The copywriting brief: 30 questions and a filled example

A copywriting brief is narrower than a creative brief. A creative brief sets direction for a whole campaign across design, video and copy; a copy brief covers one deliverable, such as a landing page, an email sequence or a set of ads, and gives the writer enough to draft without guessing.

The client usually supplies the raw answers through a copywriting questionnaire, and the writer or account lead turns them into the brief. That second step matters. Clients answer what they know; the brief records what was agreed, including the gaps someone still has to fill. If you skip it, the questionnaire becomes the brief by default, and every vague answer turns into a guess on the page.

Keep the finished brief to one or two pages. It is a working document for a specific piece of copy, not a brand book. If the client already has a tone-of-voice guide, link to it and note only what applies to this deliverable.

Writers need the real limits of the placement, not an arbitrary word count. Some are hard limits set by the platform; others are display behaviour that is easy to misremember. Put the source in the brief so nobody argues from memory.

Most rewrites trace back to a handful of gaps that were visible in the brief before the first draft. Checking for them takes ten minutes and is cheaper than a third revision round.

‘Women 25–45 interested in wellness’ tells a writer almost nothing. ‘New parents who have stopped exercising and feel guilty about the gym membership they are still paying for’ gives them an opening line. Catch it by asking: what was the reader doing five minutes before they saw this copy?

Book a call, download the guide, follow us, and subscribe. When the brief lists several actions, ask the client to rank them. The copy can mention a secondary action, but the structure follows the first one.

A result mentioned on a sales call is not approved proof. Ask who confirms each figure and testimonial and whether the customer agreed to be quoted. Mark anything unconfirmed in the brief so it never reaches the draft as if it were settled.

‘Friendly but professional’ fits almost every company. Questions 21 and 22 in the bank above fix this: one example that sounds right, one that sounds wrong, and a sentence on the difference. A writer can work from that.

The most expensive feedback arrives from someone who first sees the project at the draft stage and disagrees with the audience or the offer. List every reviewer in the brief and ask each to confirm it, or at least see it, before drafting starts.

‘We love this competitor's site’ can mean the layout, the tone, the length or the pricing section. Ask what specifically to learn from each reference. That also keeps the brief from turning into a request to reproduce someone else's wording.

Revision disputes are rarely about the number of rounds. They are about what counts as a revision. Put four definitions in the brief or the proposal and have the client confirm them.

A round is one consolidated set of comments on one version, delivered by the named consolidator. Comments arriving separately from three people are not three rounds, but they also are not a round until someone reconciles them. State the review window, for example three working days, and what happens if it passes without comments.

A revision improves the copy against the agreed brief: clearer wording, a corrected fact, a better headline. A change of brief alters the reader, the offer, the action or the placement. The second needs an updated brief and usually a new estimate, even if the client describes it as a small tweak.

Zunoform is a form builder, so it handles the questionnaire half of the job. The Copywriting Project Intake template asks about the deliverable, reader, action, facts, objections, voice, deadline and approvers, and you can extend it with the bank above. Conditional logic works on every plan, partial responses are saved as the client progresses, and a file upload question takes brand guides and old copy (10 MB per file on Free, 100 MB on Pro). Responses can go to Google Sheets on every plan.

It does not write the brief for you, track revision rounds or hold comments on drafts. For those, use your document tool or project manager. The Free plan includes 500 responses a month, which is plenty for client intake; if you only need a single static questionnaire, a shared document or Google Forms will also do the job.