Business and Marketing Writing

Expand your writing skills and learn to create copy that achieves business and marketing goals. This course will help you use the power of writing to present a solid, cohesive message to your target audience and improve your chances of getting hired or promoted.

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$190

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$175

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Starting March 12 | April 16

Details + Objectives

Course code: bmw

Are you a writer working in the business world? Or a marketing professional responsible for obtaining great marketing copy? Maybe you're just interested in a writing or marketing career. Whatever your background, this fun, introductory course will teach you to write or identify copy that achieves business and marketing goals. Improve your work, your knowledge, your company's image, and your chances of getting hired, promoted or applauded!

Using clear explanations, real-life examples, and an animated style, the course solidifies the relationship between business, marketing principles, and written communications. You will learn how business and marketing objectives affect writing choices. You'll get practical writing instruction in grammar, clarity, structure and more. You'll understand issues unique to this discipline, such as buzzwords, working with a team, and marketing ethics. This course will help you understand the power of writing and use it to present a solid, cohesive message to your target audience.

What you will learn

Learn how to communicate marketing and business goals in your writing
Discover the best way to align written communication with a corporate identity
Examine methods for writing with purpose and developing a cohesive message for a target audience
Learn how grammatical and stylistic choices can augment business and marketing strategies

How you will benefit

Learn to communicate effectively and express your values to a target audience
Gain confidence in your ability to reach and affect people with your writing
Open the door to new career opportunities as you gain invaluable skills in the fundamentals of business and marketing communication

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

The first lesson starts off with a discussion about the purpose of marketing and the goals of writing, and then talks about the unique roles, responsibilities, and challenges of business and marketing writing. You'll learn exactly what business and marketing writers do as you begin exploring this exciting field.

Before you can write or recognize successful copy, you'll need to understand your corporate identity: who the company is and what the company offers. In this lesson, you'll delve into all the aspects of corporate image that writers and marketing professionals need to ponder before producing effective projects.

Now that you understand image, what can you do with it? In this lesson, you'll analyze business and marketing goals—and the needs of your audience—to figure out the appropriate writing style for any project.

It's a creative field, but certain projects require certain conventions. In this lesson, you'll see how a particular medium or project type can guide your writing style and approach, helping you save time and stay on target.

This lesson will gather up the information you explored in the previous four lessons and put it all together. It will illustrate how to apply everything you've learned so far as you develop an original writing project from start to finish.

Do you need to write in complete sentences? What is a complete sentence, anyway? This lesson will give you a brief refresher on sentence construction and then go over some guidelines for using fragments in business writing. You'll also learn to recognize and fix one of the most common errors in modern writing: the comma splice.

You can't write without words! In this lesson, you'll learn to make accurate word choices. The lesson will discuss the level of vocabulary appropriate for business writing and show you how to choose words that reinforce a project's theme. It'll also clarify some tricky word pairs and discuss word-choice problems whose usage can undermine the professionalism of your writing.

In this lesson, you'll take a critical look at the inside of a company. First, you'll see how to develop "marketing" projects for audiences within a company. Then you'll explore the roles of the various specialists who contribute to a single marketing piece—bosses, clients, editors, junior writers, artists, and designers. You'll learn how to work with all of them to create smoother relationships and better projects.

For even the most experienced writers, bureaucratic influences can creep in to reduce creativity and impede communication. In this lesson, you'll take a look at buzzwords and jargon, and then explore some ways to achieve maximum power and effectiveness by keeping your writing clear, concise, and active.

In this lesson, you'll explore the final steps. You'll learn to enhance and refine business and marketing projects during the editing and proofreading processes. You'll also learn to evaluate finished pieces and even test their effectiveness in the real world!

In this lesson, you'll once again be putting it all together, but this time as an editor. You'll apply everything you've learned so far in the course, editing a project from beginning to end.

Marketing involves images, and it's easy to lose sight of the truth. In the final lesson of the course, you'll go over some important considerations that marketing professionals need to think about.

Instructors & Support

Lisa Adams

Lisa Adams is a web development expert specializing in marketing, user experience, and e-commerce. With a wealth of experience building and maintaining websites, Lisa's expertise extends beyond the digital realm. She is also a published author, showcasing her passion for writing and sharing her knowledge through engaging nonfiction books.

Lisa's notable works include "S'mores: Gourmet Treats for Every Occasion," published by Gibbs Smith, and "Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Contemporary Bestsellers," published by Sourcebooks.

Lisa's accomplishments as a published author, combined with her expertise in web development, make her a well-rounded professional with a distinctive perspective. Her ability to effectively communicate ideas and share knowledge through her writing adds an extra layer of creativity and insight to her work in creating attractive, user-friendly websites for her clients and students.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

As a marketing professional, I found this course to be very applicable to my everyday work. The grammar portion was particulary helpful, and made me more aware that I need to do more work in this area.

I found this course to be extremely beneficial as I am pursuing a career in the PR/Marketing field. The editing and proofreading chapter was very helpful and I apply what I've learned each day. I also enjoyed the writing style of the course and looked forward to each lesson as it was released.

I found your class to be very useful in my daily projects as a marketing brand manager. I've been able to strengthen the pieces I write, even in emails. I appreciated the direct and friendly style and the imaginative example sentences.

I liked the way the course covered everything from the writing process itself to grammar and punctuation to ethics. Very well-rounded and useful.

Thank you for a great term! I really enjoyed the course. I apply my new knowledge every day.

The course content was practical and immediately useful to me in my daily work. The lessons were written and organized well, and the assignments were relevant and interesting. I would definitely take another course from this excellent instructor.

This course is helping me tremendously. I keep copies of the lessons at my desk.

This course provides an excellent foundation for anyone entering the Marketing field.

This course was my first continuing education course. Because I had such a great experience with Business and Marketing Writing, I will take more continuing education courses in the near future!

You gave me a wonderful introduction to the combined subjects of writing and marketing. I enjoyed this course immensely. This course also made me realize how much fun this field could be. In short, this little course was a surprise to find, and a delight as it unfolded. It has changed my thinking and (I suspect) my future.