How to: Create a Marketing Brief

As more and more companies are using Social Media as part of their marketing strategy, its outsourcing and crowdsourcing is growing. Clear expectations, objectives and target groups are vital in the success of your campaign.

No matter if you're crowdsourcing your blog content via blogmutt.com, working with a MarCom specialist such as CapSEO or if you're managing your own campaign: You should draw up a briefing to outline your mission. Take a look at the structure of our briefing for CapSEO, a great crowdsourcing service we're using for search engine and social media marketing: 

1) What’s the marketing PROBLEM you’re facing? 

Dealing with the chicken-egg problem of a 3-side marketplace


2) What’s the OBJECTIVE of your MarCom campaign? 

To address all three target groups (Experts, Investors, Startups) with a different value proposition, marketing strategy and probably different traffic sources.
Our MarCom objectives:

• Express our views on startup practices and the significance of crowdsourcing

• Educate community on relevant topics for budding entrepreneurs

• Generate relevant content for SEO

• Convince people to embrace a lean startup model and to work with the Power of the Crowd

3) Who’s your core TARGET for the campaign? Who are the influencers? 

UFOstart targets three groups, which all act as influencers for our campaign: Experts, Startups and Investors. With CapSEO we're focusing on targeting our Expert group:

1) Moonlighter - people currently employed by large corporations, dreaming about their own startup or diving in the startup industry to learn how it works. Want to be involved in hot stories and are seeking equity.

Influencers: not job portals since they are not for hire, startup blogs, incubators
2) Students - daily income is covered from home / regular life on campus
Influencers: job portals, startup blogs, incubators

3) Top Talents - financially independent, top experts in their fields, working only on projects they are passionate about.
Influencers:  job portals, startup blogs


4) What’s the proposed DOMAIN of your MarCom campaign? 

Focus on online and social media:
- startup directories
- blogs
- twitter
- facebook, linkedin, xing
- startup services, incubators

5) What’s the RESULT you’re expecting after the campaign is over? 

We are looking for 1000 experts with skills relevant to software and internet startups, especially ones focused on crowdsourcing. Should be completed in a time frame of 3 month after campaign launch.

Effective marketing can determine the success of your brand building efforts. Social Media, especially when combined with crowdsourcing, helps in getting your idea out there, building a community and creating interaction. However,

"If you’re planning to invest in a campaign, without having a clear knowledge of the above factors, your investments stand to be ineffectively utilized or lost" - Shantanu Sengupta on http://bit.ly/oF89n6

By following the basic five steps outlined above, you can narrow down your objectives and create a powerful brief for any marketing service. We at UFOstart use the power of the crowd for our online marketing because of its efficiency and great returns. Besides the ones mentioned above, we have created a list of ways to crowdsource your startup: http://gsfn.us/t/335mq.

What do you think of our online marketing approach? What blog topics should UFOstart cover in the future? Looking forward to your comments and tweets.

UFOstart wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a good start to the holiday season!