To run the best marketing campaign in 2024, you will likely need to back it up with some form of content. Even simple banners for digital display will need to take into account good graphic design principles for getting the message across. You won’t want to be too wordy, nor do you want to be too mysterious unless trying to build up hype for a product launch.
In order to achieve this, you could work on all that content in-house, of course. That is always a possibility. But unless you’re specifically set up for curating your own marketing from start to finish, or unless you have that department in-house, then odds are you’ll need to outsource. Don’t worry, most companies do it.
Often, that means working with a brand or a freelancer who will use their skills to try and render the outcome you’re looking for. It’s not easy, but it is doable. You can get closer to the outcome you’re looking for with a capable content brief. However, they have to be written appropriately. Here are some steps for achieving exactly that:
Set Primary & Secondary Objectives
Be as clear as possible about your primary objective. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, promote a specific product, or drive traffic to a particular webpage? Whatever it is, make that the focal point of your brief. This will help an excellent SEO professional such as Toni Marino or another service really nail your primary approach. But from there secondary considerations are important too – perhaps you want to improve SEO in your local area on top of that. This can help you focus on other parameters, such as describing which keywords are appropriate pending your research.
Include Any Examples You Feel Are Suitable
If you’ve seen a campaign or piece of content that matches the intent you’re going for, share it, because it will help the outsourced professional gain a better idea of your needs. That counts no matter if it’s a tone of voice, a particular style, or even a specific design layout, as examples can help you showcase what you’re going for and from there, the spin that most suitably relates to your brand can be thought of the most.
Ensure The Service Can Cover Your Requests
Of course, someone willing to take on your project (and be paid for it) isn’t necessarily the best service to use. For instance, if the service is highly expensive and provides two major revisions to the work conducted, you may get quality, but that might not help you progress out of the ideas stage where you would want more revisions to nail down what you need. Check this ahead of time so you’re not dismissed.
Provide The Structure If You Need Specifics
Of course, content creators appreciate creative freedom, but sometimes your campaign requires specific structures or formats an you’re not being too demanding for asking that. Maybe you need a 15-second video ad with text displayed in the first five seconds so viewers on YouTube don’t skip it. That’s a fairly common request. Or perhaps you need the final blog post to follow a strict word count and include a few internal links, a meta description, and more. Again this is common, but your writer might not know otherwise.
With this advice combined, we hope you can put together an excellent content brief to help your outsourced services return the measure to you every single time.