You’ve poured over dozens of resumes and portfolios and you’ve finally picked a designer to handle your marketing materials. Whew! The hard part’s over, right? Wrong. You still need to brief the designer on your marketing needs so that she will understand what kind of design you are looking for. You also want to ensure that the designer knows your goals for your marketing materials. The goals can greatly affect the design process and the end result.

A design brief is simply a short outline of the project. It’s a chance for you to tell the designer what he needs to know about your business and what points you would like him to focus on. Experienced designers can help you with the design brief as they’ve worked with them before, but it’s best to know what to include in case your designer forgets anything (whether on purpose or accidentally!).

1. Start out with your corporate profile.
Give the designer a background or history of your company. Include any pertinent information like who founded the company, what products the company has produced over the years and how the company has grown. Don’t assume that the designer has read all about your greatest product.

2. Set a delivery date and delivery methods.
Include in writing what date everything is to be finalized by. You might also want to set goal dates along the way. A rough draft could be due 2 months before the final deadline and then another draft due 1 month before the final deadline and so on.

Also specify how you want the items delivered. Do you need hard copy proofs or will Photoshop files be fine? Do you need a PDF or an InDesign file? You’ll probably want to check with your printer to see what files are needed.

3. Set specific marketing objectives.
Try to set objectives that have numbers attached to them, such as “Get a 5% response from a postcard within 90 days of mailing.” Or, “Increase Web site traffic by 25% by this date.” Your designer will be able to design for whatever audience you need by knowing who that audience is and what you want that audience to do. If you want to reach prospects rather than existing customers, your designer will need to make your design appeal to a broader audience.

4. Provide your budget.
Give the designer limits from the beginning so he knows what kind of materials he can work with. If you can only afford a black-and-white printing rather than 4-color, the designer will need to tweak the design elements accordingly.

5. Give the designer any photos you want her to use upfront.
Don’t waste her time and yours by unearthing photos long after she’s designed a brochure around one key photo.

6. Provide a list of competitors.
The designer needs to know who he is up against so he can be sure that your design stands out from your competitors’ design.

Design briefs can include anything you want the designer to know about your company, but these six elements are the basics. It also helps to give the designer copies of past brochures, catalogs and other marketing materials so the designer can get the look and feel down of your past work. All of these elements will ensure that your designer gives you exactly what you want.