10 Essential Questions For Commissioning Content

We get it; you want a quick and accurate quote and we want to give it to you but the brief has gotta be right. To help, here’s ten questions that, when answered in detail makes everyone more productive. Good luck!

1. What’s your deadline? (The real one, not the arbitrary one. When do you actually need to publish this piece of content? The more time we have the smoother the process and the better the outcome.)
2. What is your budget? (We can’t steal it; we can only propose the best, most creative solution for you to spend it on. If you don’t know your budget we will assume it is limitless and quote accordingly.)
3. What is the purpose of your content? (Why are you doing this in the first place? What are you hoping to achieve? The more you tell us the more we can help.)
4. What do you want to say? (Cos there’s no point in creating something about nothing.)
5. Who do you want to say it to? (First rule of marketing is to know your market and if we’re going to create you some MARKETING content, we need to know your market too.)
6. In what context will it be shown/shared? (This has both creative and technical implications depending on whether it’s online, offline, on a cinema screen or a mobile phone so it is important we know up front. It can be expensive and time consuming to correct later.)
7. Are there any size/duration restrictions? (Boring but essential I’m afraid, if you don’t know the answers let us know and we’d be happy to advise.)
8. How many stakeholders are there and who are they? (We know you have a hard job keeping everybody happy and we’d like to help you out so whose ass do we have to kiss apart from yours?)
9. What assets do you have that we can use? (Because the more you supply, the less you have to buy!)
10. What other content do you like? (The Internet is awash with examples of every conceivable type of content so show us what you like, or what you don’t, and we’ll incorporate that into our own ideas.)

That’s it, super simple! We look forward to receiving some sizzling briefs soon.