What is an Influencer Brief?

An Influencer brief, otherwise called an influencer marketing brief, is a guide that seeks to communicate to any potential influencers a brand would be working with the campaign’s objectives, expectations, guidelines, and deliverables. This means that any content creator interested in working on a campaign with a brand can get a clear notion of what the campaign is all about and whether it is a good fit for them. 

An influencer brief is crucial to your business because it helps you get the most out of your brand-influencer connection, improves communication, eliminates background noise from too much back and forth communication, demonstrates professionalism, and ensures that the marketing campaign’s goals are clear and set. Most importantly, it provides a document that both you and the influencer can refer to if any problem comes up with one party’s interpretation of the campaign’s goals.

How to Write an Influencer Brief

Writing a great influencer brief is like giving an influencer a superpower. You have essentially given them a document that clearly outlines what you want and how you want it. All that’s left is to execute it. Now, while it isn’t rocket science to create a decent influencer brief, there are a few elements that must be present:

• An introduction:

This is where you introduce the influencer to your brand, its history and values. The influencer needs to know who they are dealing with, therefore demonstrating your brand’s identity. What kind of value does your company offer to the public? What distinguishes you from the crowd? It would also be good to provide some information about your company’s products and services. A brief overview of your products and services can assist the influencer in seeing the larger picture and how they fit into your marketing strategy. This is a great place to sell your brand and get the influencer excited about the partnership

• Main Deliverables:

Here you can decide to get into the nitty-gritty of your marketing campaign. In terms of creative freedom, it is important to specify the levels of creative freedom you would allow. It would help if you also remembered that influencer marketing works because you are leveraging real individuals who are also exceptional content creators to promote to an audience that trusts the content they create. As a result, it is vital to respect an influencer’s creative freedom and allow them to continue creating the type of content that their audience enjoys.

Don’t forget to inform them of the social media platforms you intend to use and the target demographic you hope to attract. Given that we’re talking about deliverables let them know what you hope to achieve with the campaign. This would put the influencer on the same page as you and create a setting in which expectations might be managed.

• State your dos and don’ts:

While we agree that creative flexibility is necessary for an influencer, it is critical that you spell out your campaign’s dos and don’ts. This reduces uncertainty and ensures that they understand what has to be done. Your dos could include informing them of the exact tone in which your campaign should be promoted, the length of the videos, what you are attempting to express, or even the type of videos you expect. Don’ts could include:

• Defining what terms should not be used.
• Ensuring that competitors’ products do not appear in the content being made.
• Determining whether or not the videos can be deleted or reused after the campaign.
• Talk about timelines and deadlines:

Your brief would be incomplete without talking about timelines. This entails informing creators of deadlines for deliverables so that you may be proactive and have adequate time to make any necessary changes. Your content creator may have a lot of gigs on their hands; hence having a well-spelt-out timeline can help them organize their schedule accordingly. This could include details of when the campaign will go live and the sequence in which you want your content posted.

• Craft a value proposition:

Apart from being financially rewarded, sought-after influencers always want to work with brands that offer extra value that can help them improve their image as an influencer. Essentially, if an influencer receives two offers of equal monetary value, they will usually choose to work with the client that gives them the chance to create content that aligns with their vision of their career as an influencer. If the client proactively offers to help the influencer do this, it makes the influencer more committed to the success of your campaign. Everybody wins.

• Talk about payment method:

While it is crucial to sell your selected influencer on the values your company represents, financial compensation is likely the most significant aspect of any campaign to them. They provide a service and an audience for this, so they should be compensated. It’s a good idea to be specific about the payment method and plan you’ll be using. This would effectively eliminate any future disagreements. Include all conceivable terms and restrictions, so the content creator understands what to expect. This lays the groundwork for a smooth and hitch-free relationship. 

Influencer brief example

And just to show you what all the above elements look like when expanded on, here is a terrific example of a well-written influencer brief by Andrey Zhuravlev. 

Overview/Introduction:

It starts with an overview that sort of introduces the company and its core values, paving the way for the rest of the brief. The overview instantly tells the influencer about the product, helping them understand what they might be getting themselves into. 

Campaign objective/Deliverables:

Next, the campaign objective is simple, short, and straight to the point, yet gives the content creator a lot of info to work with. 

The creative thought-starter is pretty nice because this shows that the brand respects the creative process of the influencer and is willing to give them the necessary freedom they need, but they are also willing to point the influencer in the direction they want. They are painting a scenario for the influencer to work with while giving them the freedom to make out what they will from it.

Do’s and don’ts:

The Dos and Don’ts are concise and straight to the point, the brand is very specific about what they want, this is great for the brand-influencer relationship as the brand is being clear on its rules. It would be almost impossible for any influencer to break these rules seeing they are so well spelt out. One thing I like about it is the use of bullet points and the exclusion of vague sentences. 

The brand goes a step further by creating a list of mandatories that the influencer must follow, they are things not included in the dos and don’ts and some of them are related to the details of the content to be created. Clear instructions on the timeline are also stated here, which as mentioned earlier can prove very important when working with creatives. 

Then the brief ends with a call to action on the attachments attached to the brief, including contracts that cover the payment structure and other rules of engagement. 

Wrapping Up

While it is important to get the best influencer for your marketing campaign, it is equally important that the influencer be someone you can build a solid, long-lasting work relationship. It all starts with a solid influencer brief. Once they are familiar with your brand, its values, and what is expected of them, you are already halfway into a successful marketing campaign.

Take our advice, write that brief and let your chosen influencer use their creative spark to move your brand forward. To learn more influencer marketing strategies, you can read about Diet Coke’s strategy with influencers, and how top brands like Peugeot and Adidas are using influencers in their marketing campaigns,