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.