Batch Content for Clients: Several Pieces From One Brief

The launch is in two weeks. The client would like "a few LinkedIn posts" and has sent one paragraph and a logo. You write five. By the third, they're the same post with the sentences moved around.

That's the problem with batch content for clients. Asking for more of a thing is easy, and more of the same thing is worth nothing. So the work is in getting pieces that really differ, then reading that many without losing track.

One Brief, Several Angles

From a Brief writes several of a format, each from a different angle. You ask for the count, and you don't have to supply the angles.

Everything else about the writing is the same as any other run: the voice you chose, your rules, the client's Business Facts, and the rule for each format. What GoMimic writes with covers those. A brief never teaches the voice, because it says what to write and isn't how the client writes. How GoMimic learns a client's voice has the rest.

What the Brief Asks For

In Create, pick From a Brief. A few lines is enough to get going, and the optional boxes are where the variety comes from.

• What is it about? The topic, in a sentence or two.
• Who is it for? The reader you have in mind. It's worth being narrower than the client's whole audience.
• Points to make. Optional, one at a time. This is where your batch gets its range.
• Target Keyword. Optional. It goes in naturally, early on.
• Your Original Take. Optional, in Brief for This Post on the same step, up to 500 characters, which is about one firm opinion. It becomes the main point. If the client has one thing to say that nobody else in their field says, it goes here.

A brief you typed and left is still there when you reopen Create in that client, so it can wait for the answer you're chasing.

What Makes a Batch Differ

Different angles need different material. That's the one thing about batching that software can't do for you, and it's why we'd spend the time here.

Before you set a count, in our view, ask three questions:

• Do I have as many things to say as pieces I'm asking for? Five pieces want about five points. Ask the client for what's missing, or ask for three.
• Is there something here only this client can say? A test they ran, a customer who surprised them, a thing they stopped doing. Those lines are the ones the client recognizes as theirs.
• Are the figures on hand? Figures come only from Facts We Can Use or your own points. Where neither gives a figure, the piece says less, so a brief with no numbers gets no numbers.

Have the material in another form? A call with the founder goes further than a brief, so From a Conversation may suit better. And when the source already exists as a published post, content repurposing is the job you're doing, and From a Published Post is the place to start.

Make What the Retainer Covers

A tool that can write 30 pieces makes 30 feel like a plan. It's rarely what the client bought.

We call the answer format sovereignty, which is a grand name for a plain rule: make the formats and counts the retainer covers, and treat anything else as an exception you've agreed with the client.

Extras look generous, and in our view they cost more than they seem to:

• Someone has to read them. Every extra piece goes past your editor before the client sees it, and that time comes out of the retainer. What manual distribution costs sets out the sum.
• The answer comes later. A client who ordered five pieces and gets twenty has twenty to read before giving one answer. A long read is an easy one to put off.
• The extra becomes the expectation. Send a carousel nobody ordered this month, and next month someone asks where it is. The retainer has grown, and nobody agreed to that or paid for it.

In GoMimic, tick the formats each client buys in Client Settings, and every new post for them opens with those. You can still pick others for one post.

There's a fair exception. A sample of a format the client hasn't bought can be a good way to sell it. Say that's what it is, and send it as its own post, so it doesn't hold up their answer on the work they ordered.

Setting the Counts

The last step shows your formats with a counter on each, and a running total underneath.

You can ask for up to 10 of a format, 5 of a LinkedIn Newsletter, and 30 pieces in a post. A press of Create counts once against your hourly limit however many pieces it writes, so there's no reason to split a run to save on that.

There is a reason to ask for fewer, though. If we can't find that many different pieces to write, the screen says "Try again, or ask for fewer," and that's worth listening to. Three good ones beat five thin ones.

While a Long Run Is Writing

Each piece shows as Done, Writing now, or Up next, and appears the moment it lands. Create keeps going if you leave, so you can head to another client, and the bell tells you when the new assets are ready.

If a format doesn't come back, what did come back is kept and leads the screen, and Try Again works on the missing one alone. Nothing else gets rewritten.

Reading Twelve Pieces Without Losing Track

Batches fail at the reading stage. A tired editor signs off piece nine because pieces one to eight were fine. Three habits help, in our view:

• Read one format through first, on its own. Repeats show up when you read five LinkedIn posts in a row. They don't when you jump between formats.
• Read just the openings next. If two start the same way, one needs to change or go. Open that piece, press a quick change or say what you want in your own words, and only that piece changes.
• Delete the weakest. You asked for five and four are good? Delete that asset. Nobody paid for the count.

The post keeps count as you go, and says how many assets are signed off. Once every asset is, the post is Ready for Client. Mark as Ready for Client signs off whatever's left, and asks you to open anything you haven't read first. Any edit to the text sends that asset back to Draft, so someone reads it again.

One Post Gets One Answer

Here's the part that's easy to miss. A run makes one post, and a client answers post by post. So twelve pieces in one post get one Approve, one Request Changes, or one Not Approved.

A client who loves eleven and dislikes one can comment on that piece, or select the exact words and leave a note on them, but the post comes back as one thing. So in our view it's worth planning posts around what a client can decide at once:

• Keep to one post when the pieces belong together, such as the whole launch, and the client will read them that way.
• Write separate briefs when the pieces have different topics, different readers, or a different person who has to agree. A brief for the product news and a brief for the founder's opinion will come back as two posts, with two answers.

If you need another format on a post later, Add Platforms writes only what the post doesn't have yet.

What Your Team Still Reads For

A person still reads everything. Software can vary the angle. It can't tell you whether the client would stand behind it.

Questions People Ask