How do you avoid common pitfalls and challenges when briefing a creative team on copywriting?

When writing to industry professionals, don't bring a tone that suggests you know more than they do. Illuminate from a perspective that isn't obvious.

Pause. Check in with the team working on the project. Keep in mind that the target audience is most likely not going to be people like you.

A useful framework is to ask, What did the target audience Think, Feel and Do about your product before seeing the communications? And, what do you want them to Think, Feel and Do after having seen it?

Empathize with your audience. Why should they care? If you see things from their perspective it will be easier to appreciate and activate.

Trying to write brand copy without a defined brand identity is like trying to build a house without a foundation, but this is a common challenge copywriters face, especially when working with start-ups and smaller brands who may skip over this work and go straight for producing creative. Without this information, your copywriter won't know who they're speaking to, and whether they should infuse humor, be serious, include puns, etc. If you're working on creative projects but don't have a brand identity, it's worth taking a step back and putting even some of that foundation in place first.

You can do most of what this paragraph describes with typical brand tools: style guide, messaging hierarchy, value props for the brand and the offering, voice and tone guidance, audience personas, etc. If you lack them, then create them before you hire writers.

Understand that you are likely not to get all the information you need. Point it out. Ask for it again. If you don’t get it, proceed with caution. It’s impossible to write great content, even decent content without a focus on what the brand is, how it looks, feels and sounds. The brand book/style guide is essential, even if it’s just a couple pages. A corporate mission, vision and value props are also essential.

Be clear on the Tone of Voice that would be needed. And try to avoid simplistic ‘Apple Pie and Mom’ descriptors that everyone wants (like, ‘Human’, ‘Friendly’, ‘Warm’, a and ‘Approachable’!) - what’s unique about your brand voice?

Details, details, details! As someone who runs my own content team I can tell you this is one of the biggest problems with creating a brief. - What are you trying to accomplish? - Do you have a vision and if so what is it? - Do you have design examples to go along with the copy?

The more a copywriter knows, the easier it is to boil it down to a concise piece. The more they have to improvise, the less likely it is the client gets what they want. Like I tell kids on career day at school, “If you want to write, you must read, read and read some more.” All good writers are voracious readers and when given information, even if it seems senseless to the client, it can result in truly rewarding creative.

If you've asked the team to work on a longer piece of written content - for example a thought leadership piece or white paper - ask them to flag where the copy might be repurposed in future. Lists, stats or quotes can easily be turned into separate visual assets that you can share on social media in order to drive views or downloads of the original piece. Never look at an asset in isolation - what other content could you generate from this?

Develop a formal synopses process, including a detailed content brief. This way, writers can come to the task with a full picture of the target audience, keywords, competitive landscape (SERPs), and the underlying reader question/s that need to be answered before doing their own research and writing the article.

I feel like this is more of a copywriting guideline not a creative brief, since creative briefs also inform the creative team and other team members, not just the copywriter. At my agency I create a copywriting guideline for each client similar to what is outlined here.

Two things - 1 - Answer the “Why.” Always answer why they should want to interact with your brand over another one. What differentiates you from others in the same space? 2 - Be disruptive whenever possible. Look at the ask, audience and deliverables from a different angle. Be willing to flip all you know and all they’ve given you on its ear and suggest at least one wildly outside the box idea. Playing it safe works, but it doesn’t achieve the wow!