Yes guide 2: how to brief your agency

The relationship between a client and its agency is a symbiotic one. The best way to keep this relationship healthy is a perpetual joint endeavour to make great work. But great work doesn’t come without careful and thoughtful planning on both sides.

This planning process usually starts with the client brief. This critical document provides the insight and stimulus to kick-start the creative process and it goes without saying that the best way to get outstanding work from your agency is to create an outstanding brief.

So, what makes a great client brief?

Clarity

By providing a set of achievable objectives, a clear brief makes it easier for the agency to understand exactly what’s needed, yet also giving them enough freedom to surprise and delight.

Focus

The best client briefs refine their comprehensive knowledge into concise and focused requirements. This helps the agency to focus on fulfilling and exceeding the client’s needs.

Evidence

Evidence of unique points of difference in a client’s product or service help to give the agency some real nuggets to hang the creative approach on. We agency people love to have a real nugget of insight to get our teeth into!

Shared knowledge

The most fruitful client-agency relationships rely on the reciprocal sharing of information. Whilst the client knows their customer inside out, agencies welcome the opportunity to dig deeper, to challenge the client’s assumptions and to enhance this knowledge with its own experience and learning.

Courage

We in the agency world want to work with our clients to push the boundaries. The world around our clients’ customers is constantly changing. Brave choices and willingness to explore beyond the norm in their sector can pay dividends.

Vision

Amazing partnerships between agencies and clients can often rest upon a shared vision, along with a shared commitment to bringing the vision to life. This is when things get really exciting and great ideas inevitably follow.

So, the client brief effectively ignites the agency process, resulting in great work, which in turn, results in even greater campaign performance. If you’d like our input on a brief you’re working on, call us on 01889 564931, we’d love to hear from you.