There are two parts to writing. The first is figuring out what you want to say – the second is saying it. You need to have nailed the first part before you start the second.
Planning is the attempt to answer to a simple question: How is my company/client uniquely placed to address the real needs of its customers
Once you have that answer – for the sector and persona of the audience you are addressing – then the writing bit is pretty straightforward. So, if you are unclear on the value your (client’s) offering delivers, create a planning brief. Then use that planning work as part of the creative brief to the copywriter and the wider Studio team. Pretty simple, huh?
The problem is that this rule is frequently ignored.
In-house teams, which may lack either the experience or the planning resources to do the first part, can present a copywriter with a brief that lacks the planning information necessary for it to be fulfilled effectively. Agency staff, which should have access to all the resources they need, have fewer excuses. They should be the ones to step in and tell their clients that the planning stage has been missed; but, under pressure from either their clients or their management to get a campaign quickly into market, they sometimes fail to do so.
The results are frequently disastrous: marketing activity that lacks the planning foundations to support the campaigns built upon it will quickly disintegrate. From the copywriter’s perspective – and even with the best will in the world – (s)he will fail to deliver good content without understanding how a particular product or service delivers value to the groups you are targeting.
Rudyard Kipling’s honest serving men
Kipling’s famous poem (“I keep six honest serving me, they taught me all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.”) provides a good template for determining whether you are in a position to brief a copywriter or if you need to do a little more planning work.
You must be clear on these details before you engage a copywriter. Fulfilling this checklist will ensure that your writers are clear on the language, the audience, the drivers, the timescales and the call to action they need in order to meet – and hopefully exceed – your expectations.
You must gather the information you need to support the activity you are sponsoring.
You must gather the information you need to support the activity you are sponsoring. If you are working with a marketing agency then it is their job to figure out the, ‘How?’ but you need good answers to the other five questions. If you don’t have them, then take a deep breath and engage the planning resource you need to fill in the gaps. This may put a few noses out of joint in the short term but will save you time and money in the medium term and avert a potential s***storm down the line.
This is an extract from “The Write Stuff: Six things every B2B marketer should know about content creation”. This provides muggles (i.e., non-copywriters) with practical tips that will improve their understanding of what great content looks like – and uplift their ability to contribute positively to its creation.
To find out how Just Global can help you ensure that great writing is at the heart of your campaigns, get in touch at: [email protected]