How to send us a brief, and how to send us files.
A brief that arrives in the shape below gets scheduled the same day and built right first time. One that arrives as a WhatsApp voice note gets a reply asking for the shape below. Save yourself the round trip.
Sending a brief
- Open a new email to stephen@thegrowthbully.com. Not a reply on the report thread, not a WhatsApp.
- One request per email. Two ideas in one email means one of them gets lost. Two emails is fine.
- Use this subject line pattern, with your company name and a short topic:
Examples: [Acme] Brief: October kitchen promotion, [Acme] Brief: recruitment ad for a technician, [Acme] Brief: wine evening 30 Nov.
How you know it worked: you get an acknowledgement within one working day with a scheduled date, or with the two or three questions we need answered before we can give one.
If it fails: no reply after one working day, forward the same email with BLOCKED added to the subject. Same-day priority.
What a good brief contains
Eight lines. Paste the headings and fill them in. Missing lines are the questions we will have to ask you, so it is faster to answer them now.
| Line | What we need |
|---|---|
| Goal | One sentence. Bookings, enquiries, sales of a product, applicants, footfall on a date. If you cannot name the one number that says it worked, tell us that too. |
| Audience | Who this is for in plain words: homeowners in Malta with a garden, HR managers at companies over fifty staff, existing customers only. |
| Offer | What they get and on what terms. The exact price and any condition, because the ad has to state it and you are responsible for it being right. |
| Deadline | The date it must be live, not the date you would like a draft. We work backwards from live. |
| Must include | Phone number, URL, logo of a partner, a regulatory line, a specific product photo. |
| Must avoid | Claims you cannot make, competitor names, a product that is out of stock, an image style your compliance team rejects. Operational facts matter here: if your delivery vans have no regulator on the cylinder or your staff always wear a uniform, tell us, because we fact-check creatives against what you tell us. |
| Assets link | A shared folder link. See sending files. |
| Approver | The one person who says yes. If compliance or a director must sign off as well, name them and say which of the two we should wait for. |
What happens next, and when you hear back
- Acknowledged within one working day. The reply says one of three things: in scope with a date, quoted as an add-on, or scheduled into next month. See how out-of-scope requests are handled.
- The date is confirmed in writing on the same thread. That date assumes the assets and the approver's answers arrive when we ask for them; each day they slip, the date slips.
- First draft or concept arrives on the thread for approval. See Approvals.
- Live on the confirmed date, with a note on the thread saying so.
Sending files
Footage, photos, logos and documents: the way you send them decides whether the edit starts today or after three emails about a file nobody can open.
- Put everything in one folder on Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, or use a WeTransfer link. If we have already sent you a shared folder, use that one.
- Set sharing so that anyone with the link can view. On Google Drive: Share, General access, Anyone with the link, Viewer.
- Upload the original files, one by one. Not a zip. Not a compressed export. Not forwarded through WhatsApp, which re-compresses every photo and video it touches.
- Name files so we can tell what they are without opening them. Pattern below: date, your company, category, description, version.
- Reply on the thread with the link and the number of files you uploaded, so we can check nothing is missing.
Example: 20261003_Acme_Product_KitchenRange_v01.jpg. Categories we use: Brand, Product, RawFootage, Photos, Documents.
How you know it worked: we reply with "received, N files" within one working day. If it fails: you get a reply saying we cannot open the link. Check sharing is set to anyone with the link, then resend. If it still fails, screenshot the sharing dialog and send it.
Event promotion brief
Events are the brief we chase most, because the pieces arrive one at a time over three weeks. Send them together and the event page, the ads and the partner posts go up in one pass. The event should be live three weeks before the date, which means the artwork inputs are due a week before that.
- Date and start time, and the end time if there is one.
- Venue with a map pin or exact address, and the capacity.
- Ticket or booking link, and whether one booking covers one seat or a table. If one seat per payment, posts will say to book twice for couples.
- What the price includes, dietary options, wet-weather plan, deposit or cancellation terms.
- Partner logos and the partner page's admin contact. A co-hosted Facebook event only reaches the partner's audience once their page accepts the co-host invite, so we need someone on their side who will press accept.
- Host on the night, and anything for sale on the night.
- Deadline for artwork and any print the venue needs.
- Who approves: one name.
- Budget owner: whose card the event ads run on, and the ceiling.
If the event has a lead capture element (a form at a stand, a competition), tell us what people get for signing up and who follows up in the week after. Every captured lead is tagged with the event as its source, receives a short follow-up sequence, and your team calls them daily while the event is fresh.
Product or offer sheet
For any promotion, product launch or e-commerce campaign, one row per product or offer:
- Name exactly as it should appear, and a one-line description.
- Price, the offer if any, and its start and end dates. Say whether the price includes VAT.
- What is included and any variants (sizes, colours, packs).
- Photos: real product photos, at least one square and one upright, in the shared folder. We will not use stock that does not look like you, and we generate images only when there is nothing real to work from.
- Landing URL for that product, or the page where the offer is redeemed.
- Stock or capacity limit, so we stop the ads before you sell out.
- Legal or regulatory wording that must appear, and where.
A spreadsheet with one row per item is ideal. Up to twenty items in one sheet is the sweet spot; beyond that, tell us and we set up a template your team can run.
Landing page and legal footer
A page that collects a name and phone number cannot take paid traffic until its footer is complete. These are the items that most often hold a launch:
- Company registration number and registered address.
- A business email and phone number that someone answers.
- Privacy policy URL and terms URL on your own site. If you do not have them, say so and we can point you at a template your lawyer can adapt.
- A real portrait of the person fronting the page, roughly 480 by 640 pixels or larger, not stock.
- A short first-person bio: career arc and why you started.
- Proof: one anonymised before-and-after with the sector and rough size is enough. Never invent a testimonial and never send us one you cannot attribute.
Newsletter build: three questions before we start
- Which platform sends your newsletter today? Whoever pressed send on the last edition knows instantly. Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Brevo, Zoho, Outlook: any is fine, we just need the name and an invite to it.
- The topic list for edition one, three to five items, in one email.
- Who signs off, and whether clinical, regulatory or legal wording has a separate approver from everything else.
Common questions on this page
Can I just WhatsApp you the brief?
Send it by email. WhatsApp is for same-day urgent things, and a brief on WhatsApp gets lost the moment the next message arrives. If you have already typed it on WhatsApp, paste it into an email with the subject pattern above and it will be scheduled.
How do I send you the raw videos and photos?
Original files into the shared folder we sent you, or any Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or WeTransfer link set to anyone with the link. No zips, no compression, nothing forwarded through WhatsApp. Then reply with the file count so we can check nothing is missing.
I uploaded the videos but you say you cannot see them.
Nine times in ten the folder is shared with a specific email address rather than anyone with the link, or the upload was still in progress when the tab was closed. Open the folder in a private browser window: if you can see the files without logging in, so can we. If not, fix the sharing setting and resend the link.
What sizes do you need if we supply our own creative?
Three sizes of each: square (1:1), upright (4:5 or 3:4) and full vertical (9:16). Keep any regulatory or small-print line inside the central safe zone, because Instagram crops the top and bottom of vertical placements and will cut it off. Send layered or original files where you have them, not screenshots.
Can we give you our own photos instead of generated images?
Please do. Real product, real premises, real people always outperform anything generated or stock. We generate images only when we have nothing real to work from. Drop them in the shared folder with the product name in the filename.
Do I buy the website or shop plan, or do you?
You buy it, in your own name and on your own card, and we build inside it. That way the site, the domain and the billing are yours from day one. We tell you which plan the build needs. Send login details through a one-time link, never in an email.
What do you need from us for a website project?
A content checklist from us with one row per item: the page, the format we need, and a column for you to mark it provided. One shared folder per page for images and documents. Images are the last step; we send your photographer a shot list. Catalogue PDFs you already have can be hosted and linked as they are.
How many videos do you need us to film, and how long?
For ad clips: a batch of six to eight, 30 to 45 seconds each, filmed on a phone on a stand with a clip-on microphone and daylight. We send word-for-word scripts first; do not film before the scripts are approved. Most clients film a whole batch in under an hour. Upload the originals to the shared folder and we do the rest. For a long-form video see the VSL recording guide.
Stuck? Email stephen@thegrowthbully.com with a screenshot of the whole window.