- August 21, 2014
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Great Direct Marketing Starts with a Creative Brief
Personal-success guru Napoleon Hill proclaimed that, “All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.”
We mean no disrespect to Mr. Hill, but all direct marketing achievements don’t have their beginning in an idea. They all start with a creative brief instead.
But wait, you ask, doesn’t the creative process begin with art directors, graphic designers and copywriters huddled in a crowded conference room, consuming copious amounts of coffee, spontaneously developing the next CLIO Awards winner?
No. That’s a scene from Mad Men, not the way direct marketing works.
What’s the Purpose of a Creative Brief?
Businesses working with creative teams must be ready to communicate their goals, objectives and desired outcomes for each direct marketing campaign. What do you want your direct mail piece to accomplish, and what do you know about your target audiences?
That’s right: Creativity starts with data. And if your data is shallow or incomplete, your direct mail campaign will be, too.
Creative Brief 101
“Without advance agreement on a well-prepared creative brief by both the creative group and the client, the creative team must work in a vacuum. This sets up the creative project for failure,” wrote direct-marketing consultant Ted Grigg in a DirectMarketingIQ white paper. “How can you avoid this nightmare? Prepare a written creative brief — the missing link for successful creative development.”
So what qualities do all strong creative briefs share? Grigg offers guidelines you can replicate:
- Quantify the objective
- Organize the information accurately
- Reveal emotional insights that might lift the response rate, such as testimonials or case studies
- Respect the overall brand
- Summarize information about your business, your customers and the competitive environment
- Include samples of previous direct-marketing assets
- Supply any available competitive samples
- Focus on customers’ needs instead of needless self-promotion
- Document factual support of product or service benefits
- Know your budget
This process may not evoke the magic of Mad Men, but as Grigg points out, a solid creative brief is your best chance of reaching your marketing objectives. (Of course, there’s no reason you can’t toast with a martini after completing it.)
