How to brief a studio for a marketing site

A useful website design brief for startups fits on a page: who the site is for, the one action it should earn, three references you like, and what must not change. A forty-page deck usually repeats the same hope in new adjectives. The studio still has to extract those four facts before anyone can draw a page.

Write the brief for a person who will design and build the site, not for an investor. Google's people-first guidance asks whether a site has an intended audience and a primary purpose. Those two questions are the brief. Nielsen Norman Group's research on visits adds the reason to keep the action singular. People often leave within 10 to 20 seconds, and a clear value proposition has to land inside about 10 seconds if you want them to stay longer. A brief that asks the homepage to do five jobs will lose that window.

Who the site is for

Name the person, the situation, and the job they are trying to finish.

"Seed-stage founders who need a credible site before a raise" is a start. "Operations leads at clinics with two to ten staff, who currently book on paper" is a brief. The second version tells the studio what language to use, what proof will feel real, and which features would be theater.

Include who the site is not for, in one line. A marketing site gets clearer when the edges are named. If you sell to clinics and not to hospital groups, say so. The studio can then refuse a layout that tries to look like a procurement portal.

If you have two audiences, say which one this version of the site serves. Hiring candidates, customers, and journalists can all be real, and they rarely need the same first screen. Pick the audience that pays for the project. Note the others as later pages, not as equal heroes.

The one action

Write the action as a finished sentence. "A qualified founder books a 30-minute intro." "A buyer requests a sample." "A candidate reads how you work and writes to you." The sentence should name the person and the result.

Put the current action next to it if the site already exists. If the live page says "Learn more" and the business needs a call, the brief should say that in plain words. The studio should not have to infer the business from a mood board.

Say what happens after the click, in a single line. The note goes to a named inbox. The calendar is a real link. A person replies. A brief that ends at "increase engagement" does not give anyone a page to design. Engagement is not an action a visitor can take.

One action does not mean the company only does one thing. It means this site, in this launch, is willing to be judged by one result. Other paths can exist as text links. They should not compete with the primary control in the first screen.

Three references, and what must not change

Three references are enough. More than that becomes a tour of the internet. For each one, write a sentence about what you want from it, and a sentence about what you do not.

A useful note looks like this. "I like the type size and the quiet product shot. I do not want their playful illustration." "I like how fast the page explains the price. I do not want a dark, loud hero." Taste without a reason sends the studio guessing, and the second round becomes a debate about decoration.

Separate references you admire from references you must resemble. A competitor you have to sit beside in a sales call is a constraint. A studio site you enjoy on weekends is a preference. Label them. Constraints belong in the brief. Preferences can move once the page is in front of real words.

Then write what must not change. This is the part teams skip, and it is the part that prevents a redesign from breaking the business.

• The name, if it is settled.
• A promise you have already made in public.
• A URL, a login, or a checkout people already use.
• Words a lawyer, a regulator, or a partner requires.
• Proof you are willing to show, and proof you are not.

"Must not change" can also be a feeling you refuse. If the brand is calm, say that you will not accept a loud campaign voice on the homepage. Hanabi's own standard is clarity over complexity. If that is the quality you want, put it in the brief as a constraint, not as a compliment you hope the work will earn by accident.

What to leave out

Leave out the company history before the offer. Leave out a feature list copied from the product backlog. Leave out adjectives you would like to be associated with, unless you attach them to a decision. "Premium" means nothing until you say whether prices are visible, whether the type is quiet, and whether you refuse stock photos of handshakes.

You do not need a forty-page brand book to start a marketing site. If a real system exists, link the files. If it does not, say "name only" and let the project include a small system: type, color, and a sentence the site can repeat. Pretending the system is finished wastes the first week.

Skip competitor tear-downs that score other sites on a spreadsheet. A short note on who you lose deals to, and why, is more useful. Skip target metrics you invented for the deck. If you know a real baseline, such as how many intros the current site books in a month, include it. If you do not, say so. An invented goal makes the project look measurable and the review arbitrary.

Also skip a page-by-page wireframe unless you are sure of it. A sketch can be helpful as a hypothesis. Labeled as a requirement, it freezes the wrong structure. Describe the jobs the site must do. Let the structure come from those jobs.

How to hand it over

Send the brief as a document someone can comment on. One or two pages. Put the four parts in this order: audience, action, references, constraints. Add links to the current site, read-only analytics access if available, and the name of the person who can approve.

Name that approver in the brief. A project stalls when feedback arrives from a different person each week, each with a new adjective. One person can collect opinions. One person should accept the page.

Bring the brief to the first conversation, not after it. A good intro call can check whether the audience and the action are real, and whether a proposal is worth writing. If you want that conversation with Hanabi, book an intro call and send the one-pager ahead of time.

The brief is not the scope. Scope turns those facts into pages, states, and a date that can survive a change. When the one-pager is done, read how a marketing site gets scoped so the launch date is built from the pages, not from a vague phase called "design."