Don't forget the Creative Brief
By Geoff Linton

Effective marketing campaigns begin with a creative brief, and this is especially important with email. This simple document crystallizes the communication goals of a campaign and can mean the difference between unfocused messaging and creative that is relevant and motivating.

It's also the best guarantee of marketing ROI. A recent study of 3M's marketing campaigns attributed 40% of marketing inefficiency to the absence of a creative brief. Too much time was being wasted on rewrites and editing. After making briefs mandatory, that inefficiency dropped to 9%.

As in any traditional creative brief make sure:

• Your objectives are specific, measurable, accurate and concise.
• You profile the target audience and include relevant messaging (informational, relational, transactional).

Email - with its superior metrics and tracking - has additional aspects that benefit from a properly organized (briefed) and executed campaign. The creative brief we use at Inbox differs only slightly from the basic brief used by most ad agencies, yet the differences are hugely important. If your creative team can focus on mastering and integrating the three creative elements described below, you can count on superior results.

Subject line - The first and most obvious distinction is the subject line - not a requirement in other media. As the first thing the recipient sees, this lonely line of unadorned text is the most important phrase you will write. The subject line must capture the essence of the campaign but also stand out from all the other subject lines competing for your reader's attention. In publishing terms, it serves the same purpose as the headline of a newspaper article. Make it short, descriptive, memorable and benefit oriented. Maximum length: 38 characters (five or six words)

Sender field - Another aspect unique to email is the sender field, the part that tells you who the email is from. Both this and the subject line are very limited real estate and a good copywriter will make them work together. For example, by including the company or brand name in the sender field, you can devote the entire subject line to what you think will capture maximum attention.

Top of message (Preview Pane) - The top portion of the message has special significance in email as many recipients use auto-preview. This makes it vitally important to create copy that supports the subject line and sums up the entire message in just a few lines.

Remember, email marketing follows precepts similar to other branches of marketing, and is a close cousin to direct mail. The more you plan, organize and learn from your campaigns the more you can control their outcome. And it all starts with the creative brief!

Geoff Linton is Vice-president of Inbox Marketer, an email marketing and publishing company.