From strategic thinking and persuasive writing to handy grammar tips, our copywriting courses and seminars help your marketing team write with confidence. Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll learn.
How do you and your team handle writing for your business? Is it handed off to whoever is free? Do you have your newest intern churning out social posts? Is your website a mash-up of writing from the ghosts of marketing managers past?
Plenty of businesses do it that way – but it’s not the path to good writing or a strong, consistent brand voice. That’s where our copy courses come in. Designed and delivered by experienced copywriters (AKA the WFB team), they help you and your team boost your writing skills and build a consistent brand voice. You’ll learn about editing for clarity, spotting grammar errors, and writing persuasive copy that wins your audience over.
Our copy courses come in all shapes and sizes, from one-on-one coaching to tailored group workshops and even self-guided online learning. We can change the content to fit your business, but the core takeaways will always be the same.
Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll learn:
The (disappointingly mundane) secret to great writing? You need a great plan. Planning your writing helps you sort out what you want to say, who you’re saying it to and what you want them to do next.
You’ll get into big-picture strategic thinking – the foundation of any excellent writing. That starts with defining your audience – are you talking to white, middle-class new mums or 18–25-year-olds with plenty of disposable income? We’ll help you create a clear picture of your average customer so you know exactly who you’re talking to. Then, it’s about personifying your brand so you can develop an authentic voice that cuts through to your audience.
Once you have the who and the why, it’s time to think about what you’re saying. Putting together an outline is a way to organise your ideas and make sure you’ve covered all your bases – in other words, it’s a key step.
Great writing is deceptively simple. You want it clear, cohesive, easy to understand and not clogged up with complicated language. If you don’t write like that naturally (and many people don’t), you can learn to cut the clutter and clarify the complicated in the editing process.
That’s why editing makes up a big chunk of our writing courses. We take you through identifying the passive voice, spotting and cutting redundant words and phrases, and simplifying needlessly complex language. It sounds difficult – but like anything, the more you practise, the easier it gets.
Most of the time, business writing is about persuasion. You want someone to buy your product, sign up for your service, visit your store or call your number. Even if you’re writing a think-piece or educational blog, you generally want to win your reader over to your point of view or boost their confidence in your business.
The good news? Persuasiveness in writing comes down to a few simple rules: focus on benefits, write effective headlines, and use calls to action – that is, tell people exactly what you want them to do.
We’re not sticklers for all the old-school grammar rules, but we do think it helps to know the basics. How to use hyphens and quote marks, when to use upper-case letters, where to put those pesky apostrophes and commas – getting them right can help make your writing easier to read and understand.
Finally, you’ll get into proofing, including how to spot tiny typos and misplaced apostrophes, read through your writing with a critical eye, and send out the best possible version of your work.
For most courses, participants leave the room, pop the workbooks in a drawer and get immediately consumed by day-to-day busyness. After a WFB course, participants keep the content top of mind with an engaging email series. Tailored to course participants, each email features a video from Helen with a reminder, refresh or an entirely new tidbit. The emails come weekly over six months, increasing the chance that your team will embed their learning into every day.
Want to upgrade your in-house writing? Our courses are designed to help your team build confidence in their abilities and give them a toolkit of guidelines, tips and knowledge to fall back on. And as a bonus, we can provide ongoing support as your writers start using their new skills. Send us work, and we’ll give you feedback on your progress, so you know you’re on the right track.
It’s about practical, actionable advice for day-to-day writing so you can get going straight away. And that’s exactly what some of our past course clients have done:
“Helen was an absolute hit last week! The team was buzzing here are some highlights:
"I love how well she simplified concepts to make them digestible and immediately stick in your brain."
"I’ll never forget this!"
"My favourite session."
"Just such a wonderful speaker. Was a pleasure to listen to."
“Just wanted to pass on the team’s thanks for your hard work and enthusiasm – the workshops were really well received by everyone that attended.”
“My team came back raving about how good the training session was with Helen Steemson was and about how much they are looking forward to the next one.”
“We all thoroughly enjoyed it! Helen is amazing and everyone has spoken so highly of the course.”
To learn more about how a WFB copywriting course could work for your team, book a 15-minute conversation with our head of courses, Helen Steemson.
The lead copywriter and creative director at Words for Breakfast. She spends much of her time working with the copy writing team across a variety of projects.
