Never start with a blank page
This is the Blog Post Brief template that I use for marketing content. A wonderful Head of Marketing shared a similar doc with me back in 2017. I’ve adapted it over time. Now it’s the #1 tool I keep coming back to for every launch or ghostwriting project.
Over the years, I’ve felt the pressure to let go of this template.
It’s too much process.
I prefer to write directly in Markdown.
Why can’t you draft in the CMS?
But every time I’ve tried to skip the brief for a professional post, it always ends up a total mess.
The brief as mise en place
When experienced cooks want to prepare an exceptional meal, they don’t reach for ingredients willy-nilly and prepare them as they go. You don’t want to walk away from your roux to find and chop an onion only to realize your last Vidalia is rotten at its core.
Instead, you read the recipe entirely, from start to finish. You gather and prepare your ingredients before you begin, organizing them in accessible stations. Only once you have everything placed out in front of you do you light up the burners.
A colorful mise en place for shrimp creole / Source
The extra prep work only takes a few minutes but it lets you work through the recipe faster. It makes the cooking experience more pleasant and the outcome more successful.
This is what a blog post brief does for your writing at work.
What happens when you skip the brief
Here’s how most people write blog posts for their startups:
You get a Slack that it would be a cool idea if you could write a post on some topic. You open a blank document. You start dumping ideas out of your brain, freestyle, however it naturally flows. What if we added a funny meme here? I think I need a chart to back up this point… Maybe I should cite some sources? Oh, wait, here’s something else I just remembered… In Conclusion.
“Okay, it’s done.”
You hit publish. And nothing happens. Or worse: you start getting pings of feedback from your team.
The post is too long. There isn’t a hook. I think it didn’t go viral because the headline is boring. You forgot this one important detail. The tone is too formal. The angle isn’t right. Did you think about this approach instead? Why didn’t you link back to the docs?
At this point, you can fix a few typos or swap out a header but it’s too late for major surgery. You just spent 8+ hours writing a post instead of doing your real job, and now you have diddly squat to show for yourself. So frustrating!
What if we did a little bit of organizing upfront?
Set the stage before you write
When you begin with the Blog Post Brief instead of a blank page, you don’t start writing until you have the most critical pieces ready in front of you:
Who is the primary audience for this post?
How will people find this content?
What is the ONE action we want readers to take after they read this?
The brief gives you an opportunity to get alignment on your strategy before you sit down and pour your heart out.
Even if you don’t have a super-heavy editorial process, the brief can help reviewers understand why you’re making the choices you’re making so you don’t have to duke it out in the Google Docs comments later.
When you’re done publishing your content, you can point back to the brief to understand how your content performed. Sentiment about the content may be subjective, but the quantitative goals are baked. How did we do? Did we hit our page view targets? Did we drive signups or feature adoption?
How to adapt the Blog Post Brief for your workflow
The top of the brief starts with an approval matrix. I like the DACI framework, but you can replace this with whatever workflow your organization likes best. If you’re a small team, maybe you simply have a checkbox for each person who reads through and says “lgtm!”
The second part of the template is for strategy. Use this part to describe the style, tone, and purpose of your content. Get super clear about who you’re writing for, and try to stick to a single, well-defined persona if you can. Set some specific, measurable SMART goals. Prioritize which call-to-action is the most important to promote.
The next part of the brief is for tactical implementation details. When will this go live? Are there any dependencies? Who will be credited with a byline? Do any images need to be produced? What specific fields are required when you upload the post to your CMS? What will the full URL path be? (Important if campaigns need to reference this before you post!)
Adjust these lines of the template based on your systems. Just make sure you don’t add too many details such that the Brief is no longer brief.
Finally, most critically, how are you going to drive traffic to this post? Will it be linked in your customer newsletter? Are you planning to have a friend drop the post on Hackernews?
Your distribution plan needs to support your goals. It may even change the way you think about the content.
You can always re-launch and re-distribute content later, but make sure you have some activity for the initial promo.
Take 15 minutes to pencil in the details. Share it around with the appropriate people on your team. At this point, it’s still a small ask. You’re not sending them a 5,000 word essay.
Does this direction feel right? Is there anything we should think about that we missed?
Once you get that initial bit of alignment, now you’re ready to go full Shakespeare mode. Put on some music and lock in.
Get cooking
This template works great for launch blogs, tutorials, case studies, and technical deep dives. I even used it to draft this blog post you’re reading right now.
Give it a try the next time you need to write something for your startup. Send me a note and let me know how you adapt this to make it your own!