If you’re building a home, a blueprint is an essential. It means you, your architect, contractors, and builders are all on the same page, and the walls aren’t going to come crashing down. As a business developing new products, a product brief serves a similar purpose.
A product brief serves as a road map in the early stages of product development, providing key information that helps teams stay aligned as they work together to deliver successful products. Without one, assumptions are made, deadlines slip, and scope creep derails even the best ideas.
In this guide you’ll learn how to write a comprehensive product brief that prevents miscommunication and leads to a successful product launch.
What is a product brief?
A product brief is a document that guides product development strategy. It serves as a solid foundation for guiding product development by defining objectives, target audience, timelines, technical specifications, product development research, and market research.
Also known as a product spec, a detailed product brief serves as a blueprint in the initial stages of development. It includes product features and captures the what, why, and how behind a product.
It’s a document that’s shared with all relevant stakeholders and departments involved, including product managers, designers, engineers, marketers, and other members of a development team.
A product manager typically writes a product brief, as they oversee all essential components of a specific project and its corresponding workstreams within a larger product team.
The product brief allows product managers to keep teams on task, prevent scope creep, meet deadlines, and provide all the details about important aspects of development. It can also be a place to capture valuable insights from different stakeholders throughout the product development process.
How to write a product brief
- Identify the problem
- Define your audience
- Conduct a competitive analysis
- Include market research
- State the “what”
- Outline your pricing strategy
- Choose how you’ll measure success
- Set a timeline
- Collect feedback from stakeholders
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to writing product briefs, but these steps will help you deliver a well-written product brief designed to align stakeholders and support the creation process:
1. Identify the problem
Start writing a product brief by identifying the problem your product is trying to solve. This clarifies the need for and purpose of the project—grounding every decision in real customer needs rather than assumptions.
You can outline the needs of your target market and how your product addresses and solves customer problems—an approach that Liah Yoo, founder of Krave Beauty, finds essential.
Identifying problems and solutions through product development comes from considering your customer pain points, not just your sales goals.
“A lot of the time, product developments never really start from how to solve customers’ problems. It was always, ‘How do we meet the sales target this year?’” Liah told the Shopify Masters podcast. “And I think that’s what frustrated me and fired me up to come into the beauty industry with a brand or with a voice.”
2. Define your audience
Clearly articulate your audience in your product brief. Defining your audience keeps product development focused, ensuring every team ties their decision-making back to solving customer problems.
Define a broad target market (say, millennial city-dwellers) and then create detailed buyer personas (Dan, a busy 35-year-old living in New York City with limited time for daily routines) to flesh out your customer. Buyer personas help your teams create the right product at the right time in a noisy sales landscape.
Take My Skin Feels, for example. The natural beauty company’s founder, Danielle Close, envisioned an audience of shoppers who are not only eco-conscious but light-hearted and fun. This target audience helps drive how her products are developed.
“I didn’t want it to look like another natural brand,” Danielle told the Shopify Masters podcast. “I wanted it to look interesting and different and stand out on the shelf and kind of prove that natural isn’t boring and organic isn’t boring. We’re actually really fun, and the more fun you have with your brand, even if it’s a serious message, it still captures the audience, because it’s fun.”
3. Conduct a competitive analysis
A well-crafted product brief should include a comprehensive competitive analysis. It should have an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of your peers, including a deep dive into their marketing, pricing, and distribution strategies. This helps you identify opportunities for growth within your sector, make adjustments that set you apart from your peers, or emulate practices working well for them.
Evan Quinn, co-founder of the non-alcoholic beverage brand Hiyo, found value in analyzing his competitors to find his way in an increasingly saturated market. For Evan, this meant seeing a gap in product offerings around specific flavors.
“A lot of brands in our category are trying to mimic the taste of alcohol or they’re not, and they’re trying to have functionality or they’re not,” Evan told the Shopify Masters podcast. “And we wanted to really nail the intersection of functionality and flavor, and so that meant down the middle with fruit-forward flavor profiles that were still elevated.”
4. Include market research
An effective product brief should also include market research with insights into customer behaviors and industry trends. This research helps companies make informed business decisions, reducing risk when entering new markets. Market research can include primary market research you conduct yourself and secondary research from news organizations or industry reports.
For Salom Agbitor, co-founder of the tattoo aftercare company Mad Rabbit, market research involved hands-on, real-time work. That meant running marketing campaigns prior to starting production to get a firm understanding of the demand for the product and its place in the market.
“We started running ads before we even had an actual physical product,” Salom told the Shopify Masters podcast. “I wanted to make sure that there was a product market fit before we spent time cooking tattoo bombs in [Mad Rabbit co-founder] Oliver’s college apartment.”
5. State the “what”
Vague product descriptions lead to your final product not matching your vision. State clearly what you’re developing, in as much detail as possible. Mention how your product will function—its mechanisms and features. Detail components—parts, ingredients, and add-ons. This ensures you know what needs to be procured, built, and achieved, preventing wasted resources.
6. Outline your pricing strategy
Your pricing strategy can play a factor in your product design, impacting everything from material selection to feature prioritization.
A luxury product requires different components than a value option, and subscription models need different features than one-time purchases.
Briefly mention the pricing strategy and model—whether it’s a luxury item, a value-for-money product, or a recurring subscription—so you understand how to position and develop it.
For Kloo co-founder Claudia Snoh, customer feedback influenced her product pricing strategy. She shared on the Shopify Masters podcast her pricing strategy of lowering price-per-bottle and incentivizing subscriptions to increase and encourage higher customer lifetime value (LTV).
7. Choose how you’ll measure success
A product brief should clearly state desired outcomes and the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll use to measure success. Without defined metrics, you can’t tell if slow progress stems from ambitious goals or execution problems.
Setting a clear objective and metrics to track helps keep everyone on the same page and accountable to the outcomes you define. Relevant product KPIs may include profit margin, revenue, adoption rate, active users, and net promoter score.
8. Set a timeline
Missed deadlines cascade through product launches, delaying revenue and market entry. Set a timeline with specific milestones—from early planning through beta testing and product launch—to track progress and identify delays before they become disasters. This helps set expectations across all internal and external stakeholders, such as manufacturing and supply chain partners.
9. Collect feedback from stakeholders
Share the draft of your product brief with stakeholders to get their sign-off and identify any gaps or areas for improvement. A product brief is a living document that fosters collaboration, so remain open to feedback and change. If needed, continue iterating on the product brief and updating it as you move into the product development stage.
Product brief FAQ
How do you write a product brief?
An effective product brief begins by identifying the problem your product is trying to solve, states your objectives and success metrics, and defines your audience. Key components also include a comprehensive market analysis, competitor analysis, and information on consumer and industry trends, as well as a timeline for each stage of the process through beta testing and launch. You can write a brief from scratch or use a product brief template to get you started.
What is the difference between a product brief and a PRD?
A product brief serves as the foundation of a product’s development, providing an overview of its goals, vision, and requirements during the early stage of the development process. A PRD, or product requirements document, is a more technical framework that specifies details around functionality needs or engineering constraints.
What does a product brief look like?
A product brief can come in many forms, but it is typically organized by sections that are written with clarity and brevity. A product brief is intended for a variety of stakeholders, including the product development team, marketers, engineers, and designers, so it should use precise language and be easily digestible, regardless of expertise. Essential elements of a product brief include product specs and key features, timelines, market analysis, and success metrics.
