Simple steps for improving project briefs

A good brief is the foundation for a good project. Yet, too often, we give them little attention.  Or, worse, have a quick phone call with an agency and let them get on with it.  Not good. 


Thanks to a new process in our department I've been reviewing a lot of communications briefs, and certain problems pop up throughout.  Here's what people could do to make them stronger.


1.PURPOSE
Every piece of marketing communications content should do a specific job. We see far too many proposals for things that seem to be initiated because somebody wants to tick a box for a video, or an infographic, or whatever ... rather than because they have a comms plan and they need this particular tactic to move people along it.  We try to match all our content to a sales journey, which goes as follows:  awareness to consideration to preference to closure to advocacy. You can't do everything with one piece of comms.  Plot your point on that journey and craft your piece to address that specific need.  If it's consideration, for example, you're going to be all about exploring a particular area your company can do well, and showing all the reasons you're so credible they have to put you on their bid list.  If you've done the job properly, then you're tipping your audience over into preference after they've read, viewed or interacted with your work.


CONTEXT
How does your piece fit in to a broader marketing communications mix?  Integrated communications is increasingly important; no piece of marketing collateral should ever stand alone.  And yet we consistently see briefs that make no mention of how the item proposed works within a bigger picture.  This is critically important for the people who take that brief and turn it into a piece of marketing.  Something created in isolation will never do the job as well as something crafted in concert with its partners.


DIGITAL FIRST
Every survey I've seen in the past few years indicates that customers are now turning primarily to the Internet for the awareness and consideration parts of the sales journey, and dip in and out of that "self service" options for the others.  Everything should be created online first, with other options following.  And that doesn't just mean putting a page of copy up on a website. It means thinking about the whole experience of finding (search engine optimisation is critical), viewing and linking.


I have no doubt the owners of most of the content proposals I see already have this stuff in mind, but it doesn't make it into their briefs.  Skipping the formal inclusion boosts the chance someone will forget it.  Be safe ... get it in there.

Femininity doesn't always mean a better boss

On this International Womens' Day, I pause to consider some of the negatives of women in communications.

This is a pink ghetto; women far outnumber men in internal communications, PR and marketing communications.  And most women do a great job.  But there is a dark side.  When professionalism gives in to being nice girls who make people happy, nobody wins.  

So let's look at the three biggest "girly" mistakes of female marcomms leadership, and what you can do to avoid them.

ONE  Don't sizzle.  There's a fine line between charismatic and sexy.  Stay on the right side of it.   Show your expertise, not your hemline.  Go for the respect of all, not the inappropriate attentions of the men who might promote you.  The sexy route might get you promoted, but it will lose you the respect of all the women who work for you ... and that's most of the marcomms workforce.  

TWO.  Don't be a biddable yes girl.  Top female mistake I've seen amongst my senior leaders over the years.  You want to make people happy.  You want to get ahead.  You want your department to be popular.  So you agree to whatever the senior executives want, whether or not it's a good idea.  Eventually, this will catch up with you.  Usually when the leaders you supported get booted out, and marketing takes the blame for their stupid decisions.  You could have said no.  Advise what's right, not what's popular.

THREE.  Don't be one of the boys.  The opposite mistake to the one above, which seems to be more typical of older women who were on the front lines of the equal rights battles of the 70s, is to be a complete hardass.  Cutting out all female characteristics and being as tough and heartless as the hardest man will not only alienate your employees.  It denies natural strengths that your essential femininity brings to the table.

Sadly, I've worked under or with women who have shown all these traits.  And it makes you pine for the easy (if disorganised and a bit uncaring) openness of a male boss.

Bottom line:  be yourself.  Don't use your sexuality.  Use your brain and your experience.