How to Write Kick Ass Briefs

Transcript

Hi guys,

I’m Dom, Technical Writer and part of the content team here at Insynth.

A lot of our work revolves around writing blogs for clients like you, focusing on a single topic and making sure the copy is carefully crafted, targeting specific keywords so you’re ranking high and raking in that organic traffic.

But for us to help you, first we need a bit of guidance.

So, with that in mind, here’s 3 tips that will make your writer’s work go from boring to bang on.

Tip #1 – Sum it Up

This one seems obvious, but it isn’t until you write it out that you realise what you need.
Let’s say you’re an outdoor flooring specialist and you’re about to release a new line of anti-slip garden decking. The objective could be something like ‘We want to introduce our customer base to our new product and highlight its 5 USPs’.

This gives your writer a clear and obvious target, enough to nudge them in the right direction.

If you can’t sum it up in a couple of sentences, the blog isn’t going to be very easy to follow – and blogs that aren’t easy to follow are ones Google tends to avoid.

Keep it simple and keep it clear.

Tip #2 - Write Down The Questions That You Want Answering

Heading into your brief, think about the 5 Ws – who, what, when, where and why?

Asking open questions is a great way to inspire a writer and help keep them on track when it comes to writing about your topics.
You could ask as many or as few as you’d like, but as long as they tie into the objective, your content is going to be top-notch.

Let’s take your outdoor flooring specialist, for example.

For the blog highlighting your new product, you might want to give the writer questions like:

‘Why is this new anti-slip 30% more weather resistant'?

‘Where are the best locations to use this decking?’

‘Who is this garden decking the perfect solution for?’

Straight off the bat, these 3 questions give the writer a target to aim for and a path through the blog.

Remember, you want to ask open-ended questions that allow the blog to explain reasons.

Tip #3 - Show Us Resources

Remember being at school and your teacher always asking you to reference your work? Writing a brief is exactly the same.

Having references is a great means to show you know what you’re talking about. Then you can use these links in the content, which is a tick in the box of Google and keeps you towards the top of Google.

These resources could be a range of things to help the writer out.

It might be a link to new legislation in your industry, it could be a series of statistics that tie into what you’re blogging about, or in the instance of your outdoor flooring business, it could be information about the type of anti-slip paint applied to the decking.

Being able to connect your blog to other relevant content is a huge tick for google rankings and can really help writer’s drive home the content.

Outro

And that’s it.

Those 3 key points can help turn a good blog into a great one.

Being able to sum up your objectives, asking questions you want answered and making the most of available resources will really help any brief.

Sticking to these and working closely with your marketing team are a sure-fired way to keep your content fresh; but, more importantly, relevant to you customers.

For anything else related to construction marketing then make sure you sign up to Insynth’s newsletter or book an appointment with one of our team.

I’ll see you next time.