why does a brief save money for the customer and not for the contractor?
A common objection: “Why should I answer twenty-four questions? “You are experts.” The answer is simple: the contractor will answer all these questions anyway. The only difference is whether you answer them or he will answer for you - silently, with his own guesses, and you will see them already in the layouts.
Each inconsistent assumption costs one round of edits. Three assumptions - three circles. At the same time, the questions themselves take an hour, and the circle of edits takes a week.
what's inside
- Business and task — what the site should decide and what we consider success.
- Audience — who the client is, how he chooses, what objections.
- Product and offer — how we differ and how we will prove it.
- Structure and content — sections, who writes the texts, are there photos.
- Design and brand — brand book, “like” and “dislike” references.
- Technology and launch — CMS, integrations, deadline, budget, who accepts.
two questions that are most often missed
What we consider success after three months. No response acceptance turns into a dispute about tastes. With the answer - check by the number about which agreed in advance.
Three sites that I don't like. People willingly list what they need I like it, and almost never, which is annoying. Namely, the second list sets the boundaries and removes the most painful edits at the stage of the first show.
lies nearby
The next step in the process is Technical specifications for landing page: the brief gathers context, The technical specification describes the solution. General marketing brief wider and fit when we are talking about the campaign as a whole, and not about the website. What to check on the finished page - in parsing the landing page.
Frequently asked questions
- What should be in the website brief?
- Six blocks: business and task of the site, audience and its objections, product with offers and evidence, structure and content, design with references, technique and deadlines. Everything else is detailing inside these blocks.
- How does a brief differ from a technical specification?
- The brief is filled out by the customer before the assessment; it is about the task and context. The technical specification is written by the contractor after the brief, it is about the solution: pages, functions, requirements. The brief answers “why and for whom,” the technical specification answers “what exactly we are doing.”
- Who should fill out the brief for the site?
- The customer, not the contractor. The brief filled out by the contractor turns into a set of assumptions, and each assumption turns into rework at the expense of the customer at the stage of layouts.
- How long does it take to fill out the brief?
- From forty minutes to an hour and a half, if you answer honestly. An empty field is better than a fictitious answer: “I don’t know” - this is also information, it shows what you need to find out before the start.
- Do you need a brief for a landing page?
- It is necessary, and it is almost the same. The landing page has a smaller block of structure and content, but the offer and evidence are more critical: there is nothing on one page to compensate for weak wording.