How to Brief a Marketing Agency (Without Starting From Scratch Every Time)
Every new agency, freelancer and hire asks you the same questions. Here is how to brief them once, properly, and stop starting from scratch.
Most brand voice guides end up the same way. Someone spends a week on one, it gets a nice cover page, and then it lives in a shared drive while everyone goes back to writing the way they always have.
Now there’s a second reader to think about. Your team isn’t the only one writing in your name anymore: AI tools draft emails, posts and pages every day, and they’ll only sound like you if you tell them how. Here’s how to write a voice guide that works for both.
Why most voice guides don’t get used
The usual guide lists three adjectives (friendly, professional, innovative) and stops there. The trouble is that almost every company would pick the same three. Adjectives describe a feeling, but they don’t tell a writer what to actually do on a Tuesday afternoon with a blank email in front of them.
The guides that get used have three things in common: they’re short enough to read in ten minutes, they show real examples instead of describing them, and they explain why the voice sounds the way it does.
Start with who you are, not how you sound
Voice isn’t a style choice you make in isolation. It comes from your personality, your values and the people you’re talking to. A financial advisor for first-time investors and a tattoo studio can both be “warm,” and they shouldn’t sound anything alike.
That’s why a voice guide works best as one part of a larger brand foundation. When your story, values and ideal clients are already written down, the voice almost writes itself. When they aren’t, the voice guide ends up as guesswork dressed up as rules.
What a usable voice guide includes
Keep it to a few pages. Here’s what earns its place:
- Your voice in one sentence. Something like “We sound like a trusted advisor talking to a busy founder over coffee.” If someone reads nothing else, this should get them most of the way there.
- Three or four traits, each with a “this, not that.” “Warm, not gushing.” “Confident, not cocky.” “Plain-spoken, not simplistic.” The “not” is where the real guidance lives.
- Before-and-after examples. Take a real sentence that missed the mark and rewrite it in your voice. One good rewrite teaches more than a page of description.
- Words you use, and words you avoid. Your names for your services, your clients and your process, plus the phrases that make you wince.
- How the tone flexes. Your voice stays the same everywhere, but your tone shifts. A support reply, a sales page and a social post shouldn’t read identically.
- Who you’re talking to. A short description of your reader, what they’re worried about, and what they need to hear from you.
Make it work for your AI tools, too
AI tools read everything literally. They don’t fill in the gaps the way a teammate who’s been around for a year would. A few adjustments make a big difference:
- Keep it in plain text, in one place. A beautifully designed PDF is hard to paste into a chat window. A simple, well-organized page your team can copy from is far more useful.
- Lead with context, not adjectives. Tell the tool who you are, who you’re writing for and what the writing needs to accomplish before you describe the tone.
- Include samples of your best writing. Three to five pieces you’re proud of will teach a tool more about your voice than any list of traits.
- Spell out what to avoid. If you’d never say “unlock your potential” or “game-changer,” say so. AI tools lean on phrases like those unless they’re told otherwise.
Then test it. Give the guide to your AI tool and ask for a short email to a prospective client. If you’d have to rewrite more than a third of it, the guide is missing something, and the parts you rewrote tell you exactly what.
How to write yours in an afternoon
- Gather your best writing. Pull ten pieces you’re proud of, and three that didn’t land.
- Look for the pattern. What do the good ones have in common? Sentence length, word choice, how direct they are, whether there’s any humor.
- Draft the core. Write your one-sentence voice and your traits, each with a “this, not that.”
- Rewrite one of the misses. Use the draft guide to fix a piece that didn’t land. If the guide doesn’t help, refine it until it does.
- Hand it off. Give it to a teammate and to an AI tool, ask both to write the same short piece, and compare. Adjust wherever either of them drifted.
A mirror, not a costume
The best voice guides don’t invent a personality. They describe the one that’s already there, clearly enough that anyone (or anything) writing on your behalf can find it.
In the Satori Method Foundation, your brand voice guide is built from your own words in a deep workshop conversation. It then lives in a private Brand Foundation Hub alongside your story, values and ideal clients, ready for your team, agencies and AI tools to work from.
Related Posts
How to Train ChatGPT and Claude on Your Brand Voice
AI writes like everyone else until you give it something to work from. Here is how to set up ChatGPT and Claude so first drafts actually sound like you.
Brand Guidelines vs. Brand Strategy: What Your Team Is Actually Missing
Brand guidelines tell people how your logo should look. Brand strategy tells them what you mean. Most growing companies only have the first half.
What Is a Brand Foundation, and Does a Growing Company Need One?
A brand foundation is the written source of truth behind everything your company says. Here is what goes in one, and the signs it’s time to build yours.
Next step
See if the Satori Method is right for you.
A 15-minute call to hear where you are and where you're heading. If it's a fit, we'll book your Foundation workshop. If it isn't, I'll tell you, and point you somewhere better.
Rather just email? Write to me directly at johan@satoristudio.online.