Checklist: Questions to Ask Before Starting a Content Writing Project

 

Remember the time when you went back and forth with the client on a content writing project? Remember the anxiety? Remember the stress?

Well, in retrospect, do you wish you had done anything different?

More often than not, content writers often say that asking more questions helps.

Questions drive alignment, identify points of friction and give you guard-rails alongside which you operate. Of course, you shouldn’t hit the client with a 100-question questionnaire right away, what you could do is identify which of the following are the must-asks for your project. Or you could also do a progressive build up. Asking questions at every interaction, and using it to shape up your content marketing project. In that way, you will receive all the information that you need, without overloading the client with too many questions right at the start of the engagement.

So what are those list of questions that you should ask?

1. Are there any brand / company guidelines?

Every organization has its own tone of voice, brand guidelines and writing style. Two brands within the same organization might have very different tonalities. It is of utmost importance for you to know that. The brand voice helps you to identify the personality of the brand and craft content accordingly. The same article can be written in an informative, authoritative, quirky or funny tone of voice. You don’t want to find out what was required after you have spent a considerable amount of time creating a first draft.

So your first question should always enquire about existing brand guidelines. Also ask for sample content. The way that you see the brand on social media may not be the most desirable projection of the brand in the minds of the marketing team. Asking for sample content tells you the way they want you to write the article.

2. Let me know the basics

This question is to ask and close out the hygiene questions.

You obviously should have an idea by this stage about the word-count. But it is always a good idea to ask further around how many headings are they expecting, do they expect any figures/ tables? What are their expectations around the number of paragraphs? What call to action are they expecting? What is the deadline for this article? If you get the outline right and approved, it will certainly ensure that your article gets approved quicker with lesser rewrites.

3. Is there a content stylesheet?

If there is one question that I’d say that you cannot miss, it is this. Some brands do share a detailed content stylesheet which captures quite a lot: Spellings (US / UK), writing style, referencing style (numbered, lettered), capitalization, insertion of quotes, the works. So in case you come across a brand that does share a stylesheet, that’s a positive sign that they know what they want and are making your life easier.

Some brands are muddled, they don’t know what they want. More often than not, they are the ones that make writers do multiple rewrites and drafts. This ends up creating major dissatisfaction and is hugely unproductive for the writer.

To prevent this, it is better to share your stylesheet in advance. Keep a stylesheet handy [download one here if you don’t have any] and ask the client for consent on this. Trust me, it will save you hours of rework. It also showcases you as a professional writer, and takes your credibility up a notch.

4. Who is the audience?

Understanding who the target audience is next.

The person who is reading the article will determine what should be the writing style, the structure, the tonality and the personality of the content piece that you are authoring. The readership is the consumer of the content, and if they are not happy, delighted, satisfied, informed or educated by reading the article, the writing effort is wasted. You do want to evoke strong emotions from your content and that will come as a natural outcome of understanding the target audience.

Here you may want to do some research on the competitors and see what articles are they writing and which ones are getting the most traction. This will ensure that the article that you write is a notch above what is prevalent in the market (and search engines) on that topic. It will also save you re-writes as you would have already investigated are the needs of the target audience, what content are they currently consuming and what are the gaps in the current content.

A good question here would be to find out is what reaction are they expecting the target audience to have. Optimizing around the target audience reaction will certainly help you anchor the content for the article.

5. What is the final outcome format of the content?

The content structure of a press release will be slightly different from that of a blog article. Be sure to confirm what is the final outcome format of the content, as it will dictate a lot of the structure, readability and presentation of the content.

6. What is the penultimate business outcome?

You have to help the client closer to his business outcome. Having this conversation right off the bat tells you how important your article is and where does it fit in the overall hierarchy. This enables you to provide more RoI to the client. This also demonstrates that you are not just a typical freelancer but their strategic partner 

7. How often do you want project updates?

Some clients prefer day-by-day updates. Others prefer a low touchpoint model, opting to receive an update only around outcomes. Find out what your client is comfortable with. You don’t want to reach out to someone with too many updates if he prefers less and too few if she prefers more updates.

8. What is the process for rewrites?

Now we come to an area which is a major point of contention between the client and the content writer: rewrites.

Many a times, the client will not be happy with the output you have shared. You will feel disappointed that despite having given it your best shot, you couldn’t meet the clients requirements. Sometimes despite 1-2 rewrites, the client is still not happy.

So what do you do?

The process that we discussed above should reduce the probability of extensive rewrites. But still if you are getting rewrite requests, be clear about the process for rewrites.

If you are offering unlimited re-writes, be clear about the duration in which it would be valid [for example, 3 days].

If you are offering atleast 1 re-write, then specify what would be the level of changes [for example 20% new content with the client clearly advising which areas need to change].

I know perhaps putting structure to this area is really difficult, but if you are getting into a situation that you have to re-write too frequently for the same client, I’d advise letting that client go after concluding the engagement to his/her satisfaction.

Though the occasional re-write is okay, chronic re-writing is toxic and best avoided.

9. References

What reference materials do they expect you to go through? I have always provided 2-3 references to my content writers to ensure they get a feel of what the typical content on that industry is. It removes the risk of having almost the same content (in case the content writer skipped doing secondary research). The references also provide you a solid platform on which you have to now provide the delta. The content that you now author has to be atleast 3X better than the already existing content, if not more.

10. Is there anything else that I should know about this project?

An open-ended question like this at the end is always a good option. You may have skipped a question that could be important for the delivery. Or it may not have been on your radar at all. Either way, this is a reminder to the client to share some info which may hinder / accelerate your work.

Summary

The more information that you have, the better you will be able to write. When I started off my career as a content writer, I was hesitant in asking questions. I always thought that it would show me in less favourable light. On the other hand, asking questions only shows that you care about the project and want to give it your best. So don’t be hesitant, and ask away, albeit structure your questions so that they appear in a natural cascade