Content briefs: the piece is won before writing starts

When an article disappoints, the post-mortem usually blames the writing. Look one step earlier: most weak content was weakly briefed — a topic and a deadline, nothing more. The writer guessed at the audience, the angle, and the goal, and guessed differently than the strategist imagined. A real brief moves the thinking to before the writing, where it's cheap.

Name the search intent, precisely

Not “write about lead scoring” but: who is searching, what triggered it, what do they need to walk away with, and what does the current top content miss? This is intent-driven strategy descending to the piece level — and it's the single highest-value paragraph in the brief.

Define the reader and what they already know

The same topic for a beginner and a practitioner produces different articles. State the reader's role, sophistication, and situation. Half of “this feels generic” feedback is really “this was written for nobody in particular.”

Commit to an angle

A brief that lists ten things to mention produces a survey nobody remembers. Decide the argument: what does this piece claim that the obvious version wouldn't? The angle is what makes content citable — by readers, by other sites, and by answer engines.

Specify the proof and the links

List the evidence the piece should carry — examples, sources, data you actually have (never invented) — and the internal links to build in: the related articles, the relevant service page, the next step. Linking planned at brief time is architecture; linking at publish time is decoration.

Include the on-page package

Target title length, meta description, heading skeleton, slug — the on-page basics decided up front so they're built in, not retrofitted. A writer with a complete brief produces in one draft what five review rounds otherwise approximate.

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