Writing for Clients: How to Start Your First Draft

Have you ever gotten a writing job and just not known where to begin? Of course you have! Even the best writers in the world have struggled with producing their first drafts. The first draft can be daunting, starting off with only a basic idea of what a client wants.

I am here to tell you that a little bit of structure when writing your drafts, goes a LONG way. Here are some tips on how to perfect your first drafting process without wasting long hours thinking what to write.

Understand Your Client and All They Require

This IS the most important step!

I promise you that writing the perfect copy and content will be 1000x easier when you have a comprehensive understanding of your client, their branding, and their expectations for the project. It also (hopefully) reduces the number of corrections and missing requirements that weren’t established due to a poor briefing process.

Briefing your client is to completely understand what they require from you as a copywriter. No one knows their business better than them, so you want to take full advantage of drilling information out of them to make your job easier and more accurate. This means asking questions.

Now, not everyone wants to have to write a novel-length response to your questions. After all, they hired a writer to write for them. There are a variety of questions you can ask clients. You may even want to tailor questions to the industry or type of project. Whether you are writing for your own website or a client’s,

Here are some of the most important things to pick your client’s brain about;

• Project details. What are we writing?
• Scope and inclusions. How much detail are we including? What do we need to cover?
• Target audience. Who are we appealing to?
• The tone of voice. What kind of writing style should be used?
• The objectives. What will this project achieve? What are the immediate goals?
• The features and benefits of a product/service being sold
• Why someone would choose this product/service over another
• The call to action. What would be the next step for the audience?
• Any must includes
• Deadlines
• Keywords. Do you have any keywords? Do you require keyword research?

While these are the vital questions for a basic understanding of a project, it’s essential to tailor questions for different projects. After you have adequately briefed your client, you are ready to begin researching.

Research To Your Heart’s Content (and more)

Once you know your client, you need to know the industry they work within. It’s time to move on to the all-important researching phase of writing copy and content. Without research, your writing will be without purpose for the client.

Most (if not all) copy and content intends to drive traffic and engagement. How do we make this happen? With an understanding of what works and what doesn’t through research. You need to have knowledge of the industry, brand, brand placement in the industry, product/service, and SEO techniques.

Where can you go for research?

• Go to the original source. Google the brand’s name and see what comes up, take a look at your client’s current website resources. You will get a good understanding of your client’s current tone of voice and style.
• Go to the competition. I can not stress enough how useful it is to go to competitors of a brand and look to see what they are doing right and wrong. Learn what works for competitors and fill in gaps in the market for the needs of the audience.
• Go to the customers. We now have the luxury of social media pages full of reviews, comments, queries, and demographics. Take this information to build an audience profile and make your writing relevant.
• Go to SEO software. Look into trending keywords and look at what people are searching on Google. I use SEMrush for this, but there are plenty out there that all do similar things. From this, you can gather information about how many times a keyword has been searched, the main competition around that particular keyword, and semantically related keywords.
• Go to current trends. It’s all about being relevant. Social media is your best friend. Twitter, Facebook, even Youtube, all have trending pages where you can look for great ideas to write about. Here is a list of my favourite trend sources you can refer to.

Organising Your Research

So, you have all the research and information you need from your client — What next?

Before you go jumping into writing, organise your notes so that you have everything ready for quick referral. Organising your research can undoubtedly cut your production process in half by keeping you focused throughout your progress.

Try to cut downtime wasted tab jumping or trying to recall things from memory. I like to keep research as minimal and clean as possible with just keywords and sources of information.

You may choose to include more or less information but here are a few things to keep in front of you while planning and writing;

• The main topic
• Primary keywords
• Secondary keywords
• Sources of research such as posts, articles, copy

With all these resources in place, you are now ready to get started on the draft.

Your Ready — The First Draft

It’s time to put all of this information together for a first draft.

Construct Your Headers

Headers are a great place to start. It’s best to incorporate keywords into your headers to help search engines understand your content and where to place it. Starting with headers gives you a guide to write with. They help you picture the structure of your project and also gives you a template to write with.

Just Write.

Every writer has their own strategies when it comes to getting into the writing flow. The best tip ever passed down to me was to set a timer for 5 minutes and write down every thought that comes into your head regarding the topic without stopping. That’s right, just write. It helps your mind focus on the topic as gets those creative juices flowing. You will be surprised what you end up using in your final product.

Remember the following things when constructing your first draft;

• Talk to your audience like they would you.
• Benefits only, please. Skip writing about features and go straight to explaining the benefits to your audience.
• Let the words flow as you would speak.
• Are you focused on the correct topic?
• Headlines are everything for all those skim readers out there.
• Call them to action.
• Is it easy to read?
• Have you included keywords and SEO?

You made it! The first draft is rolling and you are 100% prepared for producing the best copy and content possible. Keep going with your writing and refer back to this little guide when you need a little inspiration on how to get started again.

Happy writing!

Get in touch

email: samantha@sammyhillwrites.com