Did you know that 40% of students who took the ACT were not writing at a college level?

While writing is difficult, there are ways to improve your writing, especially when you follow a guide that can help you!

If you are writing a brief, this brief writing guide is for you! We’ll go over what a content brief is as well as how to write the best one you’ve ever written. Keep reading to learn more!

What Is a Writing Brief?

For starters, the first thing you need to know is what a writing brief, or otherwise known as a content brief, is.

A content brief is a document that is designed to instruct someone on how exactly to write a piece of content. It is exactly what it sounds like – it is a brief synopsis of what needs to go into a piece of content like a blog post, a webinar script, product pages, or an essay of sorts.

While it may seem like a simple outline that you are writing for a content brief, it is much more than that. A content brief has to be done well in order to prepare the writer to do their job well and at a high quality.

Types of Content Briefs

There are also a couple of types of content briefs as well.

For instance, you could have a legal brief which is what a lawyer submits to court when trying to get the court to rule on behalf of the client.

A creative brief is a much shorter document that outlines details for a written project or another type of project that involves creating content. This guides the creator of the project to create the campaign or written post successfully.

The Importance of Content Briefs

One of the most important reasons that content briefs exist is that experienced writers do not always have the knowledge to write exactly how a specific client wants. Even an experienced writer may also not understand SEO and how it works.

By giving them that information, they can better understand how to complete the project.

What Goes Into a Brief?

When you are writing a content brief, you need to make sure that you have the right components as part of it.

Typically, for a creative brief you would need the following parts on the brief:

• The overall content focus of the content that is being created
• Due dates for drafts and the final copy
• Post length or project length (such as the number of words for a blog post)
• Target keywords to improve SEO
• Topic summary
• Headers and different sections that must be included
• References
• Competing articles or other competition
• Any internal links that must be in the completed project

In addition to these must-have components of a writing brief, you may find that some also include:

• Target audience and demographic information
• Brand statement
• The channels where the client will post

For legal briefs, the content looks slightly different. You would expect to see:

• Facts about the case
• Information collected throughout the process from meetings and hearings
• The argument that addresses legal questions
• The summary of all the main points

How to Write a Successful Brief

When it comes time to write a brief, there are a few ways to make yourself more successful. By following these steps, you’ll have a successful brief to make sure the writer is set up for success.

Explain the Goals

The first thing you should do when writing the brief is to make sure that you tell the writer about the project background and the brand itself to ensure they know who you are and what you stand for.

By understanding your brand, they can better understand the goals of your project as you explain them.

You don’t need to go too in-depth in this section, but just enough so that the writer understands what they are doing for you.

Highlight the Project Objectives and Give a Summary

When it comes to the project that the content brief is giving an overview for, you have to highlight objectives that the content should meet.

This way, they have knowledge of the criteria for the project.

In addition to knowing the criteria for the project, you should also give a summary of everything that should be in the content they produce.

Add the Details

Once you properly explain your brand and who you are as well as the objectives for the content, you should add more details into the brief.

For starters, give some examples of competitors so that these are not included in the written content at all – you don’t want to have the writer link to these. On the other hand, you should give internal links that you want in the content to increase SEO, as well as the target keywords you have done the research for.

Since the writer may not know about SEO, this added information can help them create the best content for you.

In addition, you can add anything else you feel the writer may need to know for the content they are creating!

Writing a Brief the Right Way

When it comes to providing a brief for a writer, you need to make sure you are writing a brief in the right way to increase the odds that they hit the nail on the head the first time around.

Are you in need of a writer to get some content done for you? You can start writing briefs for writers if you get started now!