how to write a creative brief for influencers

HI HELLO THERE! I am alive. It’s been a wild time, but it feels good to be back. Truthfully, I haven’t had the brain power to deliver a newsletter that I was proud of so needed some nice reflection time and am very excited for today’s topic.

Since the last time I’ve seen you, I have finally moved into my new apartment in Williamsburg and I think I officially have an addiction to posting a sunset every single day now (see here). The kitchen is slowly filling up with tasty bevs and treats and things are slowly, but surely coming together.

Now that we’re back, let’s hop into today’s topic: creative briefs.

I am going to help you build an influencer creative brief for paid or trade (giving product in exchange for content) that will help give your creators clear direction for content that is getting uploaded on their accounts or is being used for ads to support a specific campaign.

Speaking of influencers, I am going to be doing a webinar next Wednesday, 7/24, with my friend, Victoria Watters, the founder of Dry Atlas all about how to source the right influencers, effective techniques for influencer outreach, and more.

YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE

Alright, it’s go time. Also, if you see any typos, no you didn’t.

HOW TO BUILD A CREATIVE BRIEF

If you’re new to the world of marketing with the CPG space or in general, you might ask “what is a creative brief?”. So, let’s answer that first.

A creative brief helps document the goals, scope, and creative approach for the project that is assigned to the influencer. These briefs are often made for specific marketing or advertising campaigns within your business. It helps make sure that as a brand you get what you’re asking for and paying for versus getting something you were not expecting.

This section will basically be a quick page by page of what I would include in a brief.

First off, you’re going to make a deck. Whether you use Powerpoint, Canva, or Google Slides, you are going to start by making a deck because you need to supply visuals.

Now, let’s get into this imaginary deck page-by-page:

Page 1: About YOU.

• This page should be a quick overview about the brand and who you are and your mission.

Page 2: Integration Overview (Specify the Channel: Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok)

For this example, let’s use Instagram.

Here are the details that I would want to include on the page:

• Product: What product(s) should they be including in their content? List them and link the PDP (Product Page) for each item so that they can refer back as needed.

• Mandatory Talking Points: There will be a separate slide of talking points, but the creator should ideally mention the brand and choose 2-3 of the talking points that suit their experience with the products/your brand.

• Verbal Call To Action: You would want to write out what the main Call To Action (CTA) should be in the video itself. For example, this could be mentioning a discount or just the website to go checkout your product.

• Caption Call To Action: Similarly, you should want to give a visual example of what they can write in their caption for a call to action. I would also request that if they need a link in their bio then you are making sure it’s one of the top three links that that they have on their list or linktree.

  • See example here.

• Go Live Date + Content Review Deadline Dates: explanatory, but I usually like having 48-72 hours to review content

• Add what account they should be tagging for your brand and what hashtags they should be using (ex. #ad #_____partner) and if they need to add the paid partnership label.

• Discount Code, Code Details, Landing Page Link: if applicable

Page 3: Brief Slide Break

Page 4: Talking Points About The Brand

This should ideally contain main talking points around the brand that you would want included. Examples of this could be where the product is from, what kind of products the brand sells, etc.

Page 5: Talking Points About Product(s)

When it comes to the specific product or products that the creators are talking about, this slide should have talking points about that specific SKU or product line. Give them enough to work with so that they have enough to relate to.

Page 6-8: Guidelines for Posting

• These pages should have guidelines around posting the specific Instagram/video content. These guidelines should include the aspect ratio that the content should be filmed in, how long the content should be, and what to not include (copyrighted music, for example). If they want to add music, give them examples or a link to non-copyrighted tunes to choose from.

  • Need help with non-copyright music? I like Epidemic Sound.

• You should urge your creators to mention and introduce the brand verbally to your followers and the product by way of the talking points provided.

• You should want creators to show the product within the first 5-10 seconds.

• Remind them what hashtags to add to their caption and what account to tag.

• Add examples of top performing content that creators can watch back to use as a north star.

• I would make sure to add any mandatory needs such as making sure any competitors are not mentioned in the content and making sure to add names of those brands. You should also add any Do’s and Don’ts ranging from how to pronounce your brand (if it’s hard or people easily confuse it), lighting requirements, etc.

Page 9: Help Your Creator!

Give your creators some prompts and questions that can help them script their videos correctly. Some examples may be “Why did you choose _______?” and “What’s the main difference or differences between _____ and other brands in the same category?”

Page 10: Additional Instructions

You can use this page and the following to show instructions for anything else you might need, which in this case might include: how to add a paid partnership label, how to grant whitelisting access, the best way to submit content for approval, and more.

THE END

If this was helpful, pleeeeease let me know 🙂 Now, it’s onto this week’s brand of the week.

BRAND OF THE WEEK: TILLAMOOK CHEESE

Bet you didn’t expect that one. If you’re new here, this section is where I pick a brand I love because I use it and love it or saw a brand do something cool and want to talk about it. This week’s happened this morning (writing this Wednesday).

Just a shoutout to them for getting this organic (it seems) post on Britney Spears’ Instagram???? No idea, but I am about it. I haven’t seen a response yet on Tillamook’s channels, but I don’t even know how I would react because it’s just so iconic.

LOGGING OFF

That’s it for this week. Feels good to be back.

I am off to go binge Love Island USA. If you’re watching, please message me back because I cannot get enough.

Also, we are almost at 1,200 subscribers which is insane in the membrane.

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Alright, i’ll see you next week!

Peace, love and KPIs,

-KD