Briefs
Define what you are selling before you research it
A brief states the product, the customer, the outcome, the geography and the price. Every audience profile, keyword and opportunity in RankStack is judged against it.
What a brief holds
- The offering: the product, service, website or digital resource
- The target customer, in the words they would use about themselves
- The outcome they are buying — not the features you are shipping
- The geography the offer is valid in
- The price point and currency
- The delivery format: download, course, tool, subscription, service
- The primary search intent you expect to serve
Why it comes first
Keyword tools are indifferent to whether a term can ever produce a sale. A brief gives RankStack something to measure fit against, which is what the site-fit factor in every opportunity score is comparing.
It also makes the platform comparison meaningful: a £9 template and a £4,000 consultancy retainer belong on different channels, and the brief is where that difference is recorded.
How it is used downstream
- Audience profiles attach to a brief
- Opportunity scores use the brief to judge site fit
- Platform scoring reads the brief’s intent, format and price
- Exports carry the brief reference so external tools keep the context
Write your first brief
It takes about five minutes and makes every later screen more useful.