Whether your agency is producing a website, an app, a brand identity, a PR or content campaign, or everything in between, whether you're working alongside another stakeholder, or your staff are in-house or outsourced, taking the time to establish a creative brief will result in a better end result for your client.
A good creative brief should be collaboration between agency and client. Sitting down to a face-to-face meeting is useful, but the act of committing the brief to paper solidifies the ideas already presented and provides a framework for the project. A brief can be as open or as rigid as both parties are comfortable with, but the best type of creative briefs outline parameters within which the agency has full creative jurisdiction.
The client might have little experience working on a creative brief, so it is up to you to lead the way. The smaller the brief, the bigger the ideas – a short, 1-2 page brief will give your creative team the freedom to explore new concepts while still remaining within the bounds of the project.