So, your copywriter has submitted their first draft and, upon first glance… it doesn't look great. Oh dear.
Perhaps it's too salesy, lacks technical detail, or the studies they cited are completely outdated and irrelevant. As a business owner, there’s one question you now have to ask: where do you go from here?
Ending a marketing agency relationship you've invested thousands of pounds (and weeks of time) negotiating is a bit drastic. Similarly, firing the internal marketer who may have prioritised other tasks isn't always the fairest solution. It’s usually best to try to improve and iterate going forward, rather than burn bridges at the first sign of trouble.
While you might be tempted to copy and paste the problem article into ChatGPT with a simple "Make this article better" prompt, those familiar with AI writing tools know their outputs can leave a lot to be desired.
So, if you want to avoid spending countless hours re-prompting and fact-checking AI — time you could've spent writing the article from scratch –– just keep calm and read our tips for providing effective client feedback to salvage your second draft.
If you submitted a written copywriting brief, you should first go back and check the details. Did you know that around half of content marketing agencies work with companies that provide only very basic briefs? Therefore, if your copywriting brief was little more than a snapshot (i.e., a short paragraph), your writer could be forgiven for taking the information they were given and running with it.
However, this isn't always the case if you have been working with them for a long time, they have previously written great first drafts, and they know your business inside out.
Suppose you feel you're at the stage where they 'get' what you want from them, and you can handover spoken or very brief briefs. In that case, you should look to understand where this piece deviated from what you normally send to establish the context from your end — essentially pinpointing where things might have gone wrong with the input you provided.
Did you send over your business's tone of voice document? Previous examples you're happy with? Even simple guidance on how you want readers to feel about, or what to do with, your content marketing piece? If you feel like you did all these things and more, ask your writer if they need more information to clarify the briefing details. A simple collaborative conversation could be enough to provide them with the guidance they need to turn out a fantastic second draft.
Sending a three-page copywriting brief is all well and good. Still, a content strategy meeting may be needed if you're unsure about your company’s direction, what your competitors are doing and need more information on the latest and best approach to search engine optimisation (SEO).
Approach your marketing agency with a request to meet to iron out the kinks in your content marketing plan, as this can help you understand what's needed to tune up the copy in the second draft. Marketing strategy meetings dive deep into your long-term business goals, ideal customer profile and commercial goal for each piece of content.
At the end of this session, you will be given a document covering the agency's findings, including a keyword list, tone of voice document, and marketing persona profiles. Crucially, they will also provide a customer journey map, outlining where its content fits into the buyer's journey alongside recommendations for the precise sales messages that will most likely resonate at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
For longer pieces of content (800 words and over) an article outline can help you speed up the writing and approval process and give you an opportunity to add in any details or sales messages you want to see in the final draft.
Outline documents vary but most should include the following:
These documents can be 50-75% of the final word count and include complete sentences of the final copy or more directional phrases such as, "We will open the section with a stat that shows…"
Directional phrases like the above allow the writer to turn in this rough first draft quicker, so you can get a fast, accurate picture of the main points before going into the more refined full article writing process. This method will ensure there are no surprises, and you will hopefully get a draft where only minor tweaks are needed.
For regulated industries, such as legal and financial services, specific wording and qualifying phrases may be needed for compliance. For small changes to copy like these, use the “add comments” tab on your word processing programme to highlight sections and add notes of small details you need to change.
Your writer should give you editing access to leave comments, but by no means should you feel obligated to make these changes yourself. A good writer should be able to take these scattered thoughts and incorporate them into the copy.
In summary, client feedback, whether verbal or written comments, should be enough for your copywriter to turn a disappointing first draft around. However, make sure that they are clear on the copywriting brief and the intention of your marketing messages. An article outline can help you clarify these details before going into full writing.
CopyHouse provides strategic content marketing to tech-led B2B clients, both domestically and internationally. Find out more about how we can help optimise your campaigns and content activity — contact us today.
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