Blog › By the MyBriefy team · October 24, 2026
Every agency has a marketing brief template. Far fewer have one their clients reliably complete. The difference is rarely the questions themselves; it's the length, the wording and how the brief is sent.
This guide covers what a marketing brief needs, what to leave out, and how to get it back filled in properly.
What a marketing brief is for
A marketing brief agrees the strategy for a piece of marketing work before any of it is produced: the business goal, the audience, the message, the channels, the budget and how success will be measured. It's the document you'll use to plan the work, price it and judge it.
The sections that matter
- Background. The business, the product and what has happened so far, in a few lines.
- Goal. One primary goal, ideally with a number and a date.
- Audience. Who you're trying to reach and what you want them to think, feel or do.
- Message and offer. The main message and any offer or call to action.
- Competitors. Who else the audience is considering, and how the client is different.
- Channels. Where the work will run, and any channels that are off the table.
- Budget and timeline. Including any fixed dates such as launches or events.
- Measurement. The numbers that will decide whether the work succeeded.
- Approvals. Who gives feedback and who signs off.
Why clients don't fill in briefs
When a brief comes back half empty, it's usually one of these:
- It's too long. Every question that doesn't apply to this project makes the client skim the ones that do.
- The questions are jargon. "Define your value proposition" stalls people. "Why do customers pick you over competitors?" doesn't.
- It arrives as an attachment. A Word document in an email competes with everything else in their inbox and comes back in pieces.
- There's no deadline. Without a date tied to the project start, it slides.
How to get complete answers
- Cut it to the project. Start from a full template and hide what doesn't apply this time.
- Pre-fill what you know. The client edits your draft answers instead of starting from nothing.
- Use plain questions with an example in brackets where it helps.
- Send it as a form with a link, so they can answer in one place, come back to it, and see what's left.
- Set a due date and say what it unlocks: "we can start on the 4th once this is approved."
- Review it together for 15 minutes rather than sending a list of follow-up questions by email.
Ask for the goal as a sentence with a number in it: "Get 200 demo requests by March." If the client can't write it, that's the first conversation to have.
Free campaign brief template. Goal, audience, message, channels, budget and measurement in one set of questions. Copy them, or send the brief in MyBriefy so the client answers and approves it online.
See the templatePick the right brief for the job
A single all-purpose brief is better than none, but specific briefs get better answers because the questions fit the work. Browse the brief templates for SEO, email, social, PR, events and more, or start from the general client brief for a new client.
MyBriefy is built around this: you pick a template, hide what doesn't apply, share it, and the client fills in and approves it in a portal, with comments next to each answer.
