What a brief must contain
A brief is the specification a copywriter writes from, and the copy that comes back is only ever as specific as the brief that produced it. Send "write good copy for our homepage" and every real decision, who the reader is, what they should do next, how formal to sound, gets left to the copywriter to guess. A brief that answers those questions before the writer starts saves at least one wasted draft.
A working brief needs the same handful of things every time:
- Format and length, so the writer knows whether they are producing 40 words of subject line or 800 words of landing page copy
- Audience, described in enough detail that the writer knows what the reader already believes and has already tried
- Goal, meaning the single action the reader should take after reading.
- Tone of voice, ideally shown through examples.
- Mandatories: anything that must appear (a legal disclaimer, a product name spelled a specific way) or must not
- Examples of copy the business likes and dislikes, with a line on why
- A deadline, stated as a date.
Compare "write homepage copy" with "write 300 words of homepage copy for a UK accounting software product, aimed at sole traders currently using spreadsheets, with the goal of getting them to start a free trial, in a tone that reads like a knowledgeable colleague rather than a corporate brand." The second version tells the copywriter which benefit to lead with, how formal to be, and what the call to action needs to say, because the goal and the reader are both on the page already. If two different copywriters could read your brief and come back with copy that reads nothing alike, the brief has not yet done its job.
Structuring one from scratch is easier with a template in front of you than a blank page. The Website Brief Starter works through these fields in order and gives you a document you can send as it stands.
Describe the reader, not just the demographic
An audience description built from age, job title and company size tells a copywriter who receives the copy, but not what to write differently for them. "Our audience is small business owners aged 25 to 45" is true of almost every reader who might land on the page, and it gives the writer nothing to choose vocabulary or an opening line by.
What helps instead is a line on what the reader already knows, what they have already tried, and what they are wary of. "Written for a sole trader who has run Google Ads themselves, spent money without seeing bookings increase, and is now cautious of anyone promising results" tells the writer where the reader's scepticism will land, which objection to answer early, and roughly how much they already understand about the product. That is the layer a demographic alone cannot supply.
The rule is straightforward: if your audience description would fit a dozen unrelated businesses without changing a word, add the layer that describes what this particular reader has already lived through.
Give tone as examples, not adjectives
"Professional but friendly" and "bold and confident" appear on most briefs a copywriter receives, and they mean something different to every business that writes them. Handed only the adjective, the writer has to guess what "professional" rules out for you specifically, and that guess is where a first draft usually goes wrong.
A more useful brief points at three sentences of existing copy the business likes, three it doesn't, and says in one line why each falls where it does. "This email sounds too stiff for a customer who already trusts us" is useful to a copywriter. The guide to defining tone of voice sets out a method for building this kind of example-led description if the brief needs one from scratch.
Give feedback the copywriter can act on
Feedback that says "make it punchier" or "I'm not quite feeling it" describes a reaction. It tells the copywriter that something is wrong without saying what, so the second draft is another guess, and the brief's original goal drifts further out of view with each round.
Feedback that names the line and the reason gets there faster. "The second paragraph explains the feature before the benefit, so a reader skimming won't reach the reason to care" tells the writer exactly what to move and why, tied back to the goal the brief already stated. Before sending feedback, it is worth checking whether a copywriter reading your comment would know what to change on the page, or only that you were not pleased with it.
The brief failures that produce bad copy
Most weak copy traces back to one of a small number of gaps in the brief that produced it:
- No stated goal, so the copy has no clear action for the reader to take at the end of it
- Tone given only as adjectives, so the copy sounds like a template.
- Mandatories missing until the second draft, forcing a rewrite once a legal or brand requirement surfaces late
- No examples of copy that has worked before, leaving the copywriter with nothing to calibrate register against
- Feedback that changes the brief midstream, so each round moves the target.
A brief that fails on one of these rarely fails loudly. The copy that comes back is not obviously wrong, it is simply aimed at nobody in particular, because the brief never said who it was for or what it needed to do. If you are ready to send a brief to someone, the guide to choosing and briefing a copywriter covers what to look for in the person you send it to.