What Should an Influencer Marketing Brief Include? [Outline Included]

There’s a certain amount of trust involved in influencer marketing. The most effective influencer campaigns often stem from leaning on the creator to do what he or she does best: create content for followers. Rather than hope for the best, brands provide an influencer brief. 

What’s an influencer brief?

An influencer brief is created by a brand to provide campaign guidance to an influencer. 

What’s the purpose of an influencer brief? 

For the influencer, the brief provides campaign goals, campaign details (including deadlines), and branding information that can shape the content creation process. 

For brands, giving influencers a detailed brief provides peace of mind. You know the influencer has everything needed to create content that aligns with your expectations. 

What’s in an influencer brief?

To help influencers execute the campaign efficiently, your influencer brief should include the following:

Brand and product overview

To endorse your product or service, influencers should be familiar with your brand. Don’t assume they know about your company. Instead, give influencers a synopsis of your brand and include a: 

• Description of the company
• List of popular products 
• Short company history
• List of links to your website, blog, and social media channels
• Description of the company’s values, missions, and brand tone
• Description of your target audience

Campaign overview

Next, provide campaign details. You’ll offer specifics about the campaign to make sure the creator understands your brand’s expectations. The campaign overview should include: 

• The campaign goal and the KPIs you’ll use to measure success
• The social media channel you’d like the influencer to publish on
• The content form, like picture or video, and length or quantity of posts
• Any @mentions and #hashtags you’d like the influencer to include
• Campaign milestones and deadlines
• A content review process
• Payment terms and timing
• FTC disclosure requirements
• Tracking links, if desired

Call to action

When followers see this post, what do you want them to do? Schedule a demo? Purchase a product? Download a white paper? As with any marketing campaign, you need a call to action. 

Depending on the call to action that you chose, your marketing team may need to do some prep work. For example, if you want to give an influencer a promo code to share with followers, you’ll need to create it and ensure it functions on the site. 

If you want potential customers to schedule a demo, you might need to set up a calendar so appointments can be made directly from the link shared by the influencer. 

Communicate the call to action with the influencer, but make sure the back-end work is done ahead of time.

Review process

While you may have mentioned the content review process in the campaign overview, you can create a separate section that provides additional details. You should explain how the process works, who needs to sign off on the content, and the deadlines associated with any revision requests.

Campaign inspiration

It’s tough to let someone outside of your brand create content, especially if you’re working with a new influencer. Campaign inspiration can help. In this brief section, you can offer examples that influencers can draw from. 

IZEA Flex users can use AI tools to generate inspirational images. For example, using AI Briefs, you can answer questions about your product or service and the tool will provide AI-generated briefs. Then use AI Brainstorm to generate inspirational images to go along with your brief.

If you’re not an IZEA Flex user, you can provide examples of previous campaigns, search for #sponsored ads on social channels, or construct a mood board to offer content inspiration. 

Special requests

If there’s anything special that you’d like the influencer to know, include it in the special requests section. For example, you might want an influencer to show a certain product feature or use certain keywords to describe your service.   

Influencer brief outline

Brand overview

• Description of the company
• List of popular products 
• Short company history
• List of links to your website, blog, and social media channels
• Description of the company’s values, missions, and brand tone
• Description of your target audience

Campaign overview

• Campaign goal and the KPIs you’ll use to measure success.
• Social media channel you’d like the influencer to publish on
• Content form, like picture or video
• Any @mentions and #hashtags you’d like the influencer to include
• Campaign milestones and deadlines
• Content review process
• Payment terms and timing
• FTC disclosure

Call to action 

• What do you want people to do when they see the post?
• Make sure landing pages and promo codes are created beforehand. 

Review process

• What does it entail?
• Who needs to approve the content?
• What’s the timeline?
• What kind of edits could be requested?

Campaign inspiration

• Offer samples of social endorsements that you like or use AI tools to generate inspirational art.

Special requests

• List any special requests you’d like the influencer to follow

Influencers:

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Marketers:

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