10 Mistakes to Avoid When Leading a Creative Project

You’re a small business marketer and you’ve made it. You've worked hard to build your brand. Your mission is clear. Your product is ready. Now comes one of the most exciting (and daunting) parts of your role: bringing your story to life through creative work.

Whether you're commissioning your first brand video, launching a digital campaign, or commissioning a short explainer animation, leading a creative project should be energising. But without the right approach, it can quickly become overwhelming - especially when you're managing everything else your business needs.

Here are 10 strategic mistakes we’ve come across from working with big and small marketing teams. And what to do instead.

1. Neglecting your brief documentation

Your brief is your blueprint: the reference point that guides every decision throughout the project. For those working with creative partners outside of your core team, this document is especially critical.

Whether you're building a small animation,a complex CGI experience, or digital landing page,  creative briefs are too often vague - enough to breed miscommunication, unclear expectations, and work that misses the mark. A strong brief eliminates ambiguity.

What to include in your creative brief checklist:

• Context and background

• Clear objectives

• Audience definition

• Budget and resource allocation

• Creative references or inspiration

• Technical specifications

• Any constraints or requirements

Before you start, complete your brief. Circulate it among stakeholders and creative partners. Address gaps early. For small teams where every pound counts, this  single document will prevent countless headaches later. If you’re already working with Tone Def., you know our team carefully craft these guidelines with you ahead of any work. And if you want to find out more, check out our production process here.

2. Rushing your research phase

As a marketing professional, you know your customers. You talk to them daily. But when it comes to creative campaigns, there's a temptation to skip formal research and rely on assumptions. 

You have an objective to achieve - awareness, engagement, conversion. But your audience doesn't care about your intentions. They care about their own struggles, pain points, and desires.

Deep research isn't optional. Understanding who your audience is and what drives them should inform every creative and strategic decision. Your message needs to address their needs, not just broadcast yours.

For small businesses, research can simply mean listening to customer feedback, analysing what content performs, understanding where your audience spends time, and asking them directly what they need.

Produce something irrelevant and you're shouting into the void. The execution might be beautiful, but without resonance, it's just expensive noise that you can’t afford.

3. kicking off with unclear Project Governance

In small businesses and organisations, marketers often wear multiple hats. You might be managing the creative project, liaising with the founder, coordinating with sales, and keeping finance in the loop -all at once.

Who's involved in this project? What are they responsible for? How do they interact?

Without clear governance, you'll face conflict and miscommunication as people operate with competing assumptions about roles and authority.

Define this from the outset. Not everyone needs the same level of involvement. Use project management tools like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to map roles clearly. This clarity saves time, reduces friction, and improves outcomes. And it protects you from scope creep when "quick feedback" from the CEO turns into a major redesign.

4. aiming for overly Optimistic Timelines

Whether you’re developing your brand launch campaign or building a series of explainer videos for your new product, creative projects almost always take longer than estimated… even with AI or other accelerators. And when you're a small business marketer juggling multiple priorities, underestimating timelines creates cascading problems.

Account for discussion, feedback cycles, revisions, and stakeholder sign-offs. Consider how many review rounds you'll need and how long each one realistically takes. Your creative partner might turn work around quickly, but how long does it take for your founder to review? For legal to sign off?

Build these realities into your timeline. For small businesses launching seasonal campaigns or time-sensitive promotions, rushed feedback creates poor work -or missed opportunities.

Realistic scheduling protects quality and reduces stress.

5. Ignoring Risk Assessment & Mitigation planning

There's the ideal plan, and then there's reality.

Technical integrations fail. Strategies shift. Budgets tighten. Rather than scrambling reactively when issues arise, identify potential risks upfront and prepare mitigation plans.

Whether it's a backup integration, contingency budget, or alternative creative direction, anticipating problems before they escalate brings both control and calm.

6. Not setting up KPIs

If you can't articulate what success looks like, you can't achieve it.

Define clear KPIs early and make sure they have their dedicated section in your creative brief template. 

This alignment ensures everyone shares the same vision of "good."

But also build in flexibility. Markets shift. Businesses evolve. Strategic rigidity can kill a long-term project. Leave room to adapt without losing focus.

7. Executing Before Testing

When you're working with a limited budget, the pressure to "just launch it" is real. But if you're trying something new - whether it's your first animation, a new digital experience, or an innovative campaign format - you're exploring unknown territory.

Innovation is valuable. But you can't predict outcomes for work you've never done before.

Test early. Work with your creative partners to prototype a section, create rough sketches, or produce a portion of the work. Test it internally, then with a small segment of your audience.

For small business marketers, this doesn't require expensive testing infrastructure. Share a draft video with existing customers. Run a small paid test of your ad creative. Get feedback before committing your full budget.

Early testing catches problems when they're cheap to fix and surfaces insights that elevate the final product; protecting your investment.

8. Under-Communicating

When multiple people and moving parts converge, the instinct is to focus on momentum - moving fast, making progress. 

But an issue affecting one stakeholder will most certainly ripple and generate creative project delays. Build structured, regular communication into your process so the team can surface problems, share progress, and adjust course together.

Managing creative stakeholders isn’t rocket science: just remember that transparency prevents surprises.

9. Communicating… Without Structure

Frequent communication is valuable. Chaotic communication is paralysing.

Meetings without agendas waste time. Unclear feedback channels create confusion. When communication lacks structure, teams spend energy managing process instead of producing work.

Establish clear rules of engagement: how feedback is delivered, where decisions are documented, what each meeting achieves. Structured communication creates space for the team to focus on what matters.

10. Not Listening - to Your Team or Your Audience

As a small business marketer, you live and breathe your brand. You have vision, passion, and probably strong opinions about how things should look and feel.

But execution requires collaboration - especially when you're working with external creative studios, designers, or freelancers.

Your creative partners bring expertise that you likely don't have in-house, whether it be animation, digital design, CGI, film production, or post-production. They've solved problems you haven't encountered yet. Ignoring their input risks missing critical execution issues, or breakthrough ideas that could elevate your campaign.

Listen to their recommendations. Ask questions. Understand their reasoning. Good creative partnerships are collaborative, not transactional.

And once your project is live, create feedback loops with your audience. For small businesses, this is easier than you think: monitor comments, track engagement, ask directly. Understanding how your audience responds allows you to refine, improve, and produce work that stays relevant to maximise the value of your creative investment.

Creative production: your best ally for growth

By knowing which pitfalls to avoid and making sure you’re well prepared, the process of producing creative campaigns or experiences can be extremely rewarding and satisfying. Above all, you're well positioned to lead creative projects that really engage your audiences and supercharge your business impact.

If you’re ready to work with a creative partner who doesn’t just understand your constraints and ambitions but guides you through the whole process for seamless executions, we’re here. Tone Def. specialises in design, animation, digital experiences, and film production for businesses just like yours.

And for more tactical tips from our creative production experts: stay tuned.