Simply put, a Great Brief is a document that tells us all about what you require, your goal, your specific features included and more.
There are lots of benefits to thinking carefully about this – both for you and us! The more information you provide, the better we can create what you want. So anything you have visualized, any ideas how the final product should look like and what the kind of outcome you want, can be addressed in the briefing.
Starting a new project is always exciting, especially when you’ve got a great idea and you’re raring to go! For us, as a digital agency, it is imperative and for you to make sure, that you’ve created a really good briefing document. This will be time well spent.
In this blog, we talk about what a good brief in general should contain, and why it is so important to have one. Any additional specifics are dependable on the service you need us to provide.
Why is writing a brief so important?
Let’s break it down in a few steps.
1. A clear brief will help an us give you an accurate quote and timescale. You’ll get a realistic picture of what is involved and can begin to work out your priorities should you need to make adjustments.
2. Going through the process of writing a brief will help you fine-tune your ideas and develop a clear picture of what you want the outcome to be. You’ll be able to iron out any details that you might not have thought about initially and identify any potential issues that might pop up. Taking a step away from the big picture and looking at the detail can make all the difference to how a project goes! along the way your briefing can be shared for evaluation, if we identify elements that are not clear to us, we shall address them for further clarity.
3. A good briefing document is like gold dust to us! The first step in a long-term collaboration, it helps us to get to know you, your industry and your business. When you give us loads of details about who you are and what you want to achieve, we can create a really specific proposal document that is tailored to your individual needs and brand.
How to write a brief and what it should include?
While every project is different, and one size definitely doesn’t fit all, when we receive a brief from a you there are a number of things that we love to see. We’ve listed eight of them below.
1. Tell us about your business and your industry.
You want us, who you partner with, to be as excited about your project as you are, so tell us your story. What are your business goals? And why do you do what you do? Who are your competitors? Give us an overview of your industry too. What are the main challenges it faces today? You can write the brief to us in the form of s story, we love stories as they mostly contain all details and tell the reader from start to the end what it is about. You can be as creative as possible, producing out of the box ideas and other.
At this stage, some agencies may tell you that they aren’t experienced enough in your industry or that it’s outside of their niche. This is a good thing − you only want to partner with an agency that is aligned with your values and wants the best for you! We stand for our works, value honestly and openness, and to keep our good name and reputation, we are no different.
2. What do you want your project to achieve?
It’s important that you’re really clear about what your business goals are and how your project will help you achieve them. Try thinking about the problems you’re experiencing, rather than the solutions you want. Let us do some brainstorming and use our digital expertise to help you!
3. Who is your target audience?
Anything we create has to be with your target audience in mind, so the more you can tell us about them, the better. As we get into the detail of the project, we can help you dig even deeper to narrow down and to create customer ‘personas’ that will help us create highly targeted solutions to your problems, and theirs.
4. Is this a completely new project?
If you want to upgrade an existing website, marketing campaign or any other design assets, then we’ll have different questions than if it’s an entirely new project. Let us know about what you’ve had before and why it’s not working any more. Any details are welcome to enable us to decided to include or exclude them. Some elements were possibly valuable in the previous project, or some you really want to keep included. The brief thus may contain points to include, and even exclude.
5. Will you need any other content?
Digital projects can have a wide scope of work, and it’s good to think about whether you need any additional content to support your project. For example, a new website could benefit from some beautiful videography or new photography. Factoring that into your brief means you’ll get a better idea of how much the project will cost.
6. How does this project feed into your other marketing plans?
We always want to know the bigger picture so we can make an impact and catapult your brand. Do you have brand guidelines that will help us understand the style of work that you need us to create and allow us to maintain consistency across your marketing materials?
7. Are there any technical details that we need to know about?
If you’re getting a new website, do you have an old one or is this a new business. Do you have a domain name and hosting? Our services do in principle not include arrange this for you, however, we are able to do so if required.
8. Last but not least, let us know your budget and timescale!
Your brief doesn’t need to be perfect, and it doesn’t need to be final, but it will allow us to begin designing a proposal document that will be the starting point for us working together.
At KazNeth, we love getting into the details of what you need and brainstorming with you to take your ideas to the next level, unlocking the power of digital to make a difference to your business. Projecting and visualizing your ideas is most important to align what you have in mind with what we will produce.
