How to Brief a Freelance Marketing Consultant

Most briefs I receive fall into two categories. A vague "we need more leads" with no context. Or a 40-page RFP that took longer to write than the project would take to deliver. Neither sets the engagement up well.

A good brief doesn't need to be long. It needs to be clear. Here's what actually helps when you're bringing in a freelance marketing consultant, and what you can skip.

Start with the business problem, not the tactic

"We need SEO" isn't a brief. "We're getting enquiries through referrals but nothing through our website, and we need that to change" is a brief. The difference matters because the tactic might not be what you think it is. A good consultant will work backwards from your problem to the right approach. But they can only do that if you tell them the actual problem.

I've had clients come to me asking for a blog strategy when their real issue was that their website hadn't been touched in 4 years and wasn't ranking for their own company name. The blog wasn't wrong, it just wasn't first. A clear problem statement saves everyone time.

What to include

• What your business does and who you sell to. Industry, typical customer, how your sales process works. A marketing consultant working with a 15-person engineering firm that sells $200k projects through 6-month sales cycles needs a completely different approach than one working with an e-commerce brand. Don't assume the consultant knows your world. The good ones will research it, but giving them a head start means they spend less of your budget getting up to speed.

• What you've already tried. This is the one most people leave out, and it's the most useful. If you ran Google Ads for 6 months and got nothing, say so. If you had an agency doing your SEO and you're not sure what they actually did, say that too. Knowing what's been tried (and what failed) stops a consultant from recommending the same thing again.

• What tools you're already using. HubSpot? WordPress? Mailchimp? A CRM your sales team ignores? Whatever it is, list it. Half the problems I find in the first week come from tools that aren't connected, aren't configured properly, or aren't being used at all.

• What "working" looks like. More leads is too vague. "We want 10 qualified enquiries a month through the website" gives the consultant something to work towards and measure against. If you don't know the number, that's fine. Say "we need help figuring out what a realistic target looks like." That's a valid answer.

• Budget range and timeline. You don't need an exact figure. A range is enough. "We're thinking $2-4k a month for 6 months" tells a consultant whether the scope is realistic. If there's a mismatch between what you want and what you can spend, better to find out before anyone starts working.

What you don't need to include

You don't need a detailed marketing plan. That's what you're hiring the consultant to build. You don't need competitor analysis, keyword research, or a content calendar. If you've got those things, great, share them. But don't spend hours creating them just for the brief.

You also don't need to specify the exact tactics. If you say "we need help with our digital marketing and we're not sure where to start," that's an honest brief that a good consultant can work with.

How to tell if the consultant is right for you

Pay attention to who you're actually talking to. At a lot of agencies, the person in the pitch meeting isn't the person doing the work. You get a senior strategist in the room to win the deal, then your account gets handed to a junior coordinator who's managing 12 other clients. The work suffers and you're stuck chasing someone for updates.

When I work with clients, I'm the person doing the work. There's no account manager layer. No handoff. The person you brief is the person building your strategy, writing your content, configuring your HubSpot, and reporting on results. That's the model I chose deliberately, because the alternative frustrated me as much as it frustrated the clients I saw dealing with it.

Ask any consultant you're evaluating: who's actually doing the work? How many other clients are they managing? How do they communicate and how often? These questions tell you more about what the engagement will actually feel like than any case study or testimonial.

The brief is the first test

How a consultant responds to your brief tells you a lot. If they come back with a generic proposal that could apply to any business in any industry, that's a red flag. If they come back with specific questions about your business, your audience, and your goals, that's someone who's paying attention.

A good brief gets you a better response, which makes it easier to spot the right fit. Keep it short. Keep it honest. Focus on the problem, not the solution.

Looking for a B2B marketing consultant who actually does the work? Book a discovery call and tell me what you're working with.

About the author

Jonathon Shipton

Jonathon Shipton is a freelance B2B marketing consultant based in Brisbane, specialising in HubSpot CMS builds and migrations, SEO, and content strategy. He works directly with clients. No account managers, no agency overhead.