Email marketing Campaign Brief: Why You Need One

As we all know, coming up with creative for marketing campaigns is only half the battle.

The other half: executing an email marketing campaign.

Between five million links that go in an email, the right list, segment, and send date and time, there are too many pieces to keep track of.

On top of that, if you’re collaborating with multiple stakeholders (designers, copywriters, etc.) and have to get final sign-off from someone, you’ve got a mess on your hands.

How do you keep track of it all? An email marketing campaign brief.

What is an email marketing campaign brief?

A marketing campaign brief is like order form for a piece of marketing content.

It has everything you need to “order up” in one beautiful document that can be handed off between collaborators so they know what they need to do.

Take that and apply it specifically to email marketing campaigns and you have ONE PLACE where everyone goes in order to get their instructions for the campaign.

An email marketing campaign brief typically includes:

• An overview of the campaign. The overview should answer these questions: What is the purpose of the campaign? What are you trying to accomplish? Is there anything unique about it that stakeholders need to take into consideration?
• Goals and metrics. Documenting your goals and the primary metrics you want to look at to assess success will help you align everyone on your team (plus leadership) on what it is you’re actually doing. And let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t exactly know what we’re doing (and colleagues two steps removed from the process certainly won’t know what you’re doing either).
• Copywriting direction. What messaging does the copywriter need to consider? Is there a particular style or theme you want them to use? Be as specific as possible.
• Design direction. What graphics do you need from the designer? What dimensions are they? Is there design inspiration you can give them so they know what you’re looking for? Do you have stock or product photography you want them to use?
• Email publishing details. Things like date and time and list/segment.

Why you need an email marketing campaign brief

Your Team Won’t Have to Bug You As Much

Whether you’re working with one collaborator or 10, you need to be able to communicate what you’ll need in order to deploy your email.

When someone asks what they need to do for a specific email campaign, all you have to do is point to your email marketing campaign brief.

Your Emails Will Get Out Faster

One more unnecessary meeting is the last thing anyone wants. If they can be avoided, you and your team will have a few more moments for some deep breathing.

Incessant back and forth to try and figure out the directions for a project slows it down. When you have all of the details in one place, you’ve essentially built the manual on how to build an email marketing campaign.

That’s what an email marketing campaign brief does. Write it all down in one doc to speed up the process.

Your Email Campaigns Will Start Hitting Goals

Determining your goals for any given campaign can be its own challenge.

Documenting it helps it become crystal clear on what you’re trying to accomplish for everyone on your team.

It also pre-empts to occasional relentless questioning of “Why did you do it this way?”

If you can’t articulate why you planned an email campaign, key stakeholders won’t know why you did it either.

Plus, once you know your goals, you’ll be able to focus in on the appropriate metrics to report out on.

Your Creative Team Will Love You

Creatives aren’t mindreaders. (Shocking, I know).

If you’ve ever worked with a designer or copywriter who kept delivering the wrong thing, it could have been that just weren’t good at their job.

It also could have been that you weren’t able to articulate exactly what you were looking for.

Articulating parameters for creative projects is a hard task, but an email marketing campaign brief can allow you to link to inspiration, design assets, and other notes that will help get things written and designed in line with your vision.

How To Create an Email Marketing Campaign Brief

Your options for developing your own email marketing campaign brief are:

1. Google some email marketing campaign brief templates.
2. Draft up your own email marketing campaign brief and tweak it as you go.
3. Download the version I’ve used to plan and execute literally thousands of email campaign briefs.

If option three is more your speed, go ahead and download it!