If you’re looking for a writer to produce bespoke content for your business or blog, chances are you’re trying to market your product or service, maybe even promote your brand or its reputation. And while writers can do a pretty good job of turning pen and paper (or, more accurately, a keyboard and screen monitor) into a magic recipe that makes your company sound like the bee’s knees, you need to play your part in setting them up for success.
In this article, we’re dissecting what makes for a great brief. When you’ve selected your content writer, you’ll be asked to send a message with a description explaining what you want them to produce. Here’s how to do it in the best way.
What to include in your writer’s brief:
1. Readable Brief File
2. Clear Deadlines
3. Word Count & Format
4. Specific Target Audience
5. Company Tone & Branding
6. Details, Details, Details
- Universal & Shareable Files
When outsourcing some of the marketing content writing, it doesn’t take much for things to get a little messy quickly. You’ll need to create a process that keeps track of communications, briefs and deadlines with your freelancers, and refine this process as you go. You’ll also want to limit back-and-forth emails about the task, which is why being as detailed as possible in your brief is essential, while also considering some more technical aspects, like the file format.
It’s best practice to use a PDF to write and store your brief because they’re universal, shareable and easy for your freelancers to read. Once you have a templated brief, you can also then simply edit the PDF document with the details of each task. Familiarise yourself with the format by learning things like how to edit PDF on Mac or PC, compress PDF files and secure them with a password for any sensitive information. With this knowledge, you’ll save lots of time on briefing your freelancers and major hassles from freelancers who can’t access other file formats.
- Clear Deadlines
It’s a good idea to have a soft deadline and a final deadline. A soft deadline is when you’d like to see progress on what’s been done so far. Whether you receive a first draft or a finished document, it will help you understand how close the content lines up with what you envisioned. Then, you can make clear edits and suggestions to the document before it’s published, and without losing the formatting. You can highlight the areas you’d like to be improved, and add any technical jargon or industry expertise. Then you can send it back to the writer for edits to be made before the final deadline.
Setting a clear deadline is also helpful because freelance writers are likely to be juggling multiple projects simultaneously. If you are working with established freelancers, then assume that their daily to-do list is a lot meatier than just your assignments alone. Making your briefs as succinct as possible will help them manage their workload to ensure you get great results promptly.
- Word Count & Format
When your writer is planning the content, they need to know the structure and the word limit they’re writing to. This will help them understand what they’re writing for and about, and how much detail needs to be included.
If you don’t have much experience with expected word counts for what you’re briefing on, try to provide as much insight into where the work will be published as you can. For example, ‘web page content to go at the bottom of a sub-category underneath listed items’, or ‘short, catchy press release, to email to relevant connections and industry leaders’.
Content structure is just as important. An email will be worded differently from an essay, and a guest blog might require a certain formatting formula to be consistent with other articles on the site. This seemingly simple information can make sure the content produced is more relevant for its purpose.
- Specific Target Audience
Knowing your target audience is an important part of the briefing process for writers, as it will help them adapt their content and the language they use to communicate to produce writing which is more likely to resonate and connect. Subtle changes in punctuation, sentence length and even structure can be adapted to suit different demographics.
Again, try to be as specific as possible. Rather than just ‘young women’ as the target audience for a mid-range skincare company, hone it down. And if you’re not overly familiar with who your target audience actually is, then conduct some market research or use an audience research tool to further outline your target readership for each piece of outsourced content.
Writing something in your brief such as ‘aimed at women in early twenties to mid-thirties who are new to investing in quality skincare, but see the value in sustainably produced products made from natural ingredients’ informs the writer not only of the demographic, but also why they might be interested in the business itself.
This crucial addition will help angle the content more towards the key selling points for a highly targeted audience.
- Company Tone & Branding
Once you hire a freelancer, they will want to know your existing brand language and the tone of your marketing, PR or other published content elsewhere. This will help to ensure consistent branding across your company, even if it’s written by multiple people, whether on a billboard poster, radio ad, or Instagram caption.
Provide adjectives, emotions and descriptive words you want your target audience to associate with your business. The writers will then communicate the important information in a tone that fits with your branding. Make sure to include words and phrases to avoid as well.
Don’t forget, content writers are skilled at writing, but they’re not experts in your industry field. If you spot something factually incorrect, it’s up to you to provide accurate information. Adopting a more collaborative approach can help you and your writer utilise both skill sets to create genuinely informative content that is well-composed and engaging.
- Details, Details, Details
The specifics will vary depending on your company, and the type of content a writer is producing for you. But in essence, the more details you can provide about your business and the content topic, the more the writer will have to work with.
Background information about who runs the business and how it was founded, how the daily operations run, and whether the topic of the brief is for something new, limited, exclusive or essential can all be helpful additions, even if they might not seem directly relevant to the work that’s being produced.
Important to note: we’re talking about details related to your business here, not micromanaging the content production itself. If you provide a brief that reads more like a sentence-by-sentence instruction manual, your writer is more likely to feel stifled than inspired. You want to provide information they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. Leave them to their area of expertise and make edits afterwards – rather than before – the content has been produced.
In Brief: Great Content Comes From Great Instructions
Hiring freelancers can be a great way to boost your business growth without paying for full-time employees. Creating a detailed brief is one of the most valuable things you can do for your freelance writers. It might seem like a time-consuming process to start with, but you’ll end up having to make fewer edits to the work you’re sent back, which will save time in the long run. And whilst it’s great to trust in the imagination and capacities of the writers you’re working with, you also need to make sure your visions are aligned in order to avoid disappointment.
Let’s recap again what a great brief for writers will contain:
– Be stored in an easy-to-access file format
– A soft and final deadline
– Word count and content structure guidelines
– Refined target audience
– Existing company branding and desired tone
– Plenty of details about your business and what you’re promoting
Now you’re equipped with all the information you need for your brief, to ensure that through a combination of unique talent and essential details, your writer will be able to produce great work for your company.
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