A content briefing should typically contain the following elements:
- Objectives: Clearly defined goals and objectives of the content piece, including target audience and purpose.
- Purpose: The reason why the content is being created, such as to educate, inform, entertain, or persuade.
- Call-to-Action: The desired action that the audience should take after consuming the content, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
- Target Audience: Demographic information about your target audience, such as age, gender, location, income, and interests. But also pain points that you want to solve with your product or service.
- Product Description: Only if the editor understands what your product is about, he can put all the information in the right context. A video that walks the editor through your funnel with commentary can help to create a visual understanding of your product and content requirements.
- Corporate Identity & Corporate Design: CI & CD ensures that the content produced aligns with the company’s visual and branding standards. This includes details such as tone of voice, font and color palette, image and graphic styles, and any other design elements specific to the company.
- Tone and Style: The desired tone and style of the content, such as conversational, professional, or informative.
- Terminology: Define Dos & Don’ts for your product wordings to ensure correct terminology is used.
- Keywords: Target keywords and phrases that the content should be optimized for. Limit the number of side keywords to a reasonable number to avoid an unnatural reading flow and keyword spamming.
- Format: The desired format of the content, such as a blog post, infographic, or video. Think about the mobile-first approach in order to select elements in formats that can be easily consumed on mobile devices.
- Length: The desired length of the content, such as a minimum or maximum word count, headline character limitations, number, and length of paragraphs.
- Readability: Based on your audience definition ensure the text will be written and designed in a way it can be easily consumed and understood by your defined target audience. Use the Flesch-Reading-Ease Score to check this. Furthermore, your entire content design, especially for mobile views needs to be designed in a way that keeps your audience’s attention high.
- Sources: Any specific sources or reference materials that should be used or not be used to create the content.
- SEO Requirements: Any specific SEO requirements, such as keyword usage, metadata, image sizes, and intext linking.
- Deadline: The due date for the content to be completed and delivered.
- Approval Process: The process for reviewing and approving the content, including the names of individuals responsible for approval.