Copywriting process

Run a piece of copy from first brief to approved, published words. Write the brief, file it, hand it to a writer, draft into the channel template, review against the brief, approve, and link the finished copy back to the brief and the campaign. This is the copy counterpart to the creative brief process. The two run in parallel on most campaigns, from the same strategy, toward different outputs.

​

What you’ll end up with

Two things that point at each other:

• A completed copy brief, filed in the copy brief library, recording the objective, reader, message, proof, mandatories, and channels.
• Approved copy, drafted into each channel’s template, linked from the brief and filed in the copy drive.

One person, the owner, is accountable for the brief end to end. The writer produces the words. On a small team these are the same person, and separating them still matters at review, because the brief is what the copy gets judged against.

​

Before you start

Confirm these before you open a brief:

• The strategy exists. A copy brief works one level down from strategy. The objective, the customer profile, and the core message usually already live in a marketing campaign brief or a creative brief. If none of those exist, the missing document is one of them, not this one.
• The customer profile is in the library. Link it from the customer profile library rather than describing it fresh.
• The angle is chosen and linked. The profile says who is being written to; the angle says why they should care. Its brief also carries drafted hooks, so the first line does not start from a blank page.
• You know every channel this copy has to run on. Copy written for one channel and reused unchanged on another is the most common failure this process prevents.
• The brand voice and tone workbook is current, so the brief can point at the section that applies instead of restating rules.

​

The process at a glance

​

1. Check the copy drive first

Search the copy drive before briefing anything new. A line that has already run has performance behind it and has already cleared review. Check three things before reusing one: that it is still true, that any claim in it is still approved, and that it fits the character limits of the channel you now need it for.

​

2. Write the copy brief

Copy the copy brief and fill in the required core. Every assignment gets its own. If the copy is a test arm, one brief covers the whole test rather than one per arm. Name the experiment brief in the setup section, fill in the arms table in section 3 with a message and a message angle per arm, and state what is held constant. Two briefs for two arms is how a copy test ends up differing by more than the one variable it was meant to test.

• Objective and reader action. Three levels: the business goal, what this piece has to change in the reader’s head, and the concrete thing you want them to do. Collapsing these into one line loses the part a writer can act on.
• Customer profile and insight. Link the profile. Then name the one thing about how they think that the copy has to push against. A profile says where to run the ad; an insight says what the first sentence has to overcome.
• Key message and proof. Take the message from the campaign brief rather than reinventing it. Add the reasons the reader should believe it.
• Voice, tone, and mandatories. Point at the section of the brand voice and tone workbook that applies. Split mandatories into what must appear and what must never appear.
• Channels and deliverables. Every channel this copy runs on, each routed to its own copy template.
• Success criteria. Both kinds: whether the writing is right, and whether it worked.

Add the optional sections, hook direction, objections, and localization, only where they would change what gets written. See the copy brief concepts document for the reasoning behind each section.

​

3. File the brief before writing starts

Save the completed brief to the copy brief library, named per the file naming conventions. Filing it before drafting, rather than after approval, puts the strategy on record from the moment anyone begins. It also means anyone who needs to see what was decided can find it while the work is still live.

​

4. Hand the brief to the writer

Give the writer the filed brief and confirm they have everything it calls for: the customer profile, the proof, the brand links, the approved claims list, and a fresh copy of the right channel template for each deliverable. A brief sets the problem and the boundaries. Hand over the strategy and the mandatories, not a pre-written line the writer is expected to arrive at.

​

5. Draft into the channel template

The writer drafts into the channel template, not into a blank document and not into the ad platform. The template carries the character limits and field structure for that format, so copy written into it is already the right shape. Copy written loose and cut down afterward tends to lose the part that was doing the work.

​

6. Run feedback rounds

Review each draft against the brief, not against preference.

• Consolidate feedback. One clear set of notes per round, from a single point of contact, so the writer isn’t reconciling conflicting comments.
• Tie each note to the brief. “This doesn’t land the core message” is actionable. “I don’t love it” is not.
• Track the rounds. Work to the number the brief set. Needing more is a signal to check whether the brief was clear rather than to keep iterating.

If the strategy genuinely needs to change, update the brief first, then brief the change. Two documents that disagree is worse than either one alone.

​

7. Approve against the success criteria

Check the copy against the criteria the brief set in advance:

• Uses the approved call-to-action wording exactly.
• Fits every channel’s character limits.
• Matches the section of the voice workbook the brief named.
• Everything on the “must include” list is present, and nothing on the “must not include” list is.
• Every claim is on the approved claims list, or has been cleared.

Then run any legal or brand review the work needs, per the approval process.

​

8. Link the finished copy back

Once approved:

• Paste the link to the finished copy into the brief’s finished copy section, one row per channel.
• Paste it into the marketing campaign brief’s finished copy list.
• File the approved copy in the copy drive, named per the file naming conventions.

The brief now points at the words it produced, and the words can be traced back to the strategy behind them.

​

Exceptions

• The copy is a small change to an already-approved asset. A wording tweak does not need a full brief. Record what changed and why on the existing brief, and re-run approval only if the change touches a claim.
• The copy is an article. Articles are briefed separately and outlive the campaign. Use the article brief and the article process instead.
• The assignment is killed mid-flight. File the brief with a short note on why it stopped. The insight and objections research is usually reusable.

​

Related resources

• Copy brief The fill-in workbook this process runs on.
• Copy templates Every channel template, by platform and format.
• Copy brief concepts The reasoning behind each section.
• Copy brief library Where completed briefs are filed.
• Copy drive Where approved copy is filed and found again.
• Creative brief process The parallel process for visual work.
• Brand voice and tone The standard copy is written against.