How To Establish An Almost Flawless Copywriting Brief

If you’re a copywriter or if you’re looking at becoming a freelance copywriter, taking a brief is one of, if not the most important things you will do. A copywriting brief is basically the overview of the project. In other words, it establishes how many pages will need to be written, who it will be written for and the style of writing that will need to be created. A good brief allows copywriters to spend less time quoting, researching and having problems with clients in the future.
To establish an almost flawless copywriting brief, follow these 3 simple steps:
Record Your Initial Meeting
Use your Iphone or any sort of voice recorder to record your clients. If they call you on the phone, ask them politely if you can record the conversation. You can place your phone on speaker and record through your laptop or call them via Skype and record through your phone. The reason recording your conversation is so crucial to your copywriting brief is because it gives you a chance to ask as many questions as you need to without being distracted by writing down notes. You’ll be amazed how often a conversation bounces around instead of following a path. Once you have finished recording, listen to the entire conversation again on your headphones and you’ll notice how much you actually missed. This is a vital step to getting a good brief and for doing any copywriting job.
Ask the Following Questions
No matter what copywriting brief you are taking, the following questions always seem to come up. I suggest you follow these and tweak them to suit your project
1. What are you looking to produce? (flyer, brochure, website etc)
2. Who is your competition? Can you provide me with their flyers or website?
3. Who is your target market? What is important to them?
4. Have you got any existing material (content) that you can show me such as flyers or an existing website?
5. Have you worked with a copywriter before?
6. When do you want the job completed by?
7. How many words, more or less, are you requiring for each page?
There are more questions than these; however this should give you a good start. Remember to record your answers.
Paraphrase the Project Back to Your Client
When you’re starting out and even when you gain more experience, it’s usually a good idea to write a short summary of what you believe the project is all about. It generally doesn’t need to be long, just an outline of who your client’s competitors are, the amount of pages they require, the tone of voice etc. This helps you to better understand the brief and gives your client the chance to see what will be done. It also sets you up well to provide a more accurate quote and for your client to understand how the quote is being established.