Content Brief | Glossary

What Is a Content Brief?

A content brief is a document that defines a project’s specifications. When you create an effective content brief, you make it possible for writers to follow your style guide and craft content that reaches your goals.

A standard content brief should include sessions where you can specify:

• Keywords you want to rank for
• Your desired word count
• Your target audience
• Example blog posts you want to emulate
• Recommendations for H1s, H2s, and H3s
• How many images to include
• Any internal and external links you want in your content

You can also add any special directions you want the writer to follow. For example, you might ask them to include a TL;DR summary at the top of the page, or you might tell them to meet a certain keyword concentration. If you have anything you want to communicate to your writer, just include it in your content brief.

In many cases, content briefs include repeatable instructions that you want writers to follow for every project. These instructions don’t change from piece to piece, so they ensure you get content that matches your brand’s voice and style guide.

Content briefs can also include project-specific instructions that only apply to certain pieces. For instance, you might want the writer to use 75% of the words on a list generated by your favorite keyword research tool.

Why Content Briefs Matter

You can think of content briefs as blueprints for your content marketing strategy. You wouldn’t hire a construction company to build a bridge before you had a blueprint. Similarly, it makes sense to create content briefs before you ask subject matter experts to write content for your website, blog, or social media accounts.

When you can hand subject matter experts an accurate content brief, expect to:

• Receive your content faster so you can publish it sooner.
• Get writing that optimizes the keywords you want to rank for.
• Engage your audience with sentences written to get their attention.
• See your key performance indicators (KPIs) improve.
• Publish quality content your audience finds valuable.

Chances are that at least some of those benefits interest you. According to research from Semrush, the most popular popular tactics used to boost ranking include:

• Posting content more often.
• Improving content quality.
• Publishing more research-driven content.
• Performing better keyword research.
• Winning featured snippets.

A great content brief takes you closer to reaching all of those goals.

How Scripted Improves the Effectiveness of Content Briefs

Writing an accurate, insightful content brief helps ensure writers can give you high-quality content that meets your goals. Considering how important they are, you might feel a little anxious about writing them accurately.

Scripted makes it easy for you to create content briefs.

You start by providing basic information about your business, industry, topic areas, and the products and services you offer.

Then, you follow step-by-step instructions to give writers information about your:

• Target audience
• Company mission
• Brand voice (formal, playful, etc.)
• Ideal sample content
• Key competitors
• Content goals
• Tone of voice
• Point of view (first, second, or third person)
• Preferences for title or sentence casing
• Preferred length of paragraphs
• Whether you want bullet points, numbered lists, internal links, or external links

The Scripted platform saves the fields you complete, so you only have to answer questions once. When you order more content in the future, you can rely on the content brief you already created. Of course, you can update your preferences and add new instructions as needed.

Smart Content Briefs Powered by Artificial Intelligence

Scripted is dedicated to embracing new technologies that help businesses create more effective content briefs. Our Smart Content Brief feature does most of the work for you.

Making a Smart Content Brief is as simple as:

• Providing a keyword or sentence that describes your topic.
• Describing your target audience.
• Getting keywords and content guidance that auto-populates to your content brief.

After that, you just decide whether you want to:

• Rely on our AI content generator – we call it Scout – to write and edit your project.
• Have a human subject matter expert edit the content generated by Scout.
• Choose a subject matter expert to write your project.

Regardless of the option you choose, you benefit from Scripted’s approach to optimizing content creation workflows.

Accurate Content Briefs Make Success Happen

Accurate content briefs are fundamental to making success happen online. They’re how you communicate your specific needs to human and AI writers.

Scripted makes it as easy as possible to create content briefs quickly. Still, it’s never a bad idea to review your briefs and adjust them as needed.

When you provide accurate information about your project, you can expect to:

• Avoid revision requests – because your writer has the information they need to do the job correctly the first time.
• Get more quality content so you can engage your audience more often.
• Watch your search engine result page (SERP) position improve over time.
• Benefit from more readers following through on your call to action.

Once you have a terrific content brief, you streamline every step of the content-creation process. You can always update fields when you want. Until your needs change, your current content brief will give writers and editors the information they need to exceed your expectations. It’s the foundation of content marketing success.

Get Started With Scripted

Are you writing content briefs that set up your marketing strategy for success? We can help!

Scripted is the only platform that combines AI-powered tools and human experts to give you engaging content based on your needs.

You might already have a detailed content brief to add to your Scripted account. Then again, you might only have a vague idea of what you want from your content briefs. Either way, Scripted"s AI-fueled platform will lead you through each step.

Schedule a time to meet virtually with a Scripted Content Strategist. You’ll get a platform walk-through that introduces you to all of Scripted’s unique features so you can start publishing quality content that gets results ASAP.

Recommended Readings:

How to Set Up an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

AI Marketing Software

Why the Smartest Marketers Have External Writing Teams

Content Marketing 101: What Is a Content Writer?