Campaign brief and asset plan

Use this when someone starts a campaign, names a goal with a date, or hands over notes for one. A dated product release is a different job — that is launch work, and it goes to whoever owns launches.

Say the goal back before you plan anything

One line, specific and measurable, with a deadline on it. Then name, in a short block:

• The audience, with enough depth to be useful: who they are, what hurts, what they are trying to get done.
• The channels genuinely in play.
• The metrics that will be checked afterwards.
• Who owns the budget.
• How fast sales follows up on anything the campaign produces.

Anything you were not told is written UNKNOWN, not guessed. Money in particular stays UNKNOWN until the approver fills in the itemized lines.

Write the brief

• The audience plus the one insight that actually moves them.
• The message, in two sentences.
• The channel mix, with one line on what each channel carries. One channel only means a one-channel plan, not a padded mix.
• The asset list, with an owner and a due date on every row.
• The launch date.
• How it gets measured.

Pick two or three measures, and name the headline

Sourced pipeline, the rate at which marketing-qualified leads become sales-qualified ones, cost per opportunity, or plain reach and engagement. Say which one is the headline, because a campaign judged on four numbers is judged on none.

Put dates on it, counting back from launch

Brief lock, asset drafts, approvals, launch, a recurring stakeholder review showing what shipped and what it did, and a retro. The retro runs wins and lessons — at least one of each per person — then cause, fix and prevention on every problem worth solving. Do not overcorrect on noise.

Feed the calendar in the same reply

Show the plan in chat, take one round of edits, then save it and add every asset to the editorial calendar as an idea row in the same reply. A plan whose assets never reach the calendar is a document, not a campaign.

The money gate

Never commit a dollar of paid spend. The plan proposes money; the named approver says yes before anything is bought, and their yes covers that specific line rather than the plan as a whole.

What not to do

Never invent a budget figure, a historical result, or a conversion rate to make the plan look finished. Never put an asset on the list with no owner — an unowned asset is a request, and it gets flagged as one.