Master Persuasive Writing to Promote
Your Stuff or Clients'

The Why, How and Who of This Course

Minute for minute, wizardry with words dependably earns more for you, for your company or for your clients than just about any other skill. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves and try your hand at practical assignments, in six weeks - or spaced out at your own pace - you'll have the fundamental principles of copywriting down cold and know many advanced techniques of orchestrating words for profit.

Two things are unique about this course. First, each week you grapple with hands-on challenges that require you to apply copywriting concepts to real-life business offerings. You get to see how others handled the challenges in the assignment as well as my version of the new copy.

Build proficiency fast through the combination of theory in the instructional materials you receive and practice through the weekly assignments.

Second, unlike every other copywriting course I know of, you have the opportunity to practice both corporate-style assignments for mainstream businesses (promotional writing that is lively and relatively free of jargon) and direct-response copy suitable for postal or online sales letters. Indeed, we talk about a range of copywriting styles and how to choose a tone that fits a certain target market and company ethos.

Many other copywriting teachers out there strongly argue that nothing counts except whether or not the copy increases response. Though I agree that counts heavily, I put equal stock in truthfulness and a fit with the expectations and values of the audience.

My course gets those with no prior copywriting experience quickly up to speed on the fundamentals, so that it suits two situations: beginners who want an intensive marketing writing practicum; and those with experience in business writing who could use a focused review and rapid improvement in their ability to get results from words.

If you're not familiar with my work, please poke around this site and read reviews of my books on Amazon.com and elsewhere. I'm known for an intelligent and ethical approach to marketing writing, I've had books in print from major publishers since 1988, and my copywriting experience includes most major industries and professions from urologists to auto parts recyclers to software entrepreneurs, from nonprofits to financial services to lingerie.

What You Learn in the Copywriting Course

Based on a live, interactive course with a small group of students, the course provides plenty of practice in how to analyze poorly written or misdirected sales copy, and what to add, take away or change to improve its effectiveness. You end the course with a much richer ability to turn words into leads and orders, along with a deeper understanding of the nuances of words. Among the points you absorb:

• Whether cute and catchy is more powerful than simply factual, or vice versa
• Two techniques that bring even the most complicated abstract concept down to earth
• Questions that help you tell whether or not you've dug down far enough to reach the advantages that make the greatest difference to buyers
• Ways to make copy that's already full of appealing benefits even more targeted
• The most powerful verb tense on the planet - not the one you'd predict

• How a literal-minded reading helps you catch missing or confusing information so you can plug gaping holes in copy
• Why trying to be all things to all people dooms promotional efforts
• A five-step process for meaningfully differentiating a business or an offering
• Ten ways to make points of difference come alive for the reader
• Examples of using a theme to make the reader smile while reading and become more predisposed to buy
• How to rise above the worse-than-useless "Hello, I exist" approach
• The difference between one-step and two-step marketing, and the world of trouble you enter when you confuse them
• Seven criteria that help you evaluate an offer
• Doubts and wonderings that can make free giveaways flop
• Why photos matter in helping readers understand - or misunderstand - what you mean
• A seven-step process for gathering juicy ingredients for bullets - including getting at crucial things to say that are nowhere in your source material
• Eight before-and-after bullets illustrating the transformation from plain to jazzy

• How seemingly straightforward bullets can be wildly off base or mind-numbing
• Why covering the basics in your sales copy is not anywhere near enough
• Thirty credibility builders that many web sites, catalog descriptions and sales letters overlook
• Eight credibility killers to avoid
• Criteria to use in assessing the usefulness of testimonials
• Common pitfalls in business bios that make credentialed backgrounds less impressive
• A discussion of credibility building efforts that backfire - and those that succeed

• Five factors that contribute to tone, and examples of quite distinct tones requested by or suitable to different clients
• Ways to create an impression of approachability or empathy
• Hidden dangers of the hard sell - and when it's most appropriate
• Practice in tuning up or toning down hype in headlines
• A step-by-step demonstration of how to slim down a bloated document and edit it for effectiveness

Each Lesson Focuses on One or Two Crucial Skill Areas

Week 2: Differentiate and dramatize
In my reviews of brochures, web sites and sales letters, one of the most common omissions is information that answers the questions, "How is this different from what else is on the market?" and "Why should I do business with you rather than your competitors?" Sometimes you need to dig for differentiating points, and sometimes you need to invent a way to make the same thing sound different.

This week's assignment asks you to identify and rectify this flaw in several kinds of marketing materials and to come up with ways of making standard, boring offerings come across as distinctive, fresh and enticing.

Week 6: Tweak the tone, smooth the flow
Finally, master the process of fine-tuning by getting rid of extra words, unnecessary repetitions, inconsistencies and poorly phrased or boring passages, while adjusting paragraphing, subheads and other formatting elements for greatest readability. Adjust tone and word choice, too, for a certain audience.

Your final assignment invites you to polish copy to a warm, lemony shine. Find out which wordsmithing skills from other kinds of writing apply to getting marketing material ready for a crowd.

Additional Input: Answers to your questions
Besides the class sessions listed above, you receive a hefty, well-organized compilation of my answers to questions about copywriting and the copywriting business.

Learn by Doing, Listening and Reading

In this course, you have a rich educational experience that includes:

• Six 80-minute interactive audio lessons covering the topics above, for you to listen to at your convenience - and review as you like
• Six homework assignments, highly recommended for you to complete for a full learning experience while listening to the lessons
• Extensive handouts containing several versions of each homework assignment, including my version, so you can compare what you wrote with what others produced
• Answers to collected questions about the craft and business of copywriting
• The full text of the book Persuading on Paper and a PDF copy of Secrets of Mouthwatering Marketing Copy and Shorter: Say It in Fewer Words

Practical Matters

What are the

payment terms and refund policy?

This self-study course comes with an unconditional money-back guarantee. Listen to Lesson 1, and if the program doesn't live up to your expectations or fit your needs, simply let me know, and you'll receive a 100% refund.

What kind of time commitment is recommended for the assignments?
Plan on spending up to four or five hours on each assignment to get the most out of the course. Although the course title includes the phrase "Six Weeks," you can do the assignments at your own speed, completing them in six months or even six years if that works better for you.

Is the course suitable for copywriters working outside of North America?
Certainly. I have had protégés in England and copywriting clients in Europe, Australia and Asia, who attest that the principles of verbal persuasion work much the same everywhere. And as part of the course, you learn how to adjust your tone for particular audiences, which includes particular cultures as well as various industries, professions, lifestyles and values.

Can you say more about the assignments?
Assignments require you to diagnose flaws and omissions in existing copy, apply a key concept we're learning to a specific product, service, company or text, rewrite something or write something using source material provided to you. Assignments involve a broad range of real businesses, from a cleaning service to a law firm, from free martial arts classes to educational material for parents of middle school children.

If you're ready to master the skill of copywriting, sign up for Six Weeks to Masterful Copywriting today.

Photo credit: Joel Kramer