A campaign brief is a decision document for the people producing and reviewing the work. It should explain who the campaign is for, what it offers and what action makes sense for that audience. Without those decisions, teams can create attractive assets that point in different directions or promise something the operation cannot deliver.
GOV.UK's performance guidance encourages defining objectives and the data needed to assess them early. The principle is useful for campaign planning, although its formal public-service requirements are not business marketing rules. The brief below is an original template for a small, bounded campaign.
Name the audience and the situation
Avoid “all local customers.” A more usable audience might be people who attended a beginner photography workshop and asked about a follow-up session. Describe why the message is relevant to them now. Check that you have an appropriate, permitted way to contact them rather than assuming a past interaction authorises every future promotion.
State the problem or interest the offer addresses. A follow-up workshop might help participants practise indoor lighting with equipment they already own. That specificity guides the message, examples and session design. It also helps identify who the offer is less likely to serve.
Define the offer and its limits
Record the session content, date, venue, capacity, price and booking conditions through the approved process. Confirm the operational details before creating assets. If the venue or instructor is unconfirmed, the campaign should not present those details as settled facts.
Choose one main action, such as reviewing the workshop description and booking an available place. Make sure the destination explains what someone needs to decide. A call to action that sends people to a general homepage creates extra searching and makes campaign results harder to interpret.
Choose a channel for a reason
Use what you know about the audience and their expected communication channels. A relevant newsletter message may work for an existing consenting list, while a public event page can help people researching local activities. The brief should explain the choice, not simply include every available platform.
Specify asset requirements: one email, one event page and a small set of supporting images, for example. Include the factual points that must remain consistent across them. Review mobile presentation and image alternatives as part of production, since customers may use different devices and access methods.
Set a realistic review method
Record the campaign period and the observations you will examine: visits to the event page, booking starts, completed bookings and related enquiries. Define how each is counted. Do not treat an email open or social reaction as equivalent to a booking or a useful customer outcome.
In a fictional campaign, the event page receives sixty visits and ten booking starts, but only four completed bookings. That pattern suggests examining the booking process and the fit of the offer. It does not prove that the message alone failed. Small counts and tracking gaps limit the strength of any conclusion.
- Audience: who the message is for and why it matters now.
- Offer: verified details, boundaries and available capacity.
- Action: the useful next step and its destination.
- Channel: the reason for choosing it and appropriate contact basis.
- Assets: outputs, owner, factual review and launch date.
- Evaluation: definitions, period and the decision after review.
Give the team a stopping point
State when the campaign ends or when capacity is reached, and how assets will be updated. A campaign can create confusion if an old message continues promoting an unavailable event. Assign someone to remove or revise time-sensitive information and handle enquiries that arrive afterwards.
After the campaign, compare observations with the original objective and note what remains uncertain. Choose one improvement for the next run rather than rewriting every assumption at once. A good brief makes production coherent and leaves a clear record of what the team intended to learn from the activity.
Sources and further reading
This original guide was prepared with AI assistance. Examples are illustrative. The edition date is an assigned date in this 2026 catalogue. See our editorial policy and report a correction.