7 Steps to Writing a Killer Creative Brief for Your B2B Content

Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) often lead the strategy and execution of content marketing initiatives for their company. By “content,” we mean any customer-facing assets: infographics, web pages, videos, podcasts, blog posts, etc. Companies invest significant time and money into creating compelling content that fuels their campaigns, events, sales programs, media/ad execution, and more. However, too many of these assets are off the mark and simply don’t perform as they were intended. But why is that?

Watch the webinar “B2B Marketers: Seven Steps for Writing A Killer Creative Brief”

Usually, it comes down to not having a disciplined, detailed creative brief before content development begins. By starting with a creative brief, we can avert last-minute surprises, prevent multiple rounds of revisions late in the content development cycle, and most importantly, avoid wasted time, money, and resources.

But what does a successful creative brief look like, and how can it help hone your content development process?

In this article, I’ll focus on key questions you need to ask to help you build the right content with the highest business impact. These include:

Who is your ideal customer?
Why should your prospect engage with your content?
Why create this asset?
What form factor will be most effective for your asset?
Where does your asset fit in the buyer’s journey?
When is the asset needed?
How will your assets be distributed?

Download the creative brief template

1. Who is your ideal customer?

The first component to crafting a successful creative brief is to come up with a profile for your ideal customer. By understanding their needs and pain points, the content you create based on this profile will target and appeal to that ideal customer. Similar to a persona, these profiles include the target customer’s firmographics, title, industry, geography, etc. (See our recent blog post about creating personas here.)

But it’s not enough to simply describe the facts of your target customer’s role, or even your own product’s bells and whistles. Why? Because people buy things, not companies. So who really is this person buying your product?

To reach that person, you need to touch on their emotions. Address their pain points, the challenges they are facing, their successes and joys. What is the emotional context your target audience is currently experiencing that you want to tap into? Fear? Excitement? Ambition? Frustration? Determination?

In other words, what is the visceral feeling underneath the emotional response you might want to elicit with this particular asset?

2. Why should your prospect engage with your content?

From the prospect’s perspective, you need to define what the value added is for them. Why should your target audience engage with this particular asset? What’s in it for them? What will they learn, experience, and get from this asset, and why is it worth their time to consume it?

An asset needs to be clear and compelling in order to answer these questions–which is why understanding the emotional context your target audience is experiencing at the moment they encounter your asset is so critical.

3. Why create this asset?

Your creative team should also start out with an understanding of why this exact piece is needed. This will give them the necessary context for sorting through the detailed content you as the PMM will be providing them.

Defining your objectives and how you’ll measure success before starting a project will provide you with a finish line to avoid scope creep further down the line. You can also use this information to decide what metrics you will be monitoring and determine timelines for the project.

So, as part of your creative brief, ask: what is the objective of the piece, and what is it trying to accomplish? How will you measure success (e.g. downloads for a white paper; views for a video; likes, shares, or retweets for social media; backlinks to web pages; conversions; demand gen campaigns that generate pipeline…)?

4. What form factor will be most effective for your asset?

Next, you need to decide what form factor will most effectively tap into that emotional response. PMMs must be very specific on what’s needed in terms of scoping parameters for their assets, such as word count, page count, or minutes of video/audio. The following is a list of some of the common types, or classes, of assets:

Video (product tour, company overview, customer testimonial, executive overview…)
Customer case study
White paper (technical architecture vs business discussion)
eBook
Blog post
Solution brief
Partner brief
Web page / landing page
Infographic
Digital asset for paid search, social media

Can you think of an asset you found particularly well done that would act as a good model for this second point?

5. Where does your asset fit in the buyer’s journey?

Keep the buyer’s journey in mind as you are coming up with a creative brief. Where does your asset fit into that journey, and how can you adjust it to meet buyers’ needs at every step of their process?

Awareness — Thought leadership; high-level educational piece to help prospects learn
Consideration — Show prospects business value; establish credibility for your company/product/category as a possible solution
Evaluation — What criteria should the prospect use to weigh their options (including “doing nothing,” or staying with the status quo)?
Purchase –– Why is your particular offering the best option? And why act now versus wait? How might your prospect justify a purchase?
Advocacy — How can you help a happy customer tell their story to peers? What messages are most important for them to share with others?

Where your prospect is in their buyer’s journey should also inform your choice of form factor, as discussed above.

For example, a busy CFO might not be interested in seeing a solution brief or data sheet at the awareness (or top) level of their journey. Here the information you provide them needs to be high-level and informative, not the nuts and bolts of your product and its performance.

By the time they have reached the purchasing stage though, a CFO will likely ask someone on their staff to review a demonstration, product video, or data sheet before finalizing a decision.

6. When is the asset needed?

Timing is another crucial factor in creating successful assets. In particular, when must the asset be ready to publish, distribute, or post? Is there an event, industry conference, sales kickoff, or other specific point in time where this asset must go live in marketing execution?

Choosing a deliverable that is realistic for the timeline you are working with is an essential part of its success.

7. How will your assets be distributed?

Arguably the most critical question to ask of your asset is: How will it be published, distributed, posted, and/or activated? What channels (e.g. website, social media, paid search, syndicated content, media, print, trade show, etc.) will be used to deliver the content to the intended audience?

In addition, will this asset be gated or ungated? Which, again, ties back to the why: are you using this asset to get leads, or is it intended to be for informational purposes only?

Finally, how would a sales development rep or account executive use this piece? As with the timing and form factor of your asset, the way in which your intended prospect will encounter your asset is a key consideration.

You have a creative brief–now what?

After you’ve completed your creative brief, ensure that your content development team knows who the subject matter experts are that they will need to interview.

What other examples and source content would be most helpful to your writer and designer? The more you can give them support and collaborate with them during your review cycles, the more effective the final outcome will be.

We hope these tips have been helpful as you write your next creative brief and hand that off to your marcom team, writer, designer, vendor, or other partner for content development.

Watch the webinar “B2B Marketers: Seven Steps for Writing A Killer Creative Brief”

Written By

Sridhar Ramanathan

Sridhar Ramanathan has 20+ years of experience in technology companies – from startups to blue chip firms. As the Marketing executive for Hewlett-Packard’s Managed Services business, he was responsible for marketing worldwide and managing the portfolio of HP services’ $1.1B unit. He also held profit & loss responsibility for electronic messaging outsourcing and e-service business units. Thanks to Sridhar’s efforts, HP became the #1 ERP Outsourcer and experienced growth in the data warehouse market, now well over a $1B revenue stream. Sridhar has played interim executive roles for a number of technology firms, leading their sales and marketing functions in the high growth phase. Sridhar holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BS in Engineering Physics from U.C. Berkeley. He is active in non-profit work as Vice Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, an organization that provides stability and hope to abused and neglected children.