The Copy Workshop is a 2.5-month online async workshop. The main objective (as I perceived it) is to teach you to write better text for a specific audience. That could be an email newsletter, blog post, email to your boss, or text message to your spouse.
I expected it would be about specific writing and the shape of words. It turns out that words are highly contextual and that before you write, you need to consider your audience. The Copy Workshop is an empathy and marketing seminar that helps you internalize this. There’s almost no talk about specific language rules.
Three powerful things that I learned
Consider for who you write and ignore silent judges. If I know my audience likes a certain text style, I shouldn’t try to write it for my high school English teacher. I should also ignore other experts in the room if they’re not my audience.
With every text – ask who it is for? While this can be applied to my writing, it also helps me evaluate texts from other people. It provides an often needed perspective.
Copy isn’t good or bad; it’s effective or ineffective. Achieve goals. Move on. Create more, and don’t worry about the artistic value of your text.