Marketing Brief – the Foundation of Great Campaigns

A successful campaign begins with a comprehensive marketing brief. Learn how to write an effective one by including the key elements every good brief should have so your agency can create a campaign that aligns with your brand and goals.

What is a marketing brief?

A marketing brief is a written document that contains all the key information about a marketing campaign. It is an essential tool for communication between the client and the agency. The marketing brief ensures that both sides clearly understand the goals, deadlines, and budget.
The brief outlines the goal we aim to achieve, identifies the target audience, conveys the central message, and specifies how it should be delivered. The main message is the central part of the brief, and all activities are focused on delivering that message to the target audience.
This document serves as a guide to keep the campaign on track and plays a crucial role in the successful execution of the marketing campaign.
A good brief must be concise and clear.

Why is a marketing brief essential?

Writing a brief is part of good business practice, and without it, the client takes on unnecessary risk. With a clear brief, you can manage time, budget, and people more effectively.
The brief helps avoid misunderstandings, confusion, or differing interpretations of the campaign’s vision by providing everyone involved with the same guidelines. From the start, teams know what is expected of them, what results they need to achieve, and within what timeframe. Everyone is aligned around one idea and common goals.
The brief helps the creative team develop materials that match the brand and strategy. When planning communication activities, it’s essential to define the tone, style, and messages you want to share, which ensures the creative solution is both relevant and practical.

Main Content of a Marketing Brief

Background

A marketing brief should clearly explain why the campaign is being launched, what results are expected, and how they will be achieved. It usually includes business and marketing context. This section provides basic information about the brand, product, or service being promoted, along with a brief overview of the market and the brand’s current market position.
It’s essential to define the campaign’s purpose—whether it’s launching a new product, entering a new market, or enhancing the brand in an existing one. The reason for starting a campaign could be an opportunity for growth in a new niche or the need to solve a specific challenge, such as a drop in sales or poor brand perception.

Goals

The marketing brief helps define what the campaign should achieve. Without clear goals, a campaign can lose focus and fail to deliver the expected results. A brief ensures that everyone working on the project understands the key objectives.
Goals may vary depending on specific needs, but most marketing campaigns fall into three main categories: raising awareness, driving engagement, and generating direct sales.

Awareness

Raising awareness about a product or brand is a common goal of marketing campaigns. This is especially important when launching new products or services, or when a new company enters a market. Awareness is the first step toward attracting new customers. It also serves as a reminder to existing customers that the product is still available. Awareness-focused ads are not designed to generate immediate sales. Instead, they aim for people to remember the brand and choose it later when the need arises.

Engagement

Driving engagement is a common goal in digital advertising. Simply put, engagement refers to any activity where a person interacts with an advertisement. In practice, this often means clicks, comments, or likes (on social media), but it can also include making a call or sending a message. Ads aimed at engagement are usually designed to encourage quick, impulsive actions. This type of advertising helps build a connection between potential customers and the brand, leading to long-term loyalty.

Sales

Every form of advertising, even those focused on awareness or engagement, ultimately aims to increase sales. Some campaigns are specifically designed to generate sales in the short term. These ads are usually very straightforward and include clear calls to action. Sales-oriented ads frequently emphasize customer benefits, such as discounts or promotional offers. They are especially effective in online shops, where customers can make purchases immediately after seeing the ad, without having to visit a physical store.
To measure campaign success, goals should be SMART:

• • Specific – clearly define what you want to achieve
  • Measurable – use measurable indicators to track success
  • Achievable – goals should be realistic
  • Relevant – the goal should matter for the business
  • Time-bound – set start and end dates, milestones, and benchmarks

Problem / Opportunity / Idea

Before launching any campaign, it’s essential to understand the problem you’re trying to solve or the opportunity you’re aiming to capitalize on. Launching a marketing campaign can be a response to various challenges a company faces. For example, a problem could be a drop in sales due to new competition, while an opportunity might be the growing popularity of a trend among the target audience.
Key problems that typically motivate launching a marketing campaign:

• • • Low sales or stagnant growth

Problem: The company is experiencing a decline in sales or no growth, despite a stable or growing market.
Solution: Launch a campaign to raise brand awareness, attract new customers, and increase sales.

• • • Weak brand recognition

Problem: The brand is not well-known, or consumers are unaware of the advantages it offers compared to its competitors.
Solution: Run a campaign to build brand recognition, educate the market, and differentiate from competitors.

• • • Launching a new product or service

Problem: A new product or service is being launched, but the target audience isn’t well informed.
Solution: Create a promotional campaign to introduce the new offer and generate interest.

• • • Changes in market conditions

Problem: Shifts in competition, laws, or trends are impacting the company’s market position.
Solution: A marketing campaign can help the company adapt to the new environment and stay competitive.

• • • Negative perception or poor brand image

Problem: The company is facing a damaged reputation due to negative reviews, scandals, or other issues.
Solution: Crisis marketing and PR campaigns can help rebuild consumer trust and improve the brand image.
This section of the brief outlines how to address the problem or capitalize on the opportunity, and how to establish the direction for the communication strategy.

Target Audience

Before diving too deeply into campaign planning, you need to define clearly who you are creating the campaign for. Your audience will guide the rest of your campaign decisions—from how you communicate to which channels you use.
Depending on the goals and purpose of your campaign, you can narrow your target audience using demographic data such as age, gender, income, location, and interests. It’s also helpful to understand how consumers think and behave, as well as what emotional or functional benefits they are seeking.
One helpful tool for defining your target audience is creating a buyer persona. The purpose of creating buyer personas is to gain a deeper understanding of the needs, goals, motivations, and behaviors of your target audience. A buyer persona typically includes details such as age, gender, income, job title, education level, hobbies, interests, pain points, and buying behavior.
Defining your target audience, or creating a buyer persona, is one of the most essential elements of a marketing brief. For example, if your target audience is younger people, the strategy may include dynamic content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Identifying your target audience allows you to craft personalized messages that reach potential customers more effectively.
The more you know about your audience, the better you can develop a campaign that inspires them to take action (a strong call to action).

Key Message

The key message is often shaped as a unique proposition—the main idea you want to communicate. This message should be simple, direct, and focused on the value your brand provides. To create a compelling key message, you need to understand what your customers truly want.
A well-defined key message can turn interested people into actual customers. When crafting the key message, it’s essential to define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). A USP is the primary benefit that distinguishes your business or product from the competition.
Analyzing your competitors and their campaigns helps you define your key message more clearly, develop a stronger strategy, select the most effective advertising channels, and position your brand more effectively. It also helps you avoid common mistakes.

Mandatory Information

This part of the brief is essential for executing the marketing campaign and addresses specific creative and channel-related requirements.
It includes:

• • • Creative Style: colours, fonts, logos, and other visual elements that must align with the brand’s identity.
    • Tone of Voice: Should the campaign communication be formal, informal, fun, or professional?
    • Communication Channels: the media through which the message will be delivered—social media, PPC advertising, email marketing, TV, radio, etc. Defining the channels helps the team create content tailored to the specific requirements of each medium.

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

To measure the success of the campaign, it’s essential to define KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) clearly. By setting measurable goals in the brief, you establish a foundation for tracking the campaign’s success. It’s important to know what you want to achieve and whether the results can be easily evaluated after the campaign ends to determine if the goals were met. Defining how campaign success will be measured (e.g., ROI, engagement, conversions) is key for evaluating results and improving future campaigns.

Deadlines

Clearly defined deadlines are essential for the timely planning and execution of the campaign. This includes the start and end dates of the campaign, as well as key milestones for content creation and distribution.

Budget

No matter how creative the ideas are, the budget determines the scope and reach of the campaign. The brief should clearly state the total campaign budget. This section helps the agency optimize the strategy within financial limits, which is especially important for small or medium-sized businesses.

Conclusion

Without a clear brief, there is a greater risk that the project will move in the wrong direction, which can lead to wasted time and resources. A brief reduces the chances of misunderstandings or mistakes during the process.
The marketing brief acts as a reference document throughout the entire project. When facing uncertainty or needing to make a quick decision, you can return to the brief to ensure alignment with the original goals and strategy.
A marketing brief is not just a document – it’s a guide that shapes every step of the campaign. From defining your target audience to setting KPIs and allocating the budget, each part of the brief helps keep the campaign focused, efficient, and successful.
A well-written marketing brief establishes a solid foundation for effective communication between clients and marketing teams, ultimately yielding long-term results.
If you’re unsure where to start, the Croatian Association of Marketing Communication Companies (HURA!) has prepared several templates that you can download. Alternatively, if you require assistance from experts, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time.