In the event you’re gazing a clean display screen (we’ve all been there) attempting to determine the best way to develop a advertising temporary, there are a couple of questions you may ask your self to get to the center of the issues and options your marketing campaign will deal with.
Use these guiding questions alongside our free advertising temporary templates that can assist you create a short that has simply sufficient info — however not an excessive amount of — to get your crew excited and on the identical web page.
Desk of Contents
The Significance of a Advertising Temporary
One of many first steps in a marketing campaign is to attract up a advertising temporary — generally known as a artistic temporary or marketing campaign temporary — that serves as the only supply of fact on the undertaking.
It units forth a single imaginative and prescient that everyone should purchase into, and extra importantly, it defines the purpose, the attain, and the issue the undertaking is attempting to unravel. Writing an awesome advertising temporary offers you a robust basis in your marketing campaign.
Tips on how to Write a Advertising Temporary
The advertising temporary is the place to begin with which each and every choice and motion made on the undertaking ought to align — and which means it’s also a dwelling doc.
Advertising briefs assist clear up any misunderstandings earlier than you get to work. This doc ought to make clear for everybody concerned — copywriters, designers, builders, entrepreneurs — all of the points of the undertaking, the objectives, and even the timeline. In the event you’re working for an exterior consumer or stakeholder, your temporary ought to affirm that you simply perceive their downside and have a technique for fixing it.
As campaigns and tasks change, necessities are added or eliminated, and new insights are found. You possibly can replace this doc because the undertaking evolves to make sure everybody stays targeted on the underlying situation and is aware of their duties.
8 Inquiries to Assist You Write a Nice Advertising Temporary
The advertising temporary isn’t being printed on-line to the plenty for approval, nevertheless it does have to seize your crew by the center and get them excited — and reply any questions they may have concerning the marketing campaign.
It doesn’t want to incorporate each piece of knowledge obtainable. It shouldn’t take you greater than 5 minutes to know the undertaking, the technique, and the objectives. It ought to be a helpful doc that’s straightforward to scan, clear, and actionable.
I’ve received eight questions that can assist information you thru your first advertising temporary. Earlier than you ask your self these questions, it is best to have already got a deal with in your purchaser or viewers persona, in order that you already know who your target market is. Utilizing our artistic temporary templates as you sketch out your solutions may be useful.
1. What downside are we fixing, and why are we fixing it? What’s the profit?
Describe the issue your marketing campaign wants to unravel. Don’t simply write down what your consumer or inside stakeholders say — attempt to go deeper and strategy it from completely different angles so that you simply’re precisely capturing the complete scope.
To vary client habits, you first have to know what they’re doing now and what choices they’ve that they’re (not) embracing.
Let’s use the marketing campaign temporary for HubSpot’s 2025 State of Advertising report for instance. The State of Advertising report is an annual provide, and it’s compiled primarily based on in depth analysis that HubSpot conducts.
The query about what downside the provide solves is immediately addressed within the Goal Viewers part:
We’re offering a useful resource to our readers and prospects who’re entrepreneurs attempting to get an edge in an AI-driven enterprise panorama. The report guarantees instruments and insights — the advantages — and acknowledges the challenges of reckoning with the speedy rise of AI in advertising workflows.
2. Who’re we attempting to succeed in with this marketing campaign?
Who’s the target market or persona? How is that this client group fixing their ache factors now? What different choices have they got?
You’ll see within the advertising temporary above that we’ve additionally outlined our market (world English) and segments (small- and medium-sized companies, mid-market, and enterprise). This ties into our worth proposition of “serving to tens of millions of companies develop higher.”
We’ve additionally outlined the roles our target market is more likely to occupy — advertising managers and administrators, CMOs, and content material strategists. As we craft the copy for this marketing campaign, this may assist us align with the folks we need to goal and who we predict will get essentially the most worth from our State of Advertising report.
3. What are the deliverables for this marketing campaign?
Print promoting? Social media? Commerce exhibits? Billboards? TV adverts? Podcasts? Speak exhibits? Video adverts?
What communication channels will you employ, and the way will you employ them? How do they construct on and assist one another? What are the very best autos to succeed in your meant viewers? What are the deliverables you have got dedicated to?
Every communication channel wants a call-to-action (CTA) that helps the customer transfer ahead at that stage of their shopping for course of. And that CTA ought to leverage the medium during which it’s delivered.
A video advert CTA can be completely different from a print advert CTA, which can differ from a CTA in a weblog publish. Mapping out the customer’s journey, figuring out their questions and considerations alongside the way in which, and understanding the place they go for info will allow you to reply this query.
That is additionally time to consider the metrics you’ll use to measure success. Earlier than you even start, set SMART objectives so everybody is evident on what actually issues — getting outcomes.
4. Will we anticipate any inside or exterior components compromising the completion of the above deliverables? If that’s the case, how and why?
Be trustworthy with your self and your crew, and do a SWOT evaluation in the event you’re caught. In the event you’re working with exterior distributors on design, in the event you’re in a time crunch, or if there are sophisticated workflows and approval processes — these are all issues that might compromise your deliverables.
This may increasingly or could not have a spot in your last advertising temporary, relying on its meant viewers, however the query will nonetheless assist information your timeline and allow you to handle expectations.
5. What are our model values? How can we use these to form the tone of this marketing campaign?
Your model values — and your model promise — underscore every part that you simply do. This advertising marketing campaign is not any completely different. In the event you’re discovering that the marketing campaign doesn’t converse to your model values, take a step again and revisit these values. How can they reshape your marketing campaign?
As an illustration, the speaking factors (see under) within the temporary for HubSpot’s State of Advertising report are emblematic of our promise to “assist tens of millions of companies develop higher.” Despite the fact that they’re particular to this product — like “AI is revolutionizing advertising workflows, enabling sooner knowledge evaluation and smarter, personalised buyer engagement” — each has been fastidiously crafted to ship on our model promise.
6. What do we wish our viewers to remove from this marketing campaign? What do we wish them to really feel?
Put your self in your viewers’s sneakers. They don’t know the services or products you’re providing in addition to you do; what wouldn’t it take to influence you to take motion on it? Is your messaging clear sufficient that each a part of your marketing campaign will evoke the emotions you need it to?
We all know that there’s an emotional part to decision-making; we regularly rationalize selections after we’ve made a selection. This implies that you must perceive the emotions you need to evoke in consumers throughout their choice course of and after they’ve purchased what you’ve bought. What are these emotions and when do they really feel them?
At this level, you have got sufficient info to develop a short overview of your marketing campaign. That is the highest module of the marketing campaign temporary for the 2025 State of Advertising report:
7. What are you able to say that can make your viewers imagine in your message? What proof are you able to provide to construct belief and validate your message?
After all, spouting claims isn’t sufficient to make your viewers imagine in your services or products, and it’s definitely not going to construct belief with them.
As you write your messaging, maintain an eye fixed out for hyperbolic language or rhetoric — you don’t need to make guarantees you may’t maintain. Be sure you embrace proof or different foundational info that may allow you to construct belief together with your viewers.
8. What’s the marketing campaign not going to cowl? What messages, feelings, or options do you need to keep away from?
Laying out what to keep away from will assist your crew stop missteps and misunderstandings. Maybe there have been options mentioned early within the undertaking that can not be a part of the ultimate product, or maybe there are specific feelings that you simply need to be very positive you don’t evoke in your messaging.
Write Your First Advertising Temporary
These eight questions offers you the inspiration that you must write your first advertising temporary. Obtain our free advertising temporary templates to create a sharp-looking doc that can get your crew excited concerning the marketing campaign — and supply a transparent blueprint for everyone concerned.