How to write a marketing brief people can use

Replace the request with a decision

Consider this illustrative request: “We need a campaign about our new software.” It names an activity, but leaves the important choices open. Who should notice the campaign? What do they need to understand? What can they do after reading it?

A more useful starting point is: “Help operations managers recognise when a shared handover process is becoming difficult to maintain, and decide whether to review our product.” That does not settle every creative question. It gives those questions a purpose. A different audience or decision would produce a different piece of work.

Describe a person in a situation

An audience is more useful when it includes a situation. “Business owners” could mean someone investigating their first customer or someone replacing software used across several locations. Their knowledge, concerns and available time are different.

Write down what the reader already understands, what has prompted the search and what might prevent a next step. If those points are assumptions, label them as assumptions. Ask the team which recent conversations support them. A brief should expose gaps in understanding rather than disguise them with a confident audience label.

Separate the message from the evidence

The message is what you want the reader to understand. The evidence is why they should believe it. A product screen might demonstrate a workflow. A current price page might support a cost statement. An opinion about what matters to a buyer needs a different kind of support.

Keep unverified customer outcomes and broad superiority claims out of the brief. If the evidence is incomplete, change the message or commission the missing work. Copywriting cannot turn an unsupported promise into a demonstrated result.

Use a brief that fits on a page

• Audience and situation: who is this for, and what is happening in their work?
• Decision: what should the reader understand or consider next?
• One main message: what is the most useful thing to communicate?
• Evidence: which verified facts, examples or sources support the message?
• Deliverable and constraints: what is needed, where will it appear and what must it include?
• Review: who checks factual accuracy, who decides and when is feedback due?

This template is a starting point, not a requirement to produce a lengthy document. Give each answer enough detail that another person can make a reasonable first draft without guessing the fundamentals.

Agree what a useful result would look like

A useful result depends on the work. A page that answers a specific question might be judged by whether readers reach the relevant product information and understand the next step. A research brief might be judged by whether it resolves the uncertainty that held up a decision.

Choose the observation before launch. Avoid choosing a measure simply because a dashboard already includes it. If a number changes, the team should know which decision that change might inform. Our guide to choosing business metrics offers a small definition sheet for this purpose.

Keep feedback attached to the brief

When a draft arrives, review it against the agreed audience, decision and evidence. “Make it more exciting” gives the writer little to work with. “The opening assumes the reader already knows why the problem matters” identifies a specific gap.

If the intended audience changes during review, update the brief explicitly. Otherwise the team may be judging an old answer against a new question. A useful brief does not prevent learning; it gives changes a place to be recorded. For the next stage, see planning content around a reader’s decisions.