Guide and template

How to brief a copywriter

A clear brief is the cheapest way to get better copy. It costs you twenty minutes and it removes most of the guessing that produces drafts you do not like. Here is what to include, what to leave out, and a template you can copy.

Why the brief decides the draft

Writers do not invent persuasion out of nothing. They assemble it out of what they know about your reader, your offer and your evidence. When the brief is thin, a writer has to guess at all three, and the draft comes back generic because generic is what a guess produces.

Nearly every draft that gets rejected as “not quite us” was briefed as “write us a page about our service”. The revision rounds that follow are the two parties discovering, slowly and expensively, what the brief should have said on day one.

The seven things every brief needs

1. The one reader. Not a demographic. One person, described as you would describe them to a colleague: what they do, what they are worried about, what they have already tried. If there are three audiences, say which one this piece is for, because a page written for everyone persuades no one.
2. The one action. What should they do, specifically, having read it. Book, buy, reply, download, call. If you cannot name one action, the piece is not ready to be written.
3. How you will know it worked. The number you will look at afterwards, and what it is now. This single line changes how the whole piece gets written, and it is the one most briefs omit.
4. The offer, in full. What they get, what it costs, what is included, what the guarantee or risk reversal is. Vague pricing produces vague copy.
5. Your proof. Results, numbers, testimonials, case studies, credentials, anything verifiable. Hand over everything you have, even if it feels thin. Proof is what turns claims into belief, and most businesses underestimate what they already hold.
6. The objections you hear. The real ones, in your customers’ own words, including the awkward ones about price. These are the most valuable lines in any brief, because answering them is most of the job.
7. The constraints. Length, format, where it will appear, legal or regulatory limits, words you cannot use, the deadline. Better said up front than discovered at review.

If you only have time for three, give the writer the reader, the action and the objections. Those three carry more of the draft than the other four combined.

The template

Copy this, fill it in, send it. It is deliberately short, because a brief nobody completes helps nobody.

WHAT WE NEED
Piece:            (e.g. sales page, 5-email sequence, home page)
Deadline:
Where it appears:

THE READER
Who this is for:
What they are trying to solve:
What they have already tried:
How much they already know about us:

THE ACTION
What they should do:
What happens immediately after they do it:

THE MEASURE
How we will know it worked:
What that number is today:

THE OFFER
What they get:
Price and terms:
Guarantee or risk reversal:
Why ours rather than the alternative:

PROOF WE CAN USE
Results and numbers:
Testimonials and case studies:
Credentials:

OBJECTIONS WE ACTUALLY HEAR
1.
2.
3.

CONSTRAINTS
Length:
Must include:
Must avoid:
Approvals needed:

If a section is genuinely unknown, write “not sure” rather than leaving it blank. “Not sure how we will measure this” is useful information. A blank line looks like an oversight; an admission tells the writer where to start the conversation.

What to leave out

• Tone adjectives with no example. “Professional but friendly” means something different to everyone. Send two pieces of writing you like and one you do not, and say why. Five minutes of examples beats a paragraph of adjectives.
• Your draft of the copy. Send the facts, not your attempt at the writing, unless you want it used. A pre-written draft tends to anchor the writer to your structure, which is the thing you are paying to have reconsidered.
• Keyword lists without context. Useful to a point, and counterproductive when they arrive as a quota. Say what the page should rank for and let the writer place the terms.
• Internal jargon, unexplained. If your industry has terms the reader will not know, flag them. If the reader does use them, say so, because stripping them out would cost credibility.

The mistakes that cost the most

• Briefing a piece when the real problem is elsewhere. Plenty of requested rewrites are actually traffic or offer problems. Worth checking with this diagnostic before commissioning anything.
• Too many approvers, named too late. Three people with different opinions arriving at round two will produce a draft that satisfies nobody. Name them in the brief and get them to agree the brief, not the draft.
• Withholding the price. Writers are often asked to persuade without knowing what the thing costs. Price shapes every argument on the page.
• No access to customers. The phrases that persuade your buyer usually come from your own customers, not from research. Even two short calls, or a handful of reviews, change the quality of what comes back.

If the brief turns out to be harder to write than expected, that is not a failure. It usually means the strategy underneath has not been settled yet, which is a different conversation and a more valuable one to have first.

How I handle briefing

You do not have to use this template with me. Every project starts with a questionnaire covering the same ground, followed by a conversation once I have done some research, which is where the sharpest answers usually surface. The CULTIVATE method sets out the full sequence.

The template is here because it is useful whoever you hire, and because a client who has thought about these seven things gets better work out of any writer.

Frequently asked questions

What should a copywriting brief include?

Seven things: the one reader it is for, the one action you want, how you will know it worked, the full offer including price, whatever proof you hold, the objections you actually hear from customers, and the constraints such as length, format and deadline. If you only have time for three, give the reader, the action and the objections.

How long should a brief be?

One page is usually plenty. Length is not the point; specificity is. A short brief that names one reader, one action and three real objections is far more useful than several pages of background about the company.

What if I do not know how to measure success?

Say so in the brief rather than leaving it blank. It is a common and fixable position, and it is worth settling before the writing starts, because a piece with no agreed measure cannot be judged afterwards except on taste.

Should I write the copy myself first to show what I mean?

Generally no, unless you want your structure kept. A pre-written draft anchors the writer to your approach, which is usually the thing you are paying to have reconsidered. Send the facts, the proof and examples of writing you like instead.

Do you need a brief before quoting?

Not a formal one. A rough sense of the piece, the audience and what it needs to achieve is enough to quote against. The detail comes out of the questionnaire and the conversation that follow, and the quote is set against the result rather than the word count.