The initial brief that you provide will be used by Steve to create a detailed project specification and fixed-cost quotation.
The checklist below provides a useful aide-mémoire – a reminder of the key points that you’ll probably wish to include.
Scope of service
Your immediate copy need might comprise, for example, ‘a consumer-focussed direct mail package.’ Or ‘a corporate website, to support business users, potential employees, trade partners, analysts and the media.’
Please also specify whether you require additional management services - such as list and data sourcing, design direction, media / print buying and / or project management.
Campaign objectives
Is your primary objective to create brand awareness, or to generate qualified leads - for your sales team and / or dealers? To drive traffic to your website - or to sell direct, either ‘off the page’ or online?
Finished format
By way of an ‘end product’, do you envisage, for example, a ‘4 x A5-page mailer’ or a ‘detailed 16-page technical brochure’; a ‘full page tabloid press ad’, ‘two-page marketing micro website’, or ‘a complete communications campaign, utilising email, Internet, the trade press and outbound telemarketing’.
Description of the product or service
Anything and everything ever written pertaining to your product or service is grist to the mill. So please supply any and all available supporting materials - e.g.: previous ads, brochures, press releases, presentations, case studies, internal memoranda, testimonials, web links, White Papers... whatever comes to hand.
Messages and differentiators
Most important: your key product/service proposition(s), and your product’s place in the market. What separates your offering - strengths and weaknesses - from your main competitors’? What are the main objections to purchase - and your responses?
Profiles of your / your client's main competitors and competing products
Related URLs would prove particularly useful here, as would any sources of further information.
Target audience
To help Steve to develop a better picture of your audience, please provide an indication of, for instance, their age, sex, profession/job title, level of education, specialised knowledge, degree of technological sophistication (e.g.: broadband Internet user, strictly 'old media'), and so on.
Business to Business communications
How and to whom - within the organisation - is your product or service usually sold? Who are, for example, the approvers, specifiers and influencers in the process? At what stage does each become involved? What are their particular buying motives and likely concerns / objections to purchase?
Do you sell direct, via a field sales team? By means of an ecommerce website? Or through distributors and/or retailers?
Branding issues / tone of voice
This information is vital, to ensure the final copy is on message, on brand, and adheres to all applicable legislation. Does the material need to be presented in a particular way? Is there a prescribed 'tone of voice' - and/or copy/design 'style guide' - to which the communication should adhere?
What is the desired tone of the communication? Friendly? Formal? Hard sell?
Do you wish to tailor versions of your promotional copy to vertical markets or various job titles (or both)?
Multimedia
Is the information that is to be presented 'dynamic' in nature - i.e.: customisable by and for the end user? If so, how? What other technologies are available to support the communication (e.g.: Flash movies, virtual tours, podcasts, interactive FAQs, etc.)?
Where can these be found – on DVD, online or elsewhere?
Applicable offers
Are you planning to offer an incentive, for prompt response? Perhaps a time-limited discount or business premium? A free White Paper or eZine? If so, let Steve know.
Response/ordering mechanism
How do you prefer enquirers to respond? Via FREEPHONE, email or fax? By means of a reply coupon, or through your website?
Any other comments or requirements
Please advise if, for example, the copy will be read by non-native speakers, or is to be translated into multiple languages. (Steve will then avoid using colloquialisms and culturally specific phraseology.)
Contact information
To save time - and streamline administration - please confirm the areas of particular responsibility for all key project contacts, together with their direct telephone numbers and email addresses.