Mastering the Art of Crafting Irresistible Creative Briefs: A Guide for Designers
One of the biggest mistakes marketers and designers make is neglecting to complete a creative brief for every project. A creative brief guides the creative process for a project, ensuring it’s organized and focused on crafting high-quality deliverables that exceed client expectations.
In addition, when you send this brief to clients, it assures them that you understand what they want and have a plan for making it happen. Additionally, if there are any issues you aren’t aligning on, your creative brief will reveal them.
Before we dive into how to create a compelling creative brief, let’s touch more on why a creative brief is crucial for the success of the project.
Why a Creative Brief is Crucial
First and foremost, a creative brief helps you define the scope of a project. It tells you what the project is about, who’s involved in it, and how you’ll complete it.
Diving into these details ensures you have a blueprint to follow for each project, keeping you on a productive path to accomplishing all tasks and project goals.
Also, there are typically multiple teams working on a single project or with one client. All teams must be on the same page working toward a common vision if everything is to work out. A creative brief is something everyone working on the project can rely on to stay on the same page.
For example, if you’re developing a marketing campaign to promote a new product, marketing and sales departments need to work together.
Marketers understand customers and can create content that aligns with them. But you need the product insights and information on what constitutes a qualified lead from sales to ensure you’re creating campaign content that speaks to the people in the target audience ready to invest in products or services.
Different people and departments will work together on the same project. The diversity and range of skillsets can contribute to quality results.
But only if you’re all working toward a common goal in the most productive way, and that’s where a creative brief can be beneficial.
How to Create an Irresistible Creative Brief
A creative brief needs to have all of the core components that ensure understanding of a project and how it’s to be completed, such as information on the brand and its background, a target audience description, and a timeline for the project.
However, it also needs to be captivating. Whoever reads it should be compelled to finish the entire thing and easily absorb what’s being communicated.
Here’s more on what core components to include and how to ensure your creative brief is irresistible.
Talk about your budget and available resources
It would be amazing to have a huge budget, a large team, and an unlimited amount of resources to complete every project. But this just isn’t the case. Every project will come with a definitive budget and resources to use.
What do you have to work with to get your project done? How much money can you spend? Who’s on your team and what are their capabilities? What additional resources will you use to complete the project?
Highlight what kind of project it is
You can make a creative brief for any kind of project, whether a logo design, content writing, branding plan, marketing campaign, or another type of project.
Creative briefs are not one-size-fits-all. You need to adapt them to the project for them to truly have an impact on how it unfolds.
So, the first step is identifying what kind of project you’re doing. Then, you can start crafting a creative brief that fits it.
For example, if the project is creating blog posts, your brief will touch a lot on what you’ll write about. But if the project is more related to graphic design, you’ll focus more on the visuals you need to create in your brief.
Start with what kind of project it is and then craft a creative brief around that.
Use the proper format
Your creative brief’s format has a lot to do with how understandable it is for the people reading it. If it’s all long paragraphs without any visuals or whitespace breaking up the information, your brief will be hard to get through.
On the other hand, if you keep your creative brief simple, have clear goals, only provide the necessary information, and use supporting visuals, the people reading your brief will be more likely to understand and enjoy it.
The proper format for a creative brief is simple. One of the most common creative brief mistakes marketers and designers make is loading up their brief with a lot of data, making it longer and longer.
It’s best to only include the information people need to get a project done, such as the target audience and timeline.
Your layout should also be easy to navigate. Split up long blocks of text into smaller ones with subheadings. Include visuals that make complex concepts easier to understand. And use white space to make your brief easier on the eyes.
Give a summary of the company or client
Every client you work with will be different. No matter the company or person you’re executing a project for, it needs to be reflective of that person or company. So, you want to make sure you talk about who you’re creating for in your creative brief.
Give some background on the brand and the people behind the company. Talk a little about why the business was formed and what its mission is. Finally, describe the client’s intent behind this project.
Define project goals
Every project needs clear goals. Without them, you’re executing a project blindly. You’re essentially creating something with no real reason, and the project could go on forever.
You must include project goals in your creative brief so that you and whoever is working on the project with you understand the purpose of the project and what the client wants to come out of it.
A short list of goals is best. You know exactly what you’re shooting for and won’t get overwhelmed by a whole bunch of objectives.
Make sure your goals follow the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework, where they’re specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Include target audience insights
If you don’t execute a project with the target audience in mind, your efforts will be for nothing. No matter what you create, it isn’t likely to resonate if you don’t define who that audience is.
You and your team need to stay mindful of who the project is supposed to reach throughout the entire process.
So, include target audience insights in your creative brief. Describe their demographics, like whether they’re married and what kind of work they do.
More importantly, discuss behavioral and psychographic information. For example, what kind of content are they drawn to? What pain points do they have? What are their goals and motivations?
Including target audience data in your creative brief ensures the project is executed with them at the forefront of your decision-making.
Discuss your design ideas
This is where your expertise as a designer or marketer comes into play. Based on what you know about where the client wants to take the project, you need to come up with design ideas that align with their expectations.
What ideas do you have for the project? Now, this isn’t a time to list every single design preference you have.
You only have room for a few ideas that you’re absolutely set on that will get the client the results they’re looking for.
Make sure your design ideas are simple to understand and make sense for the project.
Have a timeline for deliverables
You could convey everything you want to do in a project. But can you complete your tasks and achieve your goals on a realistic timeline? Providing a timeline for deliverables and important checkpoints in the process is vital.
Defining when things are due keeps you and the rest of your team accountable. Establish deadlines but leave some room for flexibility, as challenges and other delays are likely to arise during the project.
Talk about the results
What really captures the attention of clients you send your brief to is the part where you discuss what completing this project will do for the person or business. This could also help convince your team to put their all into their roles.
Everyone will get a glimpse into how executing this project could change the trajectory of the client’s success.
This builds excitement for the project. And this excitement leads to better productivity and, in turn, a well-executed project.
Briefly describe how the project will contribute to positive results for the client.
Give examples that show your vision
Sometimes, talking about your vision for a project isn’t enough. You need to show examples of your vision to get the point across to the client and the people you’re working with.
Offer references and examples of what you want your project to turn out like. For example, if you’re designing a new logo, show different logos that are similar to what you’re trying to achieve.
Or, if your project is creating blog content, share examples of well-executed blogs that do what you’re trying to do.
Great examples will help create an even stronger guide for your project.
Conclusion
Crafting a compelling creative brief is an art form. The more creative briefs you do, the easier it will be to master them.
Take all of what you’ve learned in this post and apply it to your briefs moving forward. As you find what works, start building a template that you can use for all of your creative briefs to ensure they’re as impactful as you want them to be.
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