Hi there I fully appreciate that a course can't teach you to write, but I have very little experience under my belt so am considering doing one of the two distance learning courses: the Writer's Bureau Complete Copywriter course or the Institute of Copywriting diploma? Has anyone done either of these? If so, would you recommend them? I've found some -largely positive- feeback on the Institute but not much on the Writer's Bureau. Any help or suggestions would be gratefully received as I don't want to throw money down the drain if I can possibly help it. Thanks!
A friend of mine completed the Institute of Copywriting diploma course and she said although it covered a lot of subjects (everything from writing radio ads to SEO copywriting) it didn't go into much detail. If you have the time I'd recommend completing small, unpaid projects for friends, family and local businesses while you build up your client base as this is one of the best ways to gain experience.
Hi Eastside, When I first started out I completed The Writers Bureau course, mainly because I wanted to find out how best to become a professional copywriter. To be fair, it delivered in the sense that it taught me a number of tricks to make money from this and it did also give me an overview of copywriting and a number of the services that you can offer. I was pretty disappointed with the level of tuition, although there's no doubt that my tutor was trying, so in many ways you're probably better spending a fifth of the money on a really good textbook on copywriting for beginners and another on running your own business. Hope that helps.
Hi both Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I think you've both confirmed my suspicions as it was the quality of tuition that particularly concerned me. I'm sure such courses are useful in some ways, but maybe not enough to warrant spending a fair amount of money on. Thanks again- really much appreciated!
Thanks a lot for sharing such detailed information regarding copy writing courses, enjoyed reading as to what all you had to share....
I'd also recommend volunteering to write for some of your favourite websites. You could certainly do with the experience and it looks great in your portfolio. It can even open the door for other opportunities further down the line. For example, I went for a meeting the other week and one of the clients knew me from when I used to write for an outdoors blog 2 years ago!
Hey thanks for this thread. I was always wondering how to crack into copywriting. I always had the impression that doing a course might not be worth it and it's more something you gain from 'experience'. So in the end is it just better to stick with my day job for now, do some 'cropywriting stuff' on the side for free and then slowly break into paid employment after that?
We offer some great copywriting courses here at Buzzwords you should check our website out. We are based in Manchester, I don't want to appear spammy and self promoting, so i'll leave it up to you to find. Buzzwords copywriting courses manchester Hope that helps guys! p.s. we offer an in depth course, bringing in 30 years copywriting experience!!!
copy writing courses hi , Copy writing is very useful of seo work. Create the quality of content and traffic your website. I think you've both confirmed my suspicions as it was the quality of tuition that particularly concerned me. Thank you for sharing your information.
Really helpful resources As a beginning copywriter, I'm looking for the ways to improve my copy most part of my awake hours. Actually, I'm never happy with my writing. That's why your reviews of these copywriting courses came in handy and inspired me to spend about half an hour googling for some decent options. To be honest, I started searching for free courses which was not the best idea of mine for today:confused2 There's probably no such thing as free lunch as most of free guides repeat the same too general tips which turn out to be useless.
To be honest, I think you're better off taking a look at the copyblogger site or something like that. They have some free stuff you can download and read. Or read some stuff on writing with SEO in mind if it's content writing you are interested in. I just started a few years back by writing lots of free articles for blogs that wanted guest posts. They gave me a backlink for each post but I didn't even have a site to link to Then I started writing for about a tenner a post. It wasn't much but after writing about a hundred of those I reckon I had learned enough to earn more. I didn't take any classes or courses and I WAS NOT a good writer at school. There is a lot of free stuff available online that can help you.
Signing up to newsletters for sites such as Copyblogger, Ed Gandia's Freelance Academy (he gives out some really great, regular advice) and AWAI would be very useful to you. The latter have somewhat of a (negative) reputation, but even their newsletter mails that are just pure sales pitches (and they send them a LOT) are really quite useful when you look at them from a copywriting standpoint. They're very persuasive, and it's of good benefit to you to dissect them when you get them and see where they're pushing your buttons. Primarily if you're looking to go into the Direct Response field. You'll also be able to find a number of good, cheap ebooks on Amazon that are worth far more to you than the meager cover price. "Why Your Copywriting Sucks" by Jon McCulloch is a very worthy read. Grab some beginner books by Steve Slaunwhite while you're at it -- in paper form. His stuff rarely stays on my shelf! In terms of learning... rather than courses, I'd say to use that money to keep yourself alive and write, write, write, write, write. Whatever it is. Content (articles, reviews), a blog, whatever. Make up some products (seriously!) and write a sales letter for them. Then do it again. And again. Write a landing page for the same product, an email marketing chain -- hell, even a TV and radio ad to get familiar with the form. You might think it's worthless because it's not a real product and you're not doing it for somebody, but it isn't. It's practice. And that's more valuable to you than anything in this game.
Be proactive and get your content out at every chance possible. Reach out to blog authors and offer to write for them, that way you build you brand, find your writing style and have your work published
