Class Details
Persuasive Writing Course
Course summary
For marketers, persuasive copy is a key to achieving critical business outcomes. That means everything from building engagement with audiences, to simplifying complex offers and converting casual interest into buyer action.
Your writing must also have a distinctly human authenticity. Audiences can increasingly spot artificial intelligence (AI)-generated writing: polished at first read, but too similar to what everyone else is saying.
At this fast-paced workshop, learn fresh and practical techniques that will lift your skillset from being competent to genuinely persuasive. As well as crafting your own work, you’ll critique effective real-life copy drawn from a range of sectors.
Starting with an overview of AI planning tools that streamline workflows without hijacking your originality, the course explains how to set the foundation for persuasive writing. Topics here include tapping into customer motivators, devising angles that intrigue, and owning your brand voice.
We look at how to adapt your plan to suit different channels, whether it’s a strategically sequenced campaign, a series of social media posts, a website landing page, or other format. We also learn how to add persuasive proofs that address genuine audience concerns. The course ends with a section on timeless self-editing techniques (including what to outsource to AI), from tightening sentence grammar to energising your tone.
Learning alongside other talented peers, you’ll gain dozens of new techniques at this one-day Persuasive Writing Course.
Aims
An immersive writing course for content marketers, covering all the persuasive copywriting skills you’ll need to capture more leads and inspire more actions.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
- use AI effectively in your writing, harnessing its efficiency while leading with human skill and insight
- draw on strategies to develop a campaign, from clarifying objectives to formalising the tone and voice, supplementing with AI as needed
- plan each piece to meet audience needs and pain points, not just your company’s business objectives
- write compelling headings that communicate the message and keep it simple
- apply the principles of persuasiveness, and draw on 10 useful persuasive tools into your draft writing
- review your own and others’ writing for simplicity and effectiveness, drawing on AI as needed to improve your work in five specific areas.
Content
a. AI and copywriting
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a fast, intuitive tool that has changed the way we write. But chances are you’re either not happy with its outputs, or feel you’re somehow cheating by using it. In this section, we explore how to use AI – and what not to do.
b. Start with a plan
Learn to start every project with a brief, whether working for your own business, a client or with a team of any size. We cover the essentials to include in a copywriting brief, from the campaign objectives to audience pain-points, ideal tone, personality and call to action.
c. Navigate with headings
Headings don’t just set the tone of your campaign or introduce the subject – they also reinforce structure, helping readers find what they need. Learn to craft strong headings (and subheadings) for every part of your content, starting with these 7 timeless approaches.
d. Proven structures for short and long copy
Writing formulas won’t solve every problem, but they sure speed up the thought process by helping you get the right content in the right order. We share four frameworks for short copy and two for long copy. All can be stretched and tweaked to suit the task.
e. The 10 elements of persuasion
Good persuasive writing employs a number of powerful psychological triggers, and we look at 10 important ones in this section. Examples include using compelling evidence, placing your reader at the heart of every message, and giving them a way to try before they buy.
f. Editing for effectiveness
Learning to review for conciseness and style: sentence variety, clear links between ideas, strong and evocative verbs and adjectives, using AI to provide feedback or guidance rather than writing for you.
Who this course is for
This course is ideal for mid-level marketers and hands-on business owners who want to write with more structure, clarity and confidence.
If your business style doesn’t allow for much storytelling or free association, consider our Business Writing Essentials Course: From Core Skills to AI Tools instead. Here, you’ll learn to write internal comms (letters, memos and so on) and short summaries in a clear, factual style that may well fill your business marketing needs.
Prerequisites
You do not need to have a background as a writing professional, but you will gain more from the workshop if you have had some experience analysing or writing persuasive marketing materials.
Delivery style
Learning methods include open discussion, group exercises, pair work and individual response to writing activities throughout the day. Most of the exercises can be adapted to a marketing piece you are currently working on, or you can practice using the fictional examples.
Delivery modes
- Face-to-face, presenter-taught training using your own device
- Online training via the platform Zoom
Materials
A course workbook is shared electronically as an editable PDF, allowing you to save your notes directly onto the file.
What you need to do before the course
Please bring your laptop, with logins ready to access your preferred AI platform (we suggest Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude.ai).
You will work on at least two scenarios from your own workplace, and we suggest you arrive with a draft of this work ready to use. If you do not have any work in progress, you may work on our fictional classroom scenario instead.
Sessions
Location
Face-to-face (CCE Building, Sydney)
Public transport
As bus and train timetables regularly change, we suggest you visit the Transport for NSW trip planner before you set out.
The nearest train stations are Newtown Station and Macdonaldtown Station. Macdonaldtown Station is closer by distance than Newtown Station, however trains do not stop as frequently as at Newtown Station.
Other information
Parking
Nearby parking is available at Wilson Parking - RPA Medical Centre Car Park (entry via Elizabeth Street off Carillon Avenue).
A Flexi Saver Rate is available but must be booked in advance online and includes the booking fee. Bookings can be made via the Wilson website or by downloading the Wilson Parking App. Otherwise, hourly parking rates will apply, as advertised on the Wilson Parking website.
Meet the facilitators
Stephanie Oley
Stephanie is an experienced business writer and coach who has developed a sound method of teaching concise, jargon-free writing that tells the story and sets clear reader expectations. Her early career was in government and publishing, before she moved into business writing and coaching in 2006. She has led various writing workshops and programs throughout both the government and private sectors. Some of her notable clients include the Reserve Bank of Australia, NSW Health, Woolworths, Transport for NSW, Credit Corp Group, Law Society of NSW, NHVR, and various Local Councils. In 2013 Stephanie followed her business nose to become partner at Sydney creative agency, The Offices, where she oversees day-to-day proposal writing, content marketing and a range of corporate client writing projects.
Stephanie has a Bachelor of Arts from The University of Sydney, majoring in Linguistics and English Literature, and holds a Cert IV in Training and Assessment. She is a member of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce and volunteers her writing expertise for a number of not-for-profit organisations.
