A good creative brief is essential to a successful website development project. The creative brief lays out the proposed visual design directions to explore, the objectives of the upcoming creative exploration, the audience, the “story” the site should tell, the tone and imagery that the site should take on.

Nick Usborne, author of the excellent book Net Words, suggests in his most recent issue of the ExcessVoice newsletter that you incorporate the following elements into your creative brief:

1. Description of task
This needs to be a complete description of the writing task involved.

2. Background on product/company
The copywriter will usually NOT be as “up-to-speed� as the account management group. It is easy to assume the writer has in-depth knowledge that he or she does not have.

So it’s important that the writer is given “too much� background information on the client and the product or service being written about.

3. Audience description
The fastest way to undermine the ability of a copywriter to do a good job is to deprive him or her of a crystal clear image of the target audience.

The writer needs to feel an intimate understanding of what the audience wants, needs and desires. That understanding needs to be of a depth that it allows the writer to picture clearly and accurately an individual within the target group.

The writer should be able to close her eyes, see the person, picture his home and yard, know how he likes to spend his free time and understand what most excites and scares him in life.

4. Principal purpose of the communication
Again, this is extremely important. Many a well-written piece of advertising has failed to deliver, simply because the writer was never given a clear view of what that “deliverable� really was.

What is the principal purpose of this email, web page, newsletter?

The more precisely this question can be answered, the better the copywriter will be able to write a clear, sharp communication that stays on purpose from the first word to the last.

5. Timeline
Great copy cannot be written in an hour. The assimilation of background information, a growing understanding of the audience at the individual level and the process of writing itself is a creative process when done well. It takes time.

The first draft is never the best draft. Nor the second. As a result, copywriters need to be given sufficient warning of an upcoming job and be provided with enough time to do the job well.