The Secret to Successful Marketing Campaigns Every Time —
Guaranteed!

by copywriter and marketing coach Chris Marlow

Advertising agencies insist on using a Creative Brief for a very good
reason — because they work!

More importantly, these businesses have learned that forgoing the
Creative Brief for any project — especially for any advertising or sales
initiative — will lose money for both the client and the agency.

Results of not using a Creative Brief for every significant writing
project include:

• An end product that is very different from what the client expected
• A promotion that brings in poor response
• Heavy (and costly) revisions

What, exactly, is a Creative Brief? Creative Briefs are as individual as
the companies that use them, but all Creative Briefs have points in
common. Their goal is to define the project, clearly state the
objectives, and provide critical information to the creative team.

For instance, a typical Creative Brief for a marketing-oriented writing
job will define the audience. It will discuss potential objections of the
audience, state the offer the company wants to make to its audience,
and clearly present product or service benefits. A good Creative Brief
will always contain a Unique Selling Proposition (positioning
statement), and discuss the competition.

The benefits of using a Creative Brief for every significant writing
project have proven themselves time and again with successful
results. In fact, smart project managers won’t proceed without one,
knowing that to do so will likely result in poor results, and for salesoriented
materials, a potential traceable direct loss if the writing
doesn’t generate expected results.

Using a Creative Brief increases a promotion’s chances for success
dramatically because both parties have crafted a creative plan that has
considered all of the important elements for success. With a wellthought-
out Creative Brief in hand, a writer can assess the project’s
strengths and weaknesses, and work to refine the creative plan,
optimizing it for success before any writing begins.

For instance, for a direct mail project, the writer may feel the offer
needs to be strengthened based on information about the audience,
the competition, and past mailings. With every important aspect of the
mailing considered by both the marketer and the writer, and agreed
upon before work begins, it’s almost 100% certain that the writer will
turn in work that generates results and fulfills the marketer’s
expectations as well.

It’s been proven many times that moving forward without a Creative
Brief is foolish from both a time and money standpoint. Not only does
it take longer to write a promotion without a Creative Brief, but it
almost ensures extra time (and sometimes a great deal of extra time),
in revisions.

And there’s the possibility that the marketer will reject the concepts
and/or copy outright, and kill the project. Now the marketer has lost
valuable time and money.

Of course, there are many business-oriented writing projects that are
executed without the benefit of a Creative Brief. Some bring in poor
results or fail miserably. Others do very well in spite of the fact. And
there are undoubtedly those that deliver “acceptable” results.

But knowing that a Creative Brief will — at the very least —
dramatically decrease your odds for failure…and at the most, take
significant credit for spectacular results…doesn’t it make sense to
spend a few hours to develop a strong Creative Brief and vastly
improve your chances of a successful marketing campaign?

A quick search on the Internet will turn up sample Creative Briefs. Or
you can purchase a powerful, proven Creative Brief perfected over my
20+ years as a copywriter. Simply send $10 to Chris Marlow at PO Box
1134, Palm Desert, CA, 92261, send $10 via PayPal at
chris@GetGreatClients.com, or call 760-340-2045 to use a credit card;
all orders will be fulfilled via email, so be sure to leave your email
address.

Chris Marlow, all rights reserved

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