Most writers will have experienced the frustration of submitting a content draft, only to have it return with an endless list of amends and changes. This can lead to a tiring back and forth with the client, which can become a waste of your time and resources. But this can often be avoided by simply creating a content brief beforehand!
The content brief is essential to efficient content creation. It’s the blueprint that establishes the exact requirements for the content so that it can be created properly from the start, avoiding the need for changes and rewrites down the line.
But just in case you aren’t convinced, we’re going to break down exactly why briefs are important, and what they should include. Let’s get right into it!
Top reasons you should have content briefs:
- Clarity:
A content brief provides a clear summary of what is required for the content, ensuring the project objectives are understood by all involved parties. This way, everyone tasked with creating the content is aligned, and there are no misunderstandings.
- Ease:
Having a content brief makes content creation easier. It provides writers with a guideline, and a breakdown of the main points or data that should be included, giving them a solid starting point. This also speeds up the process, as they can get started right away, without having to ask questions on the practicalities!
- Efficiency:
Having a content brief hugely decreases the risk of making mistakes, and therefore, requiring complete re-writes. They streamline the process of content creation by giving writers clarity on what’s expected from the get-go.
- Collaboration:
If several people are working on creating the necessary content, having a brief can ensure everyone is on the same page, facilitating collaboration. It’s a great way to provide information across a group of team members and allows for a common framework from which to work.
- Consistency:
Within longer-term marketing strategies, content briefs can be crucial in ensuring consistency across all content creation. If all projects use the same brief as a reference, everything will adhere to the same guidelines and brand preferences, resulting in a cohesive look across all material.
What should a content brief include?
Hopefully, we’ve made it pretty clear that content briefs are important, and should be utilised within content creation. But… What should they include?
Well, we covered a little about what you should put into a content brief in our ‘How to create a content brief’ mini guide. Ultimately, the exact contents of the brief will depend on the specific needs of each business. However, here is our breakdown of the basics that should usually always be included:
- Content’s objectives – What is the purpose of the content? What goals should it be steered toward? Include a summary of this within the brief, to give writers a clear understanding of the message that the content should convey.
- Target audience – Who is the content for? The writers must know who they are targeting so that the right language and techniques can be implemented. After all, the main purpose of the content is to engage the audience, and knowing them is key.
- Primary and secondary keywords – If you want the content to be optimised, make sure the brief includes the keywords you’d like for it to integrate. These should align with the rest of your SEO strategies, to encourage the best results.
- Dates and deadlines – The brief is the perfect place to establish all of the practicalities of the content creation, such as timeframes, deadlines, and similar. This allows writers to organise their work schedule, and get everything done on time!
- Ownership – Especially useful if the content is a collaboration between several parties or team members. Who is responsible for what? Where is the data being sourced from? And who owns the final results?
- Guidelines and style preferences – A brief should include an overview of any particular guidelines regarding the content creation, along with style preferences and requirements. Anything that can help the writers get it right the first time, without having to resort to changes later on.
- Additional requirements – Your brief should include any other information that you deem important, especially any requirements that will shape what the content looks like, and what it covers.
The more effort you put into a content brief, the easier the content creation process will be. Think of it as the foundation level, upon which you build all the rest. The more information, the fewer questions writers will have, and the more aligned everyone involved will be regarding what’s expected and required.
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