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Website copy that sounds like you: how to brief a copywriter
What to hand a copywriter so your website sounds like you: recorded calls, quotations, complaint emails and a one-page voice sheet, plus what to ask the writer for in return.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
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The copywriter's draft is back, and every line is true and none of it sounds like you. That is a brief problem. To brief a copywriter so the site sounds like you, hand over what your customers have already produced: call notes, quotations, the questions in your WhatsApp, and the complaint emails. Add a one-page voice sheet and the one thing you want a visitor to do. A brief made of adjectives such as "professional, friendly, premium" gets you the copy every other firm has.
Why do adjectives fail as a brief?
Hand a writer "reliable" and "customer-first" and you get them back, polished. What makes your firm different is what you say on the phone when a buyer asks why your price is higher, and what you apologise for. That is the raw material.
What do you hand over?
Prepare a folder with these, roughly in order of usefulness.
| Item | What it gives the writer | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Five recent quotations | How you describe your own offer when money is involved | Remove customer names and rates if they are confidential |
| Notes from ten enquiry calls | The buyers' words, in sequence | Write their phrases exactly, even when the grammar is wrong |
| Complaint and delay emails | What goes wrong and how you explain it | The writer must not turn these into promises you cannot keep |
| Three reviews or thank-you messages | The reason people stay | Leave out any you suspect were prompted |
| The first reply you send to a new enquiry | Your real tone | Is it warmer than the website? Say so |
| Photographs of the workshop or office | Specifics the writer can describe | Names only of staff who agreed to be named |
What goes on the one-page voice sheet?
A voice sheet is not a manual. Fill in these lines in your own words.
- How we speak to a buyer on the phone, in two sentences.
- Three words we never use, and why.
- Three sentences we have said to a customer and would be happy to see on the site.
- Whether the site speaks as "we" or in the owner's name.
- The language the reader thinks in, and which words stay in English.
- What we will not claim, even if a competitor does.
A few lines for a box maker, as a pattern and not a template to copy:
- On the phone we say what the box can carry and ask how it will travel.
- We never say "best" or "leading". Buyers hear it from everyone.
- "We tell packers to store cartons off the floor." We said that to a customer and would say it on the site.
- Product codes stay in English. Everything around them can be in the buyer's language.
The "will not claim" line matters most where rules apply: health, food, finance, education. Rules differ by state and body and change, so check with your own adviser or regulator before anything about outcomes, approvals or prices goes up.
An invented example: a packaging converter in Guwahati
Imagine a corrugated-box maker in Guwahati that supplies tea packers and sweet makers. Its site said "a leading name in packaging solutions" and brought a few enquiries a month, mostly price queries.
The brief to the copywriter was a folder: six quotations, a page of notes from calls with buyers, and an email from a tea packer whose cartons arrived damp in the monsoon. The writer saw that buyers on calls kept asking about stacking strength in transit and storage in humid weather. The new page led with those two questions and answered in the owner's own sentence: "We tell packers to store cartons off the floor and ask about their transit route, because transit is where cartons get hurt."
The first draft called the cartons "monsoon-proof". The owner struck it out. The cartons were not, and that is the sentence a complaint email is made from. The page says what the box can bear and what the buyer should do about storage. Enquiries rose only a little in the first quarter, and most were still price queries. The difference showed in the calls, which now opened with storage and stacking, not "what is your rate".
What does the writer need from you in the room?
Book one hour in which the person who answers buyers' calls does the talking. Ask the writer to record it, with your permission, and to bring back three questions they could not answer from the folder. A good writer will push on your claims. Answer with a document, not an opinion. If you have no document for a claim, it stays off the page until you do.
What should you ask for back?
- Two headline options for each page, not one.
- A list of the facts the writer used and where each came from.
- A note of anything the writer could not find an answer for. Those gaps are your homework.
How do you review the first draft?
Read it aloud to a salesperson and mark any sentence they would not say. Mark any claim you cannot prove with a document. Send the marks back in one batch, with one person making the decisions. Resist adding sections. If a page needs a fourth idea, it needs a second page.
Skip a copywriter if you cannot spare an hour for questions, or if you cannot say who your best customer is. If the folder feels like too much, start with call notes alone. Ten calls show a writer how your buyers talk.
What to do this week
After your next ten enquiry calls, write down the buyers' exact phrases, and add the complaint email you remember most clearly. Then write the voice sheet. When you are ready to brief someone, GullySales offers website content writing and copywriting, and the marketing hub lists the surrounding work. To begin, tell us what you need.
