Copywriting has changed in the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI). I find myself doing a lot more editing of AI-generated content now, for example, but I believe the comeback in brand storytelling is a sign that the essential human skill of written communication matters more than ever. And it all starts with a comprehensive brief.
When you brief your copywriter, whether they’re human or an AI*, your output will only be as strong as your brief. ‘Prompt literacy’ is an issue in PR (get in touch if you want to learn more on that and my AI for PR training). I would always argue for human copywriters, because they have trained judgement and understand culture.
A solid brief saves you time and money in the long run, making sure you get as close to your intended goal the first time.
Your checklist for briefing a copywriter
Here is a checklist of things to consider when briefing a copywriter or content creator. It may look like a lot, but they’re worth following so you’re clear in your own mind what you want from the piece:
- What is the format of the content? (e.g. blog post, article, case study, white paper, report, ebook etc.)
- What’s your business objective for the content? What do you want the reader to understand?
- Where does the content fit into your sales funnel?
- What are your key messages, and what information can you provide to support them?
- Who is the main audience (persona)? What is their level of understanding of the topic? What is their need? Why should they be interested?
- What is the brand’s tone of voice? Can you provide examples of your house style or a few links to some writing styles that you like?
- Should the post be written in the first or third person? If it is written in first person, provide their name and role. A biography can also be helpful if your copywriter is not familiar with their background.
- What are your key takeaways? What information do you want readers to understand and remember?
- Any research/data, supporting assets or third-party quotes to include?
- Any links to include?
- Any keywords or phrases to include?
- Have you researched any queries from large language models (LLMs) that you want to include for GEO (AI search) reasons?
- How many words do you need?
- What timeframes are you working to?
- Who are the stakeholders?
How we work on copywriting projects at Eight Moon Media
When we engage with you, having received the brief, the process would typically include:
- An initial briefing call to clarify the brief and address any questions
- Interviews conducted over Zoom or Teams. We prefer to record interviews and use Otter.ai to make a transcription
- We use Grammarly to check our final draft for quality, grammar, and originality
- We will create the first draft and share it with you for your feedback
- Depending on the size of the project, we usually include one round of edits in our copywriting service, or two for longer projects (like reports)
We provide a briefing checklist to help us nail down the copy within that scope without the need for extra rewriting costs. However, it is worth us sharing a bit of insight around rewriting needs, because in our experience, when clients request rewriting, it’s nearly always down to stakeholders wanting to add extra information or different messaging to the original brief.
Your brand will probably already have a brand guide with tone of voice and messaging guidance, which you can also give to your copywriter. If you don’t have a brand guide, we can help you to develop one. Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
Are you ready to brief out a copywriting project and in need of an expert B2B technology copywriter? Please drop me an email.
*I am typically against using AI to create content intended for publication, because you run the risk of hallucination, plagiarism, and generating slop that a) requires a re-write or edit, and/or b) can be detected by AI bots as AI-generated and therefore marked down for SEO and AI search (GEO). However, I use it to summarise my own content (e.g. podcast transcripts) and understand that companies can save time on repeatable content, such as press releases.