If you want to go on a web page, a marketing plan or any project, you will need a instructions. This will be the way in which you can keep track of your progress by having what you want to do well defined.
Can you imagine building a house without a plan, or at least a well-defined mental idea of the design? sure not. Well, the same thing happens with marketing projects, you cannot carry out any without a briefing.
Being that it is so important, surely you ask yourself: “What is a briefing?”. In this article I am going to explain it, I will also tell you what the benefits of use are and how many types exist. At the end we will show you how you can make one that is effective.
What is a briefing?
A briefing is a document in which all the relevant aspects for a project or task are collected with the intention of carrying out a well-defined action plan.
The objective is to be able to satisfy the needs of the project, attending to them from an order of priority or importance. Although it is used in various environments, the most prominent are advertising and marketing. What is done is to collect the customer’s requirements to develop, for example, an advertising campaign for your product or service.
The document compiles the data of the brand and the expectations they have for the campaign. Of course, It should not be a very long documentin fact, the term instructions (which comes from English) can be translated as “resume”. This means that it is a brief summary of what is expected to be accomplished in the project.
On the other hand, there is no single training to carry out a briefing that applies to all cases, since each restaurant project is different in many factors. That is why only some generic data can be taken as a reference, and the rest must be adjusted to the needs of the plan.
When preparing it, it may be interesting to work previously with models or matrices that facilitate the negotiation vision. The Canvas model or the SWOT or CAME analysis can be useful, especially if you work from a global perspective of the company.
What is a briefing for?
Preparing a document with these characteristics only has advantages for you, your work team and the client. To prove it, here are those benefits and utilities:
1. Make it easy to organize
The briefing is configured by an order of ideas aimed at finding relevant information, therefore, it will be reflected in an easy way to consult and verify, both to create it and for the other members of the team. Therefore, it is a useful and necessary starting point in project management.
This strategic brief is essential to be able to carry out the project in phasesis that this is the most effective way to track progress and optimize time management.
2. Get reliable information
If it is obvious that some aspects of knowledge and experience can be deduced, it is an error that does not directly affect the client who is where he expects and how he wants.
And with the briefing the appropriate questions are formulated to hear from the client all the explanations necessary. This avoids improvisation that leads to mistakes that have lost time, money and maybe even the customer.
3. Steady and steady progress is made
How it is already known what the client wants and how he expects to have it, the team can focus on the project with more confidence knowing that what they are doing is not wrong.
Thus, when there are meetings or a progress report has to be delivered to the client, the client does not rule out so many elements of the proposal because they do not agree.
4. It allows to work better the changes
If the client thinks that a change needs to be made, you can work based on what has already been done, that is, ruling out possibilities based on the information that has been extracted from the document and what has not worked.
The idea is to reduce the possible options of being able to find what the client wants.
informative tips
Although there is no single way to create this kind of resume, 4 main types of this informative document can be specified, and they are the following:
Marketing
This brief compiled all the information regarding a campaign or marketing plan that was going to be carried out.
The data is oriented to develop said strategy, and is mainly produced by the agency’s marketing teambecause they will be in charge of carrying out the campaign.
advertising
This document records the actions expected by the client in conjunction with the advertising agency. Here you define whether the campaign will be digital or physical and what is the budget for it.
It also reflects the idea that the client has, so that the team can work around that concept, if appropriate.
negotiation
It is a summary of the goals and aspirations of the company, and serves to define the medium and long-term objectives, in this way start working based on them.
Although the business may be marketing, this should not be confused with the first type, since in this only the points are treated in a more generic way.
Creative
It is the most detailed type of summary that you can do, since it is the specific details that you want to use to design an ad, the company website and any other graphic elements for the project.
In general, it is done after the advertising and, in some cases, the marketing.
How to get a briefing in 10 steps?
For the 4 types of summaries that we have just seen there are several elements that apply when creating them, and while some may be more relevant than others in certain markets, they are also useful for the project.
These are the steps you must follow to create a good briefing:
1. Project Overview
Within this first section, you must include basic but fundamental data, such as the number of the company, years in the market, geographical area in which it has commercial activity, whether it has a digital presence or not, and the size of the company.
The goal is to try to define basic customer profile to get to know its commercial style and the impact it has on the market, as well as the level of competitiveness, its position in this aspect and the advantage it has.
2. Objectives
In this case, you are not seeking to know the objectives of the company as such, but what they intend to achieve with the project to be undertaken. You need to understand if your client is aiming for realistic goals or if they are out of the realm of possibility.
Of course, it is not about dismissing his ideas, but that you understand if what he wants is possible.
3. Public Object
Is the set of people who aspire to reach the client with their projectbe it a marketing or advertising campaign.
What you should do is ask for all the information about the target audience, such as qualities are their monthly income, qualities are the problems they face, what the company is going to do for them, what is its value proposition and what does it have? to offer to be different, etc.
4. Project premises
These would be the specific objectives that the client wants to achieve.
These its non-negotiable aspects to which the client is not willing to compromise on their project. For example, a general objective would be to have more visits to the web, but a premise would be to make those users understand the online store.
5. Project restrictions
The problems facing the company must be identified, as well as the source of the problems and the effect they have on the profitability of the business. These same could become restrictions for the project, preventing the achievement of the objectives.
In addition, here you can also request that identifies as a non-queer client who is or is part of the project.
6. Actions
In the actions section you have to write down the work that the company has already done in the past to achieve the stated objectives, as well as those that are being carried out at the moment.
Equally competent can be enumerated are the tasks that the client wants to be carried out, perhaps to be able to complement the new actions with which they are carrying out.
7. Team
The team that the company has to carry out the actions must also be noted.
all the staff needed to complete the project should be grouped according to their tasks and specify how many members are in each group.
This makes it possible to coordinate the work with the agency team that will carry out the idea.
8. Necessary remedies
As with the team, the resources that the company will have available must be captured to know what you havewhether you will need to purchase equipment and materials or whether you will use inventory.
Depending on the type of summary, they can be chairs, office supplies, software, etc.
9. Budget
Now you have to know how much capital the company has to carry out the project, as well as whether to allocate a certain amount to a specific activity or if it is left to the discretion of the advisor.
On the other hand, you can take notes on the past investments of the company to see how willing they are to invest to achieve the objectives.
10.Time
The estimated time for the achievement of the objects It must be clear, it is essential to be realistic in this regard.
In addition, you have to be honest with the dates for each meeting and the results expected for each event. And of course, you have to set the estimated end date for the project.
Remember that not all clients and projects are the same, so never work based on past referrals. Rather, tailor to each task by adding deadlines as needed.
conclusion
In short, a briefing is a document that allows you to collect all the important data for carrying out said project, be it negotiations, marketing, advertising or creativity.
In addition, using this type of tool will allow you to work based on real objects, as well as maintain an orderly schedule that you have to advance firmly and constantly. This little summary can be the difference between happiness and frustration when carrying out your projects.
Cover image by Freepik.
What type of briefing will you use for your next project?
I read you in the comments.
Source link
