A useful content brief helps a writer make decisions. It explains who the reader is, what they need to understand, which claims can be supported and what the finished piece should help them do.
A title and a word count leave most of those decisions unresolved. Use the following brief for a guide, service article or campaign page, and remove fields that do not help the assignment.
Describe the reader’s situation rather than listing a broad demographic. “Small-business owner” is less useful than “an owner comparing two service proposals who cannot tell what is included in either price.” The second description gives the writer a problem to solve.
Then name the decision. Is the reader choosing an approach, preparing information, checking a result or understanding a limitation? One article can support related questions, but it needs a clear primary job.
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Reader | Their role, situation and relevant prior knowledge |
| Primary question | The question the article must answer clearly |
| Useful outcome | What the reader should be able to decide or do afterward |
| Scope | What to cover and what belongs in a separate article |
| Evidence | Approved facts, original sources and the owner of each claim |
| Example | A permitted real example or an explicitly hypothetical one |
| Structure | The questions or steps that form the article |
| Next step | A relevant action and its working destination |
| Review | Who checks facts, language and publication readiness |
| Delivery | Required format, practical length, deadline and assets |
Do not put an attractive claim in the brief as if it were already established. Label it “verify” and say what evidence would make it usable. A writer should be able to distinguish an approved product specification from an interview suggestion or a rough estimate.
For each important statistic or quotation, keep the original source and enough context to interpret it. Record the date and population behind a statistic. A result from one campaign should not become a promise about every business.
If the evidence is unavailable, change the claim or omit it. A practical example can explain a method without pretending to be a customer success story.
Consider a hypothetical training provider preparing a guide for team managers. Its brief might read as follows:
This brief gives the writer choices they can defend. It also gives the reviewer a concrete standard: does the article help the manager prepare the enquiry?
List the questions that need answers, then let the writer organise them into a readable sequence. Request a table only when readers need to compare parallel options. Request a checklist when they need to perform or verify steps.
Use length as a planning constraint rather than a target to fill. A short task may need a short answer. A complex decision may need examples, limitations and supporting material. Remove repeated introductions and unsupported general claims before adding more words.
Read the draft once for purpose and accuracy. Does it answer the primary question? Are its claims supported? Does the example clarify the method? Is the next step relevant and available? Resolve these issues before spending time on sentence-level preferences.
If the article misses the intended job, revise the structure or the brief. Record what changed so the writer is not working against two different sets of expectations.
For bilingual assignments, add a shared facts sheet and a language review. The same offer, dates and commitments should survive every version. A completed brief becomes a useful reference when the content later needs updating.
Publishing in English and Traditional Chinese involves more than translating the article body. The headline, offer, form, confirmation message and follow-up all need to tell the same story. A fluent translation can still send a customer to the wrong next step.
Use this checklist when a small team prepares two language versions of a campaign. It is a proposed editorial workflow: adapt the checks to the product and the people you serve.
Write one sentence describing the intended reader, the question the page answers and the action it should support. Decide whether the versions serve the same audience or need different examples and explanations.
For a hypothetical training workshop, both versions might help a team manager decide whether the session suits their staff. The English version could explain a technical term that the Chinese version handles differently. Neither version should silently change the level of experience required or what the session includes.
Before editing the prose, record the details that must match. Give one person responsibility for checking the facts against the current offer.
| Check | What to compare | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Offer | Included services, exclusions and eligibility | Approved offer or programme outline |
| Numbers | Price, currency, duration, capacity and dates | Current price list and schedule |
| Commitments | Delivery format, availability and response time | Confirmation from the responsible team |
| Next step | Enquiry, registration or booking | Working destination and confirmation message |
Do not turn an estimate into a guarantee during translation. If the original says a proposal is normally prepared after a consultation, the other version should not promise an immediate quotation.
Maintain a short terminology sheet for recurring product names, service labels and calls to action. Record the approved term in each language and an example sentence showing how it is used.
For example, “Enquire” might become 「查詢」, while “Register” might become 「報名」 for an event. Those actions are different. A button that opens an enquiry form should not imply that a place has been reserved.
These are illustrative choices, not universal translations. Ask a fluent reviewer to assess whether the wording is natural for the audience. Check names, punctuation and English abbreviations inside Chinese sentences as carefully as the main paragraphs.
Follow the campaign link on a phone. Read the headline, scan the offer, open the form and submit a test enquiry using clearly marked test details. Check what the visitor sees next and what the receiving team receives.
A page is not ready merely because its text has been approved. Assign unresolved form or follow-up problems to a named owner before launch.
Inspect headings, buttons, tables and line breaks at the actual display size. Check that Chinese characters render correctly, longer English labels remain readable and key information is not available only as text inside an image.
Ask the person maintaining the website to set its page language correctly and identify passages in another language where appropriate. This helps assistive technology apply suitable pronunciation rules. W3C explains the distinction in its guidance on language of the page and language changes within a page. Language markup is one part of accessibility, not a complete accessibility assessment.
Keep a small release record: page URL, language, version date, factual checker, language reviewer and unresolved issues. When the offer changes, update both versions from the same facts sheet and repeat the affected checks.
Finish with a simple read-through question: would a customer understand the same offer and receive the same promised next step in either language? If the answer is uncertain, resolve the difference before promoting the page.
For the wider campaign plan, see seven practical digital marketing ideas for Hong Kong SMEs.