Knockout Communications

Teaching your in-house staff to become better writers is one of the best investments you can make for your company. Your staff are communicating every day to your key audiences—customers, prospects, media, vendors, suppliers—so it's important that their writing reflect well on your company.

We provide a series of writing seminars designed for a variety of corporate needs. We are also happy to sit down with you to custom-design a writing seminar that will have your staff turning out polished prose within days.

Our seminars include:

Writing Unforgettable Email Copy
Most companies have adopted email marketing, but few do it well. This two-hour seminar zeroes in on how to write unforgettable email copy that actually produces results. This highly interactive class uses speed-writing exercises and group brainstorming to help participants master the following key areas of email marketing:

» Selling, Informing, Enticing, Reminding—What is
your Email Trying to Accomplish?
» Subject Lines—How to Beat the Delete
» To and From—Why They're More Important than
You Thought
» Setting the Right Tone
» Links—Where, Why and How Many
» B2B vs. B2C Copy—Yes, there is a Difference
» The Long and Short of Email Copy
» Formatting Text—Only Emails
» Putting it All Together

How to Write a Press Release that Might Actually Get Read
Journalists receive dozens—sometimes hundreds—of press releases a day. Writing a relevant, clear and convincing release can greatly increase the chances of a journalist actually reading it. Participants will write, write and re-write in this two-hour seminar, which covers the following:

» Why "So What?" Should Be Your First Question
» The Journalist as Target Audience
» Types of Press Releases
» Covering the 5 W's in your "Lede"
» Quotable Quotes
» Third-Party Endorsements
» The Importance of Clarity
» To Follow up or Not to Follow Up?

Confident Business Writing
Let's face it—many of us received the bulk of writing experience in school, where long, research-based papers with obscure academic references got us the A. Business writing is entirely different, so if you haven't adapted, you're probably missing opportunities to really connect with your audience. This three-hour seminar will retrain you to write briefly, elegantly and persuasively. Topics covered include:

» Types of Business Writing
» Are the Rules Different for Email?
» Understanding your Audience
» Getting to the Point
» Setting the Right Tone
» Editing—Learn to Love your Red Pen
» Active vs. Passive Sentences
» Getting Rid of Jargon
» Reviewing Basic Grammar