If you’re staring at a blank screen (we’ve all been there) trying to figure out how to develop a marketing brief, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to get to the heart of the problems and solutions your campaign will address.
Use these guiding questions alongside our free marketing brief templates to help you create a brief that has just enough information — but not too much — to get your team excited and on the same page.
Table of Contents
- The Importance of a Marketing Brief
- How to Write a Marketing Brief
- 8 Questions to Help You Write a Great Marketing Brief
The Importance of a Marketing Brief
One of the first steps in a campaign is to draw up a marketing brief — sometimes called a creative brief or campaign brief — that serves as the single source of truth on the project.
It sets forth a single vision that everybody can buy into, and more importantly, it defines the goal, the reach, and the problem the project is trying to solve. Writing a great marketing brief will give you a strong foundation for your campaign.
How to Write a Marketing Brief
The marketing brief is the starting point with which every decision and movement made on the project should align — and that means it is also a living document.
Marketing briefs help solve any misunderstandings before you get to work. This document should clarify for everyone involved — copywriters, designers, developers, marketers — all the aspects of the project, the goals, and even the timeline. If you’re working for an external client or stakeholder, your brief should confirm that you understand their problem and have a strategy for solving it.
As campaigns and projects change, requirements are added or removed, and new insights are discovered. You can update this document as the project evolves to ensure everyone remains focused on the underlying issue and knows their responsibilities.
8 Questions to Help You Write a Great Marketing Brief
The marketing brief isn’t being published online to the masses for approval, but it does need to grab your team by the heart and get them excited — and answer any questions they might have about the campaign.
It doesn’t need to include every piece of information available. It shouldn’t take you more than five minutes to understand the project, the strategy, and the goals. It should be a useful document that’s easy to scan, clear, and actionable.
I’ve got eight questions that will help guide you through your first marketing brief. Before you ask yourself these questions, you should already have a handle on your buyer or audience persona, so that you know who your target audience is. Using our creative brief templates as you sketch out your answers may also be helpful.
1. What problem are we solving, and why are we solving it? What’s the benefit?
Describe the problem your campaign needs to solve. Don’t just write down what your client or internal stakeholders say — try to go deeper and approach it from different angles so that you’re accurately capturing the full scope.
To change consumer behavior, you first have to understand what they’re doing now and what options they have that they’re (not) embracing.
Let’s use the campaign brief for HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing report as an example. The State of Marketing report is an annual offer, and it’s compiled based on extensive research that HubSpot conducts.
The question about what problem the offer solves is directly addressed in the Target Audience section:
We’re providing a resource to our readers and customers who are marketers trying to get an edge in an AI-driven business landscape. The report promises tools and insights — the benefits — and acknowledges the challenges of reckoning with the rapid rise of AI in marketing workflows.
2. Who are we trying to reach with this campaign?
Who is the target audience or persona? How is this consumer group solving their pain points now? What other options do they have?
You’ll see in the marketing brief above that we’ve also outlined our market (global English) and segments (small- and medium-sized businesses, mid-market, and enterprise). This ties into our value proposition of “helping millions of businesses grow better.”
We’ve also defined the roles our target audience is likely to occupy — marketing managers and directors, CMOs, and content strategists. As we craft the copy for this campaign, this will help us align with the people we want to target and who we think will get the most value from our State of Marketing report.
3. What are the deliverables for this campaign?
Print advertising? Social media? Trade shows? Billboards? TV ads? Podcasts? Talk shows? Video ads?
What communication channels will you use, and how will you use them? How do they build on and support each other? What are the best vehicles to reach your intended audience? What are the deliverables you have committed to?
Each communication channel needs a call-to-action (CTA) that helps the buyer move forward at that stage in their buying process. And that CTA should leverage the medium in which it’s delivered.
A video ad CTA will be different from a print ad CTA, which will differ from a CTA in a blog post. Mapping out the buyer’s journey, identifying their questions and concerns along the way, and understanding where they go for information will help you answer this question.
This is also a good time to think about the metrics you’ll use to measure success. Before you even begin, set SMART goals so everyone is clear on what really matters — getting results.
4. Do we anticipate any internal or external factors compromising the completion of the above deliverables? If so, how and why?
Be honest with yourself and your team, and do a SWOT analysis if you’re stuck. If you’re working with outside vendors on design, if you’re in a time crunch, or if there are complicated workflows and approval processes — these are all things that could compromise your deliverables.
This may or may not have a place in your final marketing brief, depending on its intended audience, but the question will still help guide your timeline and help you manage expectations.
5. What are our brand values? How can we use those to shape the tone of this campaign?
Your brand values — and your brand promise — underscore everything that you do. This marketing campaign is no different. If you’re finding that the campaign doesn’t speak to your brand values, take a step back and revisit those values. How can they reshape your campaign?
For instance, the talking points (see below) in the brief for HubSpot’s State of Marketing report are emblematic of our promise to “help millions of businesses grow better.” Even though they are specific to this product — like “AI is revolutionizing marketing workflows, enabling faster data analysis and smarter, personalized customer engagement” — each one has been carefully crafted to deliver on our brand promise.
6. What do we want our audience to take away from this campaign? What do we want them to feel?
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. They don’t know the product or service you’re offering as well as you do; what would it take to persuade you to take action on it? Is your messaging clear enough that every part of your campaign will evoke the feelings you want it to?
We know that there’s an emotional component to decision-making; we often rationalize decisions after we’ve made a choice. This means you need to understand the feelings you want to evoke in buyers during their decision process and after they’ve bought what you’ve sold. What are those feelings and when do they feel them?
At this point, you have enough information to develop a brief overview of your campaign. This is the top module of the campaign brief for the 2025 State of Marketing report:
7. What can you say that will make your audience believe in your message? What proof can you offer to build trust and validate your message?
Of course, spouting claims isn’t enough to make your audience believe in your product or service, and it’s certainly not going to build trust with them.
As you write your messaging, keep an eye out for hyperbolic language or rhetoric — you don’t want to make promises you can’t keep. Make sure you include proof or other foundational information that can help you build trust with your audience.
8. What is the campaign not going to cover? What messages, emotions, or features do you want to avoid?
Laying out what to avoid will help your team prevent missteps and misunderstandings. Perhaps there were features discussed early in the project that will no longer be part of the final product, or perhaps there are certain emotions that you want to be very sure you don’t evoke in your messaging.
Write Your First Marketing Brief
These eight questions will give you the foundation you need to write your first marketing brief. Download our free marketing brief templates to create a sharp-looking document that will get your team excited about the campaign — and provide a clear blueprint for everybody involved.
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