Matt Chetcuti
CMO
Chado helps lead generation and ecommerce businesses build clearer marketing, improve follow-up, and turn more attention into real opportunities.
If you brief a marketing agency in Malta badly, you can lose the first three months to confusion, restarts, and activity that looks promising but does not line up with what the business actually needs.
What a good brief should do
It should tell the agency:
what the business is trying to achieve
what is already happening
where marketing currently feels stuck
what success should look like
what constraints exist
That sounds basic, but many briefs still focus too much on channels and not enough on the business problem.
Start with the commercial objective
Do not begin with “we need SEO, social, and content.” Start with the result:
better quality inbound leads
clearer demand capture
stronger visibility for key services
more consistent reporting
better execution across multiple channels
That gives the agency something useful to solve rather than a service checklist to mirror.
What to include
Business context
Explain what you sell, who buys, and where growth is currently being constrained.
Current state
Show what is already in place. Existing suppliers, in-house resources, analytics, and current marketing activity all matter.
Problems
Be honest. Is the issue low traffic, poor conversion, weak follow-through, unclear positioning, bad reporting, or all of the above?
Success criteria
Define what “working” would look like in six months.
Constraints
Budget, internal approvals, team capacity, and content approval speed all affect delivery. Hiding them only creates friction later.
What not to do
Avoid:
vague goals like “grow awareness”
oversized service wish lists
unrealistic timelines
underexplained internal bottlenecks
The clearer your starting point, the more useful the agency response will be.
Why this matters so much
The early phase of an engagement sets the operating rhythm. If the brief is weak, the plan becomes broad. If the plan is broad, delivery spreads thinly. If delivery spreads thinly, the relationship starts feeling disappointing long before enough useful work has happened.
That is why a clear brief is not admin. It is strategy.
The Chado perspective
This is another version of the same pattern. Businesses do not just need more agency activity. They need a cleaner route from business problem to execution plan.
A strong brief creates that route. It helps both sides talk about priorities, not just outputs.
Brief template
Include:
Business summary
Current marketing setup
Main commercial problem
What has already been tried
What success looks like
Key constraints
Expected reporting and communication rhythm
FAQ
Should I ask an agency for a full strategy upfront?
You can, but it is more useful to ask how they would diagnose priorities and sequence the work.
How detailed should a brief be?
Detailed enough to reflect reality, but not padded with irrelevant background.
Can a weak brief ruin a good agency relationship?
Yes. It creates unnecessary ambiguity at exactly the point where clarity matters most.
Seeking clarity?
If you are about to brief a marketing agency and want help getting the priorities right before the work starts, book a call. A clearer brief usually saves far more time than it takes to prepare.
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