Cadence Media
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Have you ever felt like your campaign had a wobbly start and a rudderless end?

It’s a common feeling. Maybe no one is quite sure of the budget, but everyone is eager to start getting their hands dirty. Timelines are tight, but the brief is a bit of a blur. You find yourself facing questions you don’t have the answers to, and suddenly, the whole campaign feels like you’re throwing darts at a board you can’t actually see.


At Cadence, our biggest learning this year has been a simple one: trust the process, specifically, the Strategic Marketing Process

Whether you’re running a seasonal appeal, an awareness campaign, or a re-engagement drive, we’ve found that committing to a structured loop is the secret to making campaigns the best they can possibly be.

The Model – and why it’s not just fluff

Our process isn’t something we just pulled out of thin air. It’s adapted from a model created by seasoned marketing strategist, Mark Ritson for commercial marketing. We’ve tweaked it for the fundraising space because, quite frankly, it works. It’s a tried-and-tested loop that helps you build momentum rather than starting from scratch every single quarter.

We break it down into four main stages: goal setting, strategy, execution, and analysis.

If you imagine a campaign running over four months, you’d spend the first month on goals and strategy, two months on execution, and the final month on analysis. Crucially, that analysis feeds directly back into the goals for your next cycle. It’s a positive feedback loop.

1. Setting goals – beyond just raising money

We all know the ultimate goal: hit the donation target. But to get there, we need to look at the smaller, specific goals that act as stepping stones.
Maybe you want to grow your donor base by 3% or build a new audience on Instagram. We like to sit down with our clients, look at their unique situation, and suggest goals that actually make sense for their budget. Before we even think about the creative, we need to know what we’re aiming for.
A good goal should be:

2. The Power of Diagnosis and Research

It’s tempting to skip straight to the cool stuff (e.g. the tactics and the creative) especially when you’re rushed. But we prioritise diagnosing the problem before jumping to a solution.

Research means taking a step back to look at the landscape: your resources, the audience, and the specific gaps your brand can fill. This is why we often suggest engaging with us earlier than you think you need to. Even if a campaign is six months away, starting the diagnosis early is all gain and no loss.

3. Strategy: Your True North

Once the goals are nailed and the research is done, we write the plan. A strong strategy at Cadence always ticks these boxes:

4. Creative and Execution

This is where the strategy comes to life. If we’re handling your creative, we’re designing the visuals (or as we like to call it “look & feel”), crafting the messaging, and rolling it out – based strictly on the strategy we’ve already built.

Sometimes clients want to do the creative first, but we really encourage doing the deep work of planning early. It actually ends up costing you less in the long run because the creative team knows exactly what they’re aiming for from day one and they often hit the bullseye earlier.

When it comes to the actual “doing” (the ads, the emails, the mailouts), we stay:

5. The Post-Mortem (the bit everyone skips)

Let’s be honest: once a campaign is over, everyone wants to look at the final total and then take a holiday. Getting everyone back in a room to look at the numbers is often a tough ask. But in our view, the analysis is the most crucial part of the loop because it sets up the discovery for your next campaign.

This is where you learn about your audience’s quirks, your team’s hidden strengths, and which tactics actually moved the needle. Plus, having these “proof points” and hard numbers is the best way to secure a positive budget for next year. Often our clients come away from these meetings feeling refreshed, excited about the next challenge, and very thankful they didn’t skip it.

So, what does this all mean for you?

  1. Book in early: Come to us at least three months before you want to go live. That gives us time to do your campaign really well.
  2. Bring your data: Show us the full board – your audience, your past campaigns. We want to see everything; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
  3. Collaborate: Come alongside us as we build the strategy together.

If you need help implementing some of these techniques into your campaign marketing, we’d love to help you out.

We’ve got something uncomfortable to share with you.

“One third of all marketing budgets are potentially wasted due to poor briefs.”

That’s not all…

“80% of marketers think they’re writing good briefs. Only 10% of creative agencies agree.”

These insights came from a group called Better Briefs. They’re a company that wants to help agencies and their clients work together in a more cost effective way (which we all love). Every year they do a bit of research around how well the briefing process is going in creative agency land and…we reckon there’s room for improvement.

“60% of marketers use [their agency’s] creative process to clarify their strategies rather than being clear about these from the outset.”

“60% of marketers use [their agency’s] creative process to clarify their strategies rather than being clear about these from the outset.”

That’s one pricey way to write a brief. 

These learnings aren’t new to us at Cadence. The briefing process is rarely linear. Emails back and forth. Meetings to “align” and “circle back”. This is a very messy and costly process – and happens more often than you think. 

Most of the time we’re ok with this process. We’re passionate about collaboration. We like to meet clients where they are at, and help them along the journey. But we do sometimes wonder if organisations realise just how much money they could be saving if they were to refine their briefing process. 

Cadence is passionate about working for brands that want to do good in the world. That means we’re often working with tight budgets made up of precious donated funds. We want to help you use those budgets well so we thought it might be helpful to write this resource to help you write a good brief and save some of your marketing budget for the stuff you wish you could do.    

It’s really hard to write a good brief

A caveat before we begin. Most people don’t know how to write a brief because it’s really hard. It requires know-how and help. For most of us, it’s a special skill that’s learnt and honed over time. It also requires your executives and teams getting you information you might not have and in a timely manner. So cut yourself some slack and see it as something we’re here to help you get better and better at.

Without further ado, here are the key elements of a great brief. 

1. Executive summary

Start with a high-level overview. What’s the main goal of the project? This should be a concise paragraph that gives Cadence a quick understanding of the project’s purpose and what success looks like.

2. Who are you & what do you do?

Provide a brief introduction to your company. What do you do? Who are you? Also, describe the specific product or service this project is about. What does it do, what makes it unique, and how does it fit into your larger brand? 

If you’ve worked with us before, you might want to include any information we don’t know that would help us with the problem you need our help with.

3. Background & situation analysis

Why is this project happening now? What’s the context? Include any information you might have about the market landscape, key competitors, and any previous campaigns. This helps Cadence understand the environment they are creating for and what you are up against. 

If you don’t have this, that’s fine, but if you do, don’t hold back. 

4. Business & marketing objectives

What are you trying to achieve? Be specific, time bound, and use metrics. For example, instead of “increase donation,” say “increase donations by 15% for our May June appeal” or “drive 1,000 new email sign-ups in the next three months.” This gives Cadence a clear target to aim for. 

If you’ve only got general goals, that’s ok, we can help you with the clearer metrics. 

5. Target audience

Who are you talking to? This needs to go beyond basic demographics. Create an audience profile or a persona. What are their behaviours, motivations, pain points, and media consumption habits? The more detailed you are, the better Cadence can tailor the message.

If you don’t have this information, a good place to start is commissioning Cadence to do some research and analysis for you. We regularly do this for our clients. 

6. Messaging: what do you want them to know?

This is the core of your brief. If your audience could only remember one thing about your product or service after seeing the creative, what would it be? This statement should be a concise, compelling idea that all the creative work will be based on.

Again, we can help you create this but it’s likely you know your audience and product really well and can get us started with some core messaging.

7. Deliverables & scope

What do you need Cadence to produce? Be specific about the required assets. For example, “three social media ads (one for Instagram, one for Facebook, and one for TikTok),” or “website copy for the homepage and product page.” Cadence might have some insights and suggestions here regarding the deliverables, but it’s good to have a sense of what you might need. This helps us having to requote and re-scope halfway through the project. 

If that happens, it’s not a drama but if you can get your ducks in a row early, it’s a smoother, cheaper process.

8. Budget. State your budget clearly

Providing a realistic budget range upfront saves a lot of time and ensures Cadence’s creative ideas are grounded in reality. This allows us to propose solutions that are feasible and relevant to your financial constraints.

9. Timeline

Outline all key dates, including the brief date, proposed agency presentation date, and the final launch date. Include any internal milestones or review periods that Cadence needs to be aware of – like who needs to see and approve the work at key stages. 

10. Logos and legal

Are there any specific logos, brand guidelines, or legal disclaimers that must be included? List any non-negotiable elements that need to be part of the final creative.

11. Key stakeholders & contact info

Who is the main point of contact for the project? List the names and contact information for everyone on the client’s side who will be involved in the decision-making process. This prevents confusion and streamlines communication.

One final caveat. Our briefing system might not be the right one. Feel free to break our system if it makes sense to. Some briefs will fit this system, but most briefs are unique. Write your brief in a way that makes the most sense of what you’re trying to achieve. Just make sure you include the key elements: goals, target audience, messaging, budget, timeline.

Happy brief writing!

Footnotes

  1. The Best Way for a Client to Brief an Agency, Better Briefs and Mark Ritson.