I've received a lot of briefs. Some of them have been incredibly detailed and thoughtful and they've produced some of my favorite work. Some of them were two sentences long and led to three rounds of revisions. Here's what a genuinely useful brief looks like from my end.
Who is this actually for?
Not "women 18-45 who love beauty." That's not a person. I need to know: what specific version of that person are we talking to? Someone with oily skin who's tried everything? Someone who's getting into a fitness routine for the first time? Someone who wants to look put-together for work without spending an hour on it?
The more specific the target, the more specific the hook I can write — and specific hooks are the hooks that stop people scrolling.
What's the one thing you want them to remember?
Brands often want to communicate five things in a 30-second video. That almost never works. What is the single most important thing? The ingredient that makes it different? The specific result? The price point? If I know the one thing, I can build the whole video around making that one thing land.
What do you want me to avoid?
This is more useful than it might seem. Are there claims I can't make? Competitors I shouldn't mention? Tones or styles that are off-brand? Knowing what not to do saves both of us time.
What does success look like?
Are you running this as a paid ad? On organic social? In an email? The context changes how I approach the content. An organic post can be slower and more narrative. A paid ad needs to hook faster and have a clearer CTA.
References — but not a script
Sharing two or three examples of content you love (even from other brands) gives me a visual and tonal target. But please don't write out a word-for-word script. The content sounds scripted because it is scripted. Give me the framework and the key messages, then trust me to deliver them in a way that sounds like a real person saying a real thing.
The best briefs I've worked with felt like a collaboration. Here's the context, here's the goal, here's the one thing — now go make something genuine. That's when the content is best. If you want to brief me on something, I'd love to hear about it.