June 29, 2020 4:13 pm
Getting quality content from an agency requires more than a brief email or call and keeping your fingers crossed. By not properly preparing the ground, you can discover that content creation becomes unnecessarily painful and arduous.
Consider what can happen if you don’t specify clearly and in enough detail what you’re looking for. An agency might quote for the work it thinks you want, only to have to come back later with a higher price because the initial briefing didn’t fully cover the scope of the work you really want.
There’s also the problem of moving targets: if you change your mind about messaging after content has been produced, the agency will have to go back through everything to alter accordingly – again, leading to increased cost and delays for you.
Issues like these can cause ripple effects if you’re working with an agency on multiple projects. When people have to redo work or call in extra help to fix a problem, the result can be that other projects take longer to finish. Such ‘scope creep’ means your agency can’t work for you as effectively as it should.
Of course, some briefs will evolve if the situation changes – a global pandemic being a particularly relevant example. But providing as clear a brief as possible at the start of a content project means an agency can better accommodate changes down the line and ensure a good result.
Following is a list of the things to avoid if you want to provide your content producers with a good brief:
If you don’t provide a good brief, be prepared to do extra legwork once the work has been commissioned. And if you change the requirements once content has been created, expect to pay for the additional work that has to be undertaken.
For smoother content creation and the quality content you need, provide a good brief at the start.
Speak to us if you’d like to learn more about the perfect brief – or to brief us on your next project.
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