7 Factors to ensure while creating a writing brief

Introduction

Many often make a common error in judgment thinking that if they’re an expert, their content will rank up. However, as Google often reiterates, especially with EEAT, this is not the case. In fact, ranking content needs to have EEAT, which stands for:

• 1.   Experience
• 2.   Expertise
• 3.   Authority
• 4.   Trust

As one can easily observe, expertise is just 25% of the key to successful content. Thus, even experts often employ writers, or even a writing service organization, to get the right content. But even, then experts don’t feel that the content they get is justified. While their issues are quite genuine, we believe the factor behind this resulting dissatisfaction can often result from inefficient initial communication.

Why is strong communication important for briefs?

Your briefs are the initial communication you have with your writer. Whether the said writer is actively in your employment or simply hired solely for the project, it’s important that the brief is enough for them to completely understand what you want.

Moreover, there are multiple benefits of having a solid brief as well as consequent communication with the writer.

Firstly, it minimizes the time you spend waiting for the delivery of your project. If the writer is acutely aware of what you want, and how to get it done, then they’ll easily whip up the content you need.

Think of your writer as a spokesperson going for a press conference. You need to prepare them such that they can answer any and every question you want to be answered with your content.

Secondly, strong communication means you will need minimal revisions. Now, of course, there is a margin that you’ll need a few things tweaked, but the crux you require should be present in the content you get.

Fewer revisions not only save time but also patience. Also, maximum satisfaction.

Thirdly, your content will come out unique. It will be to your liking and establish your core competence the right way. In other words, the content you get will sound native to your brand, which should be the main reason for strong communication.

As earlier mentioned, you need strong content briefs. While there are many content brief templates available too to choose from, it’s always best to create one from scratch. We agree that creating a brief from scratch might take more time than using a template

Now that you know why strong communication is important, and that the brief is the cornerstone to initiate it, let us tell you the essential factors for your perfect brief, which should result in the perfect content.

1. Make sure your Objective is Clear

Content briefs by default are provided to ensure that the writer gets the point you want to be made with the content. Remember, the writer is the expert at communicating your message. However, they won’t be able to effectively communicate until they completely understand what you want to say.

This is why it’s extremely important that you provide your objectives as clearly as possible in your content briefs. The clarity in the briefs can translate into clarity in the content.

2. Describe your Desired Tone

Make sure that you tell the writer what you want your tone to be. Most writers are already apt and can visualize your desired tone as soon as you mention your brand and the medium of your content piece.

However, it is still important that you exclusively communicate this. It ensures that your requirements are effectively understood and your writer doesn’t mess up the project by trying to imitate your tone. Maybe you want to go a bit informal with your blog this time, let them know.

3. Talk about the medium you’ll use

As a brief writer, one of the first few things you’ll need to inform the writer is the medium you’re going for. This tells the writer how to approach the project. If you mention email, they’ll start thinking along the lines of subject copies that hook the reader.

If it’s a blog, they’ll likely create the whole blog piece with your topic and create the title at the end to justify the body. Telling the writer about your medium will also let them estimate the length of your piece.

4. Provide a few references of what you like

It’s a good point to provide your writer with references to the stuff you’re looking for. It helps them grasp the concept. References are often an underrated aspect of content briefs.

However, content writing examples can really make a difference between a proper vs. an improper brief. A list of references helps your writer get an idea of what you might like, or even directly want.

Also, a writer’s ego will prevent them from copying from the references you give, so they’ll start brainstorming on a way to do something even better than your expectations. Good writers love going above and beyond expectations, as they love getting compliments, especially from clients.

Besides, with references, they get the direction that you want to be followed.

5. Tell your writer what NOT to do

While it might seem like a petty issue, it’s best to let your writer know what they should not be doing. In fact, be as thorough as possible to tell them what you don’t want in your content. Doing this will limit their thinking process and they will naturally refrain from things that might result in revisions.

Also providing things that you specifically don’t want will open new realms for the writer. While this might seem puzzling, there is this concept of creativity often employed by individuals when they are restricted. Buffer.com has a whole article published on how constraints might help creativity and productivity.

This boost of creativity will likely blow your mind with how creativity can have epic proportions.

6. Provide any ideas you might have

Another point you can add to your briefs is telling the writer about any ideas you might have. This one is a bit optional as you don’t necessarily need to have great ideas and this works specifically to tell the writer what you might like.

Although it is the writer’s job to execute your idea, and you aren’t obliged to provide an idea, but if you do, the writer can nail the content. Now, these ideas aren’t limited by any means. You can provide content writing examples or even samples of something you’d like copied.

However, be wary of one thing. You want originality in the idea too, so ask the writer for their input. It might help to have a bit of back and forth early in your project, as opposed to having arguments at the end.

7. Engage them with your brand collateral (If needed)

Okay, so this one is optional but can help with creating perfect content briefs. The idea is to engage writers and tell them about your brand as much as possible. Being thorough is always helpful.

This might feel like a lot of work for a brief writer and might feel like too much work for a brief, but ultimately the initial brief can lead to the writer’s perfect understanding of your requirements too.

Conclusion:

So this was our take on the essential factors you might require to communicate best with a writer. Following these points, we believe you can create the brief that will get your objective accomplished with minimal revisions.

We hope this was helpful to you. We do almost every type of content, and you check out our services here. Our process is quite simple and we provide ample space with an easy form to ensure your briefs can define best what you want too.

If you’re looking to order content from the best place, you can sign up or login to our portal and start ordering. We’ll be looking forward to your briefs.
Ciao.