Overloaded with vague communication requests? Here's how to get clarity and content
Save everyone’s time and get the information you need with a content and communications brief
Tuesday arvo.
A new email arrives:
“We need to tell people about the new service.”
Not much context.
Just the request sitting there while I’m already 5 projects deep. My mind fires off:
Who’s this for?
Why is it needed?
When does it launch?
What have they already written?
What’s the main goal here?
I shoot off an email with 5 questions.
They fire back answers…
A week later, I’ve finally got enough to start thinking about the actual work.
Sound familiar?
Here's what I used to do
I’d get frustrated.
I’d sit at my desk thinking,
“Why don’t they get that I need context?”
“Why am I playing email ping-pong when I could be setting them up quickly with what they need?”
I’d tell myself they just wanted me to move fast. That they didn’t understand what I needed to help them. And that they’ve come to us a little late…
But here’s the thing: I was frustrated at the wrong thing.
The real problem
They wanted to launch. Fast.
They had a deadline looming.
Their director was asking where the comms plan was.
The budget was approved.
The service was ready to go.
But they hadn’t done the thinking part yet: the why, the who, the what does success actually look like? part.
So they sent a one-liner and hoped I’d figure it out across a long email thread and a few meetings.
You’ve come across this too, haven’t you?
You just want to create a clear, powerful, effective campaign that does justice to a health service. For an event, service launch, or program.
Not share irrelevant content that overloads people with information they won’t read.
Not share a wall of complex, repetitive, vague text that confuses patients and frustrates staff.
You want to share information in the right format, in the right channel, in the right language.
Designed to help staff understand processes.
Information that’ll help the public know what’s going on, why, and what to do next.
Bu you can’t start that work without knowing where you’re headed and the content you need to communicate with.
What changed everything
I started getting stakeholders to fill in a simple communications brief before they sent the request.
Just one form. A few questions:
Purpose: what’s this for, one sentence
Audience: who it’s for, and just as important, who it’s not for
What it replaces: is old content getting retired? Redirected?
Owner: who signs off, who’s looking after it once it’s live
Success: what metric will tell you this effort was worthwhile
The essentials: what your reader needs to know, in dot points
Constraints: deadline, budget, who needs to approve it
None of this is bureaucracy for the sake of it.
Your team can coordinate between themselves about the socials, the internal comms, the external comms, and get legal or other teams in the loop if needed - early. A 4-6 week minimum lead time is ideal.
The service team asking for support gets what they need shared with the right people, at the right time, on the right channel… with the right information.
Cos there’s nothing worse than a vague, untargeted newsletter article, email, or web page that overloads staff and the public with more of what they won’t read.
Healthcare content and communications project brief
Below is the brief in Word and PDF versions.
It’s based on what I get health service teams to fill in when they need communications support:
You can use an editable word document or create a form and get people to fill it in.
A form works well especially when it collects requests onto the one spreadsheet.
Grab it and adapt it for your own team.
In a nutshell: a better way to deal with communication requests
The person sending the one-liner isn’t trying to waste your time. They’re moving at a “needed to have it done yesterday” context.
They’ve got patients who need the service, hard deadlines, limited time, and directors asking questions.
They’re not communications professionals. They genuinely don’t know what they don’t know - and what our health communication teams need to know.
And they’re doing their best to move fast.
And you?
You’re not frustrated because they’re vague.
You’re frustrated because you care.
You’re frustrated because you’re good at what you do.
You know the difference between content that lands and content that gets buried in an inbox.
A communications brief can guide them and get the information you need to share their wonderful service or initiative.
What does your inbox look like?
Are you getting loads of vague communications requests?
Try using the brief and let me know how you go.