicable to a specific type of customer, so always think about the individual customer types when writing the brief)
  
• Explain how a customer can achieve this benefit. Think about the product or service and imagine you’re the customer – how do you think / feel about it? Look for any valuable insights.
  
• How would you sell this product to a friend who is part of the target market? Try and explain in one meaningful sentence why the product or service will be beneficial.
  
• Don’t focus on a creative concept or try and write headlines and copy. Focus on giving good information and allow H1 to use their experience to deliver a workable and creative campaign.
  
• Don’t fill the brief with technical information. This will come later.
  
• Write down all the words that make the product unique. Then try to construct sentences out of all the words you’ve written down.
  
• Google your competitors. You might find information you haven’t thought about or focus you on what makes your products and services unique.
  

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