How To Write a Content Brief and Unlock Its Power

Every content professional has experienced this scenario: A strategist submits a request, and the writer submits a high-quality piece that is not quite a match. The piece might take an unexpected angle, target a different audience segment, or miss points the strategist intended to include.

Learning how to write a content brief can prevent these mix-ups. Content briefs keep the whole team on the same page, so your writers spend more time writing and less revising, and you publish more top-quality content.

Importance of Content Briefs in Content Creation

A content brief is a detailed set of instructions for a requested piece of content, such as a blog post. It includes everything most strategists already include in their basic requests: the topic, main points, and word count. 

A brief goes several steps further, setting clear expectations for the final piece. It explains the piece's goals, includes required and recommended keywords and links, and provides a general outline for the writer. 

This has many benefits across the content creation process, such as:

• Clear expectations: Writers understand key points from the beginning, so they don't have to spend time on guesswork.
• Less back-and-forth: A straightforward content brief means fewer questions to answer before the writer can start.
• Fewer revisions: A complete guide to requirements increases the writer's chance of getting it right the first time, reducing the need for costly rewrites and revisions.
• Space for creativity: While a brief's structure tells writers what to include, it also frees them to express those points creatively.
• Happier clients: Content briefs offer a convenient way to communicate clients' and higher-ups' preferences, enabling writers to produce better-fit results.

The best way to see the power of a content brief is to implement the process on your team. Here's how to do that in a way that supports everyone, from the writer to the customer who reads their work.

What Makes a Good Brief?

An effective brief tells the content creator what they need to know to succeed. It outlines the goals of a piece and the points the writer should make to achieve them.

A comprehensive brief touches on strategy, style, and message. Most briefs include search engine optimization (SEO) tips, such as keywords and link requirements. You must understand your overall strategy and who you're speaking to to communicate these points successfully.

Identify Your Target Audience

According to Google, the most successful content from an SEO perspective is valuable, trustworthy, and "people-first." If it provides its audience with reliable information, it's more likely to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Understanding your target audience is crucial in developing content. These are the people most likely to be interested in your product or service and, by extension, your content. 

Members of your target audience will share key characteristics, such as:

• Demographics: Age, gender, family status, income, education level, and similar descriptors
• Location: Region or market as it affects buying needs
• Psychographics: Personal characteristics like interests, values, and self-identified communities
• Consumer behavior: Buying patterns and shopping preferences

A valuable way to define your target audience is to create a user persona. A persona is a fictionalized but highly detailed character sketch of your ideal target audience member. These tools allow writers to picture their readers, understand audience needs, and craft more relevant messages.

Establish Clear Content Objectives and Goals

Communicating content goals to a writer is like taking the blindfold off an expert archer. You can ask the best writer on your team to craft a piece of content for Audience A on Topic B, but unless you tell them what you want it to achieve, they're shooting in the dark.

Every experienced writer and strategist knows the struggle. For writers, it's the frustration of spending hours searching, outlining, and drafting a piece, only to find that it doesn't fit the strategy and needs a complete rewrite. For strategists, it's the need to completely revise a timeline because the piece you expected isn't what you received.

Objectives and goals provide the writer with targets to hit. Goals are the big-picture achievements that move the strategy forward. Examples include increasing brand awareness, strengthening the company's thought leadership, or entering a new market.

Objectives are the measurable, smaller steps that move a brand toward its goals. For example, a business seeking to increase awareness might aim to grow newsletter subscribers by 50% before the end of the year or double the number of social media brand mentions.

Writers use content goals and objectives to give a piece focus and direction. Including those elements in your content brief enriches the writer's toolbox and brings the final product closer to what you need.

Conduct Keyword and SEO Research

SEO is foundational to content success, yet too many teams consider it an add-on. They assume a well-written piece will find its audience, and a keyword or two is the icing on the cake.

In today's crowded content market, that's far from the case. Every piece of content needs thorough keyword and SEO research to understand how its target audience searches and what keywords, links, and phrases will reach that audience.

SEO content briefs optimize the content creation workflow so writers begin a project with all that information at their fingertips. Instead of researching keywords in a silo, often disconnected from internal customer knowledge, the writer can produce compelling content faster.

While the writer is hard at work producing a draft, the SEO team is already working diligently on the subsequent brief. 

Identifying Target Keywords

The more relevant your content is to a particular search, the more likely it is to rank highly. Keywords are the clues that tell a search engine what your content is about. If you don't tell your writers what keywords to target, they have to make assumptions, and the wrong ones can make you miss your audience entirely.

To prevent these unnecessary misfires, your content briefs should include two types of SEO keywords. The first is the primary keyword, the term or phrase you most want to rank for. Consider it your content's focus in a nutshell.

For example, suppose your digital marketing agency wants more social media management clients. After some brainstorming and research, you conclude that your target clients are Googling versions of "how to create a social media strategy." That becomes your primary keyword.

Your secondary keywords provide context for your primary keyword, telling search engines what smaller topics you address within the broader one. These keywords match your content with the specific audience segment you plan to target.

Continuing with the social media example, suppose your target audience consists of small business owners with minimal marketing experience. You meet that need by gearing your content to beginners. 

This leads you to secondary keywords like:

• Small business social media
• Basic social media strategy
• Social platforms
• Social media ads

You can request multiple secondary keywords, but avoid choosing too many. While it might be tempting to scatter keywords like breadcrumbs, hoping to catch as many readers as possible, quantity beats quality in SEO. Every secondary keyword should relate to your target audience and goals.

Providing Links

Linking is another way content creators provide context to search algorithms. Internal links tell crawlers more about your site's structure and how different site pages connect. External links signal trustworthiness and credibility by highlighting where your information comes from.

Experienced writers know the value of internal and external linking. However, they don't necessarily know which internal pages need more links, how many links the brand prefers, and whether any sources are preferable or off-limits.

A content brief is the perfect place to provide this information. Include a list of required or recommended internal links and specify any URLs or domains you'd like to avoid linking to. 

Also, communicate any linking policies or requirements that apply across the brand's content. Some brands prefer to restrict links to specific types of sites, such as .gov or .edu, while others accept any non-competing sources. If you have particular competitors you want to avoid, it's better to list them than ask the writer to replace a source. 

Define the Tone and Style of Your Content

Content effectiveness comes from what you say and how you say it. The "how" boils down to tone and style — how the writer conveys a message and the structure they use to express it.

Communicating Brand Style

Matching tone and voice is a crucial content writing skill. Brand voice expresses a company's public persona and should be consistent across all content. Consistent branding earns audiences' trust, strengthens customer relationships, and builds awareness among new and existing audiences. Those benefits can translate to a 10% to over 20% revenue boost.

The best way to maintain consistency is to provide all content creators with a brand style guide. Style guides define how you present your brand to audiences, from details like color palette, logo, and grammar preferences to your unique value proposition.

If your content brief links to a style guide, it will be easier for your writers to maintain your consistent brand voice. It's also helpful to include examples of published articles or web pages showcasing that voice. 

Specifying Content Tone

If voice is your brand's personality, tone is how you apply that voice in different situations. For example, imagine a brand with a voice you describe as "knowledgeable but approachable" — a senior colleague offering advice over coffee. A writer can use that voice to take an informative tone in a how-to blog post or an enthusiastic tone in a new product announcement. 

When you communicate your desired tone for a piece, you help your writer refine their approach and produce the content you envision. For best results, create a dedicated section in your content brief template where the brief creator can describe the tone of a piece. 

A dropdown list of adjectives can help, particularly if you have multiple brief creators. Include helpful descriptors such as:

• Persuasive
• Instructional
• Informational
• Funny
• Serious
• Formal
• Casual

Allow brief creators to choose one or two descriptors per piece. This limit will help keep your writers focused and prevent them from becoming overwhelmed.

Outline the Structure of Your Content

An outline lets you share your vision for a piece in detail. Writers can review each section as they plan and understand what to cover. They can move more efficiently through the drafting process without agonizing over what to include. They can submit a piece knowing it's what you expect, and the editing process will go much faster.

What To Include in Your Outline

An effective content brief outline should include the following elements:

• Title: One or more specific titles or a request for the writer to choose the title
• Headers: Required or recommended H2s, notated accordingly
• Subheaders: Any H3s you want to nest under the H2s
• Section instructions: Your descriptor of what each section should cover

For example, the first few lines of an outline on content brief outlines might look like this:

<H1> How To Structure an Outline

Intro:  Why outline structure matters

<H2>  Choosing Headers for SEO

<H3> Incorporating Keywords

<H3> Providing Structure

<H2> How Much Should You Give a Writer?

Your outline's headers and subheaders can be as specific or general as you'd like. If you present them in what looks like a finished format, complete with capitalization and punctuation, writers will typically take them as verbatim instructions unless you've informed them otherwise.

Tips for Outlining Effectively

As you create your outline, consider who will read it. An entirely in-house team may need fewer instructions than one that frequently works with new freelancers. For example, if your H2s and H3s are suggestions rather than requirements, and you're unsure whether the writer will know that, include language like "rephrase as necessary."

Be concise in your section descriptions. A sentence or two is usually enough to communicate what you want the writer to include. Specify any must-haves for the section, but leave room for creative freedom where possible.

Determine Word Count and Deadlines

Content briefs allow you to convey creative and logistic instructions in one convenient place. Make sure your brief template has sections for deadline and word count requirements, and establish norms for how writers should use that information.

For example, having a word count target helps writers plan and tells them how much detail to include. Use ranges to communicate when there's some flexibility.

Likewise, be sure the writer knows their deadline and the piece's final publication or submission date. While on-time submission is always the goal, life happens, and project timelines shift. Writers appreciate knowing which pieces are particularly urgent, and your team will benefit if writers can easily adjust workflows.

Incorporate Visual Requirements

In Venngage's most recent visual content survey, 85.7% of marketers classified visual content as "quite important" or "very important" to their brand strategies. Another 23.8% admitted their strategies were "nothing without visual content."

Visuals are essential because they increase the engagement value of content and present information in an easily digestible format. Research has shown that the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and we remember 55% more when content includes an image. Images even boost the search ranking of content because Google's algorithms understand their value.

One way to strengthen the visual element of your content is to include it in your briefs. Create an "image requirements" section and describe the images you plan to include. 

Be sure to communicate:

• Who the note is for: The team member responsible for sourcing or creating the requested visuals
• Subject and tone: What the visual should include, using language like "stock photo of a woman with a child" or "infographic of findings from March survey"
• Metadata: Any requested accessibility alt text, in-content caption, or image credits, and who should include that information
• Overall context: Where the visual will appear in the content

Visual content usually involves multiple team members, so be clear about who is responsible for each step. Make sure collaborators can easily communicate and provide links to content libraries as necessary.

Include Calls to Action (CTAs)

A call to action is what makes your content pay off. The intro hooks the reader, the body provides value and earns their trust, and the call to action inspires them to learn more. 

Including call-to-action requirements in your content brief can help you increase each piece's value. The destination URL is the most essential element to include, as this pathway will determine how the piece fits into your overall strategy.

You can also include anchor text requirements and any specific wording. However, this can be a valuable place to leave word choice in the writer's hands. CTA writing is a specialized copywriting and content-writing skill, meaning your writers have something valuable to offer. 

Common Challenges in Writing Content Briefs

Although content briefs simplify and expedite the writing process, introducing them is always a learning process. Even experienced teams struggle with issues such as:

• Preventing misinterpretation: All writing, including content briefs, is subject to interpretation. Always provide a channel for writers to ask clarifying questions, and don't hesitate to run critical instructions past another team member.
• Designating responsibility: Each person reading the brief should understand which instructions apply to them and which are for another team member. Don't hesitate to add tags like "For Writer" or "For Editor," even if it appears obvious.
• Finding the right level of detail: It's essential to balance providing enough information and letting the writer do their job.  

When in doubt, consider when you'd send the piece back for revisions. If you know what would cause you to ask the writer to include something, mention it in the outline. Doing so can save your writers and editors hours of work and reduce frustration on both sides.

Understanding AI: A Tool for Enhancement, Not Replacement

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable tool for content planning. In HubSpot's 2024 State of Marketing and Trends Report, 85% of respondents say it has changed how they create content. Almost two-thirds say that most content creation now involves AI, at least partially.

Yet, AI has firm limits to its usefulness. Among survey respondents who use AI to create content, 95% still need to make "light to major edits" to make it usable. 

Usability is the sole function of a brief, yet some content strategists still rely on AI in the briefing process. In a recent episode of Compose.ly's Content Matters podcast, host Nicole MacLean discussed this issue with Compose.ly Head of Editorial Ashley Strosnider and special guest Chris Baszuto of Industrious.

What AI Can and Can't Do

AI only knows what you tell it about your business. The only way to get a helpful brief from generative AI is to tell it what the writer needs to know. At that point, Strosnider points out, you might as well write a brief instead of a prompt. What you create will include more insight and awareness than anything AI can generate.

None of this means that AI is useless. It excels at summarizing and synthesizing large volumes of information, identifying patterns, and providing multiple ways to express ideas — all of which can be useful functions for brief creators. The key is to work within AI's limits, giving it repetitive preparatory tasks so humans can focus on creativity.

Using AI in Brief Planning

AI can't replace human creativity or develop an insightful brief, but it excels at synthesizing information. If you ever struggle with kick-starting brief creation or preliminary research, AI can help with tasks such as:

• Higher-level planning: Synthesizing the key points of competing articles to know what you need to include  to stay competitive
• Summarizing data: Listing industry trends, popular article titles, etc., so you can differentiate your article
• Identifying keywords: Finding common terms in competing articles
• Brainstorming ideas: Generating multiple versions of a header or keyword so humans have more options to work with

As Strosnider emphasizes, AI is a valuable tool for boosting human creativity. However, because artificial intelligence lacks human insight or originality, brief creation will remain a human-only task.

Collaborative Creativity: The Future of Human-AI Partnerships in Marketing

Like any member of your content team, AI excels at specific tasks and falls short at others. But unlike the rest of your team, creativity is where it proves lacking.

Understanding limitations is key to getting the most out of AI. Assigning repetitive tasks, like summarizing and data synthesis, can provide a helpful starting point. You'll have more time to be creative, and your briefs will be more robust.

Interested in learning more about AI and the brief development process? Check out the second episode of Content Matters, "Creating the Best Possible Content Brief." If you find it valuable, don't forget to subscribe!

‍