A useful marketing brief is a decision record, not a prediction. It tells the people doing the work what decision needs to be supported, what is known about the audience, which constraints are real and how the finished work will be reviewed. It should make unknowns visible rather than filling them with confident-sounding assumptions.
1. Name the decision
Complete this sentence: “This work should help [named decision owner] decide whether to [specific decision].” A request such as “we need more awareness” does not yet define an action. Ask what would change if the work were completed and what would happen if it were not.
Brief field: Decision to support, decision owner, decision date and the evidence they expect to review.
2. Describe the audience from evidence
Separate observed information from hypotheses. Observed information may come from enquiries, search data, support questions, interviews or an existing customer-research record. A hypothesis might be that a particular audience has a problem or prefers a certain format. Label both, state the source and date, and avoid turning a broad demographic into a claim about individual behaviour.
3. Record the starting position
Choose a baseline that can be reproduced: the count of completed forms in a defined system and period, impressions and clicks for a specified Search Console filter, or completion of a documented task in a usability check. Record the timezone, filters, exclusions and extraction date. If access is incomplete, say “baseline unavailable” and make obtaining it a task.
4. Define the message and evidence
| Field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Audience question | The question this item will answer |
| Primary message | One supportable sentence |
| Evidence | Source, owner and review date |
| Boundary | What must not be implied |
| Action | The next step actually available to the reader |
Do not place a claim in the brief merely because it sounds persuasive. If proof is missing, change the message, obtain the evidence or mark the item blocked.
5. Set scope and acceptance checks
List the exact outputs and channels, required source material, accessibility needs, privacy review and named approver. Define acceptance in inspectable terms: correct factual claims, working links, agreed format, readable mobile layout and measurement tags checked. Avoid accepting work on a promised lead, traffic or ranking figure that cannot be controlled.
6. Define measurement before publication
Link to a separate measurement plan. State the primary metric, observation period, data source and comparison method. Include a guardrail metric where an apparent gain could hide a problem—for example, more form starts alongside fewer successful completions.
Copy-and-fill brief
- Decision, owner and review date.
- Audience evidence and open hypotheses.
- Baseline, source, filters and extraction date.
- Message, proof and claim boundaries.
- Exact outputs, exclusions and dependencies.
- Accessibility, privacy and approval checks.
- Primary metric, guardrail and observation method.
- Post-publication review and record owner.
Before publication, run the content review checklist. If the work is intended to test a hypothesis, create a separate experiment log.