Over the years, I’ve worked on a range of marketing and communications projects and have often found that the campaigns that deliver exceptional results are those that start out on the solid foundations of a clear brief.

It is not unusual for a client to be uncertain about exactly what it is they require but, in my opinion, it is part of the marcom (marketing communications) provider’s role to help develop a clear brief on which both client and provider agree, ensuring that both sides are in agreement about why the project is being undertaken, what the desired outcomes are and how these will be measured in terms of clear deliverables.

If you are starting out in a relationship with a new marcom provider, here are four tips to help you create an effective brief:

1. Why?

At the outset of any marcom project, before any specific objectives are agreed upon, both parties should be absolutely clear on the answer to one simple question, “Why are we doing this?” An answer to this might be, “To make more people who use disposable razors aware of our eco-friendly, self-sharpening razors in order to sell more units.” If either side isn’t able to give a definite answer, or if those two answers don’t tally, you are not yet in a position to start planning your project.

2. Who?

Sometimes, a company will have an instinctive sense of who they want to target, sometimes they will be able to extract detailed customer data from their records in order to provide a profile of a typical buyer, but often, companies will have very little idea about who they wish to target, instead simply hoping to cast the net vaguely in the direction of a particular gender, social band or age group.

Targeting a campaign towards a defined audiences is important for a number of reasons. It allows publications to be targeted more intelligently, messages to be phrased according to specific tastes and understandings, and budgets to be used productively to reach out only to those likely to respond in a way that is beneficial to your end goals.

For example, The News of the World is the widest read UK newspaper, but its readership is unlikely to respond in high proportions to a new product for the trawler fishing industry. Instead, a trade journal or trawler fishing magazine, with its narrower target audience would be far more likely to provide a successful focus for the firm’s marketing efforts.

3. How and when?

Now you have a handle on your project’s overall aim, and know who you want to reach, you can start planning your objectives and agreeing upon deliverables. This is when the old ‘SMART’ chestnut comes in handy to help you shape your objectives.

To be useful to your project, every objective agreed upon must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based. This means phrases like “increase orders per customer” are out. Instead, each objective must be qualified with specifics such as the number of sales you wish to secure per customer, and include a time-scale in which this will be achieved. Being realistic means assessing the company’s starting point and budgeting sensibly to ensure that both side’s resources and capabilities are sufficient to reach the goals set. Setting time-scales with interim deliverables is particularly important as it will help structure the project and ensure that you remain on track.

Of course, some objectives are harder to quantify than others, such as where the intention is to improve public and/or media perception of a brand. In such cases, it’s important that both parties agree on how this will be measured. For example, a public relations agency may need to demonstrate a way of assessing whether a news report about a company is positive, negative, or neutral and then show how this will be quantified to calculate the overall media image of the brand.

4. What?

What is it about your brand that you want your target audiences to know? Do you want to your company director to be seen as an expert in his field? Do you want your brand to be known as the strongest/cheapest/most eco-friendly of its kind? Do you want to emphasise your company’s commitment to sustainability? Do you want to be known as cool? Original? Ground-breaking?

If you’re struggling to answer these questions, start out by imagining you are at a networking event speaking to a potential customer: what are the three things you would want them to know about your product or service before they walk away? It’s not necessary to have a professional understanding of key messages and how they are communicated via the media or other marketing channels – your marcom provider can help you with that – but it is well worth thinking about these issues is simple terms so that you can go to your provider with a clear sense of what you want your audience to know about.

These four simple steps certainly won’t guarantee you marketing success, but they should provide you with a strong framework to take to your marketing, communications or PR agency to ensure they come back with a workable proposal that fulfils your expectations.

If you are planning to place an online advertisement for a marketing communications provider, you may also wish to read this post on writing effective project listings.