Introduction
Content is an essential aspect of any marketing strategy. You may have heard phrases like content marketing brief, content plan, content strategy, and many more. It is easy to get confused. But what is a content marketing brief and how does it fit into the overall marketing strategy or plan? In this article, we take you through the best practices for creating a content brief. But before that, we explain what a content brief is and why it is important.
What is a Content Brief?
In simple terms, a content brief is a detailed outline of a blog post, social media copy, or even web page articles. When you need a blog post to publish on your website, it is important to describe all the details that the person who will write the blog should know.
Thus, a content brief is a document that describes and explains all the requirements for textual content. The writer ensures that they follow all the instructions in the content brief when developing the article.
Content Brief vs. Creative Brief
It is important to emphasize that a content brief relates to textual content only. You may have heard of another term; creative brief. These two are different from one another. Whereas a content brief focuses on blog posts, social media posts, and even white papers, a creative brief is a plan for developing visual content like videos.
Content Brief vs. Content Plan
Similarly, a content brief is different from a content plan. Consider a content plan as a document that outlines the steps you need to take and when to do them to implement your overall content strategy.
The content strategy is the long-term approach to utilizing content to drive your inbound marketing. Whereas a content strategy contains long-term objectives tied to your marketing campaign, a content plan guides you on the specific things you need to do to realize your marketing goals.
What is Included in a Content Brief?
Every content brief is unique because it outlines how a specific textual content form should look like. However, you can tell a good content marketing brief from looking at the elements. Here are some of the things that you should include in a content brief.
- A recommended title
- This is usually a tentative title of the proposed article. A writer can alter the title for grammatical or syntactical reasons. However, the writer must maintain the intended voice and meaning of the article title or topic that is in the content marketing brief.
- The target audience
- The target audience is the group of people who will read the article. The target audience comes directly from your marketing strategy. If, for example, your brand sells business automation software and you intend to write an article to create brand awareness, the target audience is likely to be owners of small businesses that need automation software.
- Internal and external links
- Internal links help the writer to understand which pages on your website they should link the article to. External links are pages of other websites that the complete article should link to. Internal and external links boost the SEO metrics of online content.
- List of competitors
- Include the list of brands that offer similar services to yours. A good content plan should also contain a reminder to the writers not to link to any content belonging to the competitors. Besides, the writers should not mention the competitors in the article.
- Article format and length
- Excellent content briefs contain details of the outline of the article in terms of H1, H2, H3, and H4 tags. They also have suggestions for the length of the article.
- Keywords
- Your content strategy relies heavily on keywords. The keywords are included in the marketing brief. We shall discuss how to research the best keywords for articles later. Suffice it to mention that any good content plan contains a list of primary and secondary keywords.
Why Have a Good Content Brief?
The quality of the content brief affects the outcomes of your inbound marketing campaigns. Having a good content brief means that you will develop content that reaches the target audience as defined in the marketing strategy. Also, a good content brief will help you implement the content strategy effectively.
For Increased Efficiency
Developing a good content brief can help speed up the processes of implementing your social media strategy or content strategy. The content brief helps you to execute the content plan fast and according to the overall marketing strategy goals.
For Maintaining Brand Voice
The brand voice is the uniqueness of your business. This uniqueness of your brand should be consistent in all forms of outward communications, including content strategy and social media strategy.
A good content brief explains important nuances that the writers should understand when developing the content for your online channels. Therefore, a content brief helps to streamline communications and maintain the brand voice.
To improve SEO
SEO is critical for improving the performance of your brand online. Organic searches are more important than paid ones. The heart of SEO is getting good keywords, using the right Meta descriptions, and carrying out competitor analysis. All these steps are essential for developing a good content brief.
The Importance of Keywords
Keywords are essential for your inbound marketing activities. You need keywords to determine how well people who search for information online find the content on your online channels. Here are some benefits of conducting good keyword research while developing the content brief.
Acquiring New Customers
Conducting good keyword research can help convert the content marketing brief into acquisitions and conversions. Content with keywords that resonate with the search intent of potential clients converts more potential clients.
Growth in Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is valuable in inbound marketing. The secret to increasing the number of organic traffic to a website is including the right keywords according to trends.
Where to Find Keywords
You can find the right keywords for content by researching based on buyer personas. Create groups of common words and phrases that the different buyer personas may use when searching for information online.
Use keyword research tools to gain an in-depth understanding of their relevance. Such tools can also suggest more appropriate groups of keywords based on the search intent of your target group.
How to Create a Good Content Brief
Your social media strategy or overall marketing strategy depends on the type and quality of content you post on the relevant channels. The content marketing brief should contain all the elements you would like to have in the final product. Here is a simple guide on how you can create an effective content brief for writers.
Select the Primary Keyword
The primary keyword is the heart of the content brief. This keyword directs the writers on the topic to write about and the subtopics to include in the article. Having the right keyword for your articles is a great boost to your inbound marketing efforts.
Use free or paid online tools to research the primary keyword for the content brief. The primary keyword will come from the topic you would like to write content about. The tools will show you details like the search volume of the keyword, its difficulty level, and others. You can use the details to modify the primary keyword in line with your marketing strategy or social media strategy, for example.
Write down Secondary Keywords
Secondary keywords support the primary keyword in the content brief. The secondary keywords help to improve the page rankings in search engines. Therefore, selecting good secondary keywords boosts your content strategy.
Again, you can use online tools to generate secondary keywords. The secondary keywords will be closely related to the primary one and will signal to the writers the subtopics to develop.
Remember to use semantically correct secondary keywords so that the final content is natural and easy to read to the audience.
Analyze the Competition
Look at some of the highest-ranking pages in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) that share similar primary and secondary keywords. Doing this will provide insight on how to develop the content brief of your article.
For example, look at the Meta descriptions of competitor articles. The Meta descriptions are important in content marketing briefs and inbound marketing because they encourage readers to read the entire article. The best meta descriptions answer the main question that the audience has when searching for information online.
Develop an Outline
An outline guides the writer. A good outline of a content brief should include the following: a title, suggested H2 and H3, and descriptions of the details that should be included in every part.
Here is an example of a complete content brief.
- Topic: How to Write a Good Content Brief
- Type: Article
- Purpose: To educate clients on how to create a content brief for blog and social media posts
- Outline:
- Introduction
- What is a content brief?
- Content brief vs. creative brief
- Content brief vs. content plan
- Why is a content brief important?
- SEO
- Brand voice
- Efficiency in marketing
- How to create a good content brief
- Research
- Choosing primary and secondary keywords
- Analyzing SERPs
- Creating and outline
- Links
- Conclusion
Conclusion
Having the right content plan boosts your online marketing efforts. Penmo can help you create a good content brief and achieve your content marketing goals. We are a top article writing agency that offers affordable SEO writing services. We also provide quality content writing services for businesses.