Hey, PR pros: Would you like to see your story in The New York Times? Then why not write like the Times?

We recently analyzed 100 headlines from PR Newswire and compared them to 100 headlines from a recent issue of The New York Times. (We skipped the sports pages.) Here’s what we found:

• Average headline length. Times: 8.6 words. PR Newswire: 11.2 — 37% longer than the newspaper of record in the United States.
• Median headlines length. Times: 9 words. PR Newswire: 11 — 22% longer than the newspaper of record.
• Longest headline. Times: 14 words. (There were two.) PR Newswire: 33 — 136% longer than the newspaper of record.
• Shortest headline. Times: 4 words. (There were four.) PR Newswire: 4. These are too short for good search engine optimization. Google prefers headlines of 5 words or longer.

How long is too long?

I usually recommend that you keep your news head to eight words max. That’s the number people can easily understand at a glance, according to research by The American Press Institute.

But I’m willing to be flexible. What if, instead of capping heads at eight words, we followed The New York Times’ approach? Let’s write headlines that:

• Average 8 or 9 words
• Never grow longer than 14 words
• Sometimes have as few as four words

Here’s what New York Times headlines look like:

A Coronavirus Epidemic Hit 20,000 Years Ago, New Study Finds

The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think

Alzheimer’s Prediction May Be Found in Writing Tests

How Can I Tell My Mother-in-Law to Buzz Off?

Once Again, the Earth Is Being Wrung Dry

That not only makes your headlines look more inviting, but also allows readers to get your news in a single gulp.

What not to do …

But here’s what PR pros tend to write instead:

Dr. Reed V. Tuckson to Deliver Keynote Address at 2015 Digital Health Summer Summit Co-hosted by Center for Digital Health Innovation at UCSF

Magnetic Materials Market Developing at 8.9% CAGR To 2020 — APAC To Be The Fastest Growing Region Due To High Demand From Electronics & Auto Industry

LIFE TIME FITNESS SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Announces the Investigation of Life Time Fitness, Inc. Over the Proposed Sale of the Company to Leonard Green & Partners and TPG Capital — LTM

At 23, 26 and 33 words, respectively, these are paragraphs, people!

Solution: If you need all of those details up top, put half your headline in the deck.

Stuffy head?

I recently worked with a PR firm whose headlines were 21% longer than the combined average of three of its top targeted media vehicles.

Instead of stuffing your headline with so many words, why not steal a tip from the Times? Keep release headlines as tight as those you find on the front page of the publication you seek to sway.

Learn more …

Hit the right readability targets with these resources:

• What’s the best press release headline length? Get the ideal length of a release headline in characters including spaces.
• What’s the ideal press release length? Write news releases that get media coverage — and that are worth reading. WWBWD? (What would Business Wire do?)
• What’s the best length for a blog post? Learn how to write social media posts that get read.
• How long should email newsletters be? [Data!] Boost opens, reading and click through rates.

The post How long should a press release headline be? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Front-loading your headlines with your topic word just makes sense if your readers are going to encounter those headlines in online lists — a search engine results page, for instance, or your online newsroom.

That’s because readers look at only the first two or three words of the headline when scanning lists (Rev Up Readership members only; join Rev Up Readership). This technique is so important that usability expert Jakob Nielsen ranks it the No. 1 thing you can do to improve the ROI of your website.

But what’s the topic?

Too many communicators (and, let’s be honest, their reviewers) believe that the company or its product or service is the topic. But the real topic is the reader or what they reader can do, as these Silver Anvil Award-winning headlines demonstrate:

Blood Cancer Patients and Advocates Visit Capitol Hill to Inspire Continued Support for Be the Match

July 18 Legislative Day event aimed at delivering more cures to patients in need

— Be the Match Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Teens Get Opportunity to Celebrate With an Idol

State Farm and Grammy Award Winner Kelly Clarkson team up for teen driver safety

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Parents and teen drivers dangerously disconnected

New State Farm survey reveals an alarming gap between parents’ and teens views on driver safety licensing laws

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Color Your Easter with Eggs

HGTV Interior Designer Sabrina Soto Offers Easter Decorating Tips to “Dye” for

— Edelman and The Egg Board Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Before spring planting, expert says, “Dig a little. Learn a lot.”

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Cover Crop Mixes — They Just Work Better

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Survey: Cover crops deliver strong harvest amid drought

Agency focuses on helping farmers build resilient farms through soil health

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

JOIN THE TEEN DRIVER SAFETY CELEBRATION SUPPORTING NEW DRIVERS

Communities commit to drive safe in support of new drivers during National Teen Driver Safety Week

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Hey! Even the IRS is getting in on this approach. Here’s a recent newsletter headline:

10 Million Taxpayers Face an Estimated Tax Penalty Each Year; Act Now to Reduce or Avoid it for 2017; New Web Page Can Help

Don’t write about us and our stuff. To catch your reader, write about the reader and the reader’s needs.

The post Best press release headlines focus on readers appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Which of these headlines is most likely to spur you to sign up for a webinar?

New webinar helps managers improve productivity

Or:

Get all your work done in half the time, be the office hero and go home early

The first focuses on the webinar. But the second one focuses on me doing things. That makes the second one more compelling.

Want to watch your words get shorter, your sentences sleeker? See your passive voice disappear and your readability soar? Energize your writing?  Populate it with real, live humans? Focus on benefits instead of features?

Use the active voice in writing. In other words, write about people doing things.

Why use the active voice in writing?

When you write about people doing things, you:

1. Activate passive sentences. You know the difference between active and passive voice:
   • In a sentence written in passive voice, the subject is acted upon by the object. Object verb subject.
   • In a sentence written in active voice, the subject performs the action. Subject verb object.

That’s important: Writing in the active voice helps people read sentences faster, understand them more easily, remember them longer and enjoy the process more.

People doing things — Subject verb object — is the structure of the active voice. So turn passive-voice sentences into active-voice sentences by writing about people doing things:

No: Mortgage payments must be made …

Yes: Homeowners must make mortgage payments …

2. Improve readability. Writing in the passive voice also makes sentences and words longer and reduces readability. Take this passage:
No: Medicaid eligibility is organized by category or population each of which has different rules for how much income and resources you can have. For the most part, only citizens and qualified immigrants can qualify. The largest Medicaid categories covering most eligible individuals are Children under age 19, Parents raising children under age 19, Pregnant Women, Individuals 65 and older, and Persons with Disabilities.
The subjects of these sentences are Medicaid, citizens and categories. Write about people doing things, and you make messages easy to read:
Yes: Are you eligible for Medicaid? That depends on who you are, how high your income is and how many other resources you have. The largest groups of people who qualify for Medicaid are:
• Children under 19
• Parents raising children under 19
• Pregnant women
• People 65 and older
• People with disabilities

The difference in readability between writing about Medicaid and writing about you? Sentences are 73% shorter; words, 111% shorter; and Flesch Reading Ease is up 192%.

How to use the active voice in writing

The Little Red Schoolhouse writing course recommends that you:

1. Use the simple sentence structure: Subject verb object. Think of your sentences as short stories with clearly identifiable characters acting concretely.

   No: Its failure could affect vehicle directional control, particularly during heavy brake application.

   Yes: You won’t be able to steer when you put on the brakes.

2. Make subjects humans. Write about people doing things, not about things doing things.

   No: Growth occurred in Pinocchio’s nose when lies were told by him to Geppetto.

   Yes: Pinocchio’s nose grew longer when he lied to Geppetto.

3. Write in verbs, not nouns. Nix nominalizations, or words that turn verbs (like explain) into nouns (like explanation).
   No: Our expectation was for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that management interference with the strike or harassment of picketing workers was not permitted.

   OK, that one’s been through the De-Verb-O-Rizer a few times! Look at the verbs buried in those nouns: expectation, ruling, interference, harassment.

   Don’t commit verbicide. Write about people doing things:

   Yes: We expected the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to rule that management could not interfere with the strike or harass picketing workers.

Active voice in action

Wendy Jorgensen increased readability of this message by 40%, mostly by focusing on people doing things.

Here’s the City of Plano senior marketing and communication coordinator’s before:

Note that 70% of these sentences focus on things doing things, not on people doing things.

Here’s Wendy’s after:

This time, 92% of the sentences focus on things doing things, not on people doing things. What a difference in readability that makes. By writing about people doing things, Wendy:

• Whittled word count by 13%.
• Slashed paragraph length by 68%.
• Streamlined sentences by 45%.
• Reduced syllables per word.
• Reduced Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level by 38%.
• Increased Flesch Reading Ease by 40%.

Want results like these for your own message? Use the active voice in writing. Write about people doing things.

The post Use the active voice in writing appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Quick! Which is more effective?

A simple metaphor?

Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-hundred-ring circus.

— Dean Koontz in Seize the Night

Or an extended metaphor?

Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-hundred-ring circus. Currently I was in ring two hundred and ninety-nine, with elephants dancing and clowns cart wheeling and tigers leaping through rings of fire. The time had come to step back, leave the main tent, go buy some popcorn and a Coke, bliss out, cool down.

— Dean Koontz in Seize the Night

The extended metaphor — one that continues through a series of sentences — is nearly twice as persuasive as a simple metaphor, according to Pradeep Sopory and James Price Dillard’s review of 50 years of research.

So extend your metaphors.

Proper investment advice is like bespoke tailoring.

When I was editing a mutual fund company’s marketing magazine, we decided to compare customized investment advice to bespoke tailoring.

We could sustain that from the headline …

Perfect fit

… through the deck …

One size never really does fit all. Here’s how to tailor your portfolio to your own needs and dreams

… through the subheads …

Measure twice, cut once

Tailored fit

Start with these patterns

… through subtle references throughout the article …

See Ann’s extended metaphor on horseback racing.

How to write an extended metaphor

So how do you write an extended metaphor?

First, you need to understand the mathematics of metaphor. The math behind this literary device is simple:

X = Y.

Meaning passes from the base to the target, from Y to X. In “Romeo and Juliet,” William Shakespeare writes:

Juliet is the sun.

Or:

X [Juliet] is Y [the sun].

Metaphor links X to Y:

X is the target.

Y is the base.

Then extend your metaphor by exploring the base. Here’s how:

1. Choose your base.

“If you want to try an extended metaphor, think carefully about your comparison entity,” writes Nancy Kress in Writer’s Digest.

“Choose something that is specific and concrete, like a diamond. Then jot down three or more similarities between that and your original object or situation. Finally, describe the latter in terms of the former, playing with the actual words until the comparisons are both clear and enlightening.”

The sun, maybe.

2. Explore your base.

Now delve deeper into the base to find more specific elements:

• Light
• East
• Moon
• Etc.

3. Compare your topic to these elements.

Now construct metaphors comparing your topic to the items on your list. Here’s Shakespeare:

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief …

Extend metaphors like William Shakespeare

See how Emily Dickinson extends her base, a bird, in “Hope Is a Thing With Feathers”:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —

That perches in the soul —

And sings the tune without the words —

And never stops — at all —

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —

And sore must be the storm —

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm —

You’ll see an extended base in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” (“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …”) And in Animal Farm by George Orwell. In fact, you’ll find this literary device in all of the best writing.

Why not yours?

Caravaggio is like chiaroscuro.

In Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, Andrew Graham-Dixon compares the artist to the chiaroscuro — the lightest lights and darkest darks — of his paintings. Notice how the author explores the base to extend the metaphor:

He was one of the most electrifyingly original artists ever to have lived …

He lived much of his life as a fugitive, and that is how he is preserved in history — a man on the run, heading for the hills, keeping to the shadows.

But he is caught, now and again, by the sweeping beam of a searchlight.

His youth is the least documented period of his existence — the darkest time, in every sense, of this life of light and darkness.

But in its shadows may be found some of the most important clues to the formation of his turbulent personality.

How can you explore your base to extend your metaphor?

____

Sources: James Geary, “Metaphorically Speaking,” TedTalks, July 2009

*Nancy Kress, “O My Luve’s Like A Red, Red Rose,” Writer’s Digest, February 2000

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, 2003

Pradeep Sopory and James P. Dillard, “The Persuasive Effects of Metaphor: A Meta-Analysis,” Human Communication Research, July 2002

The post How to write an extended metaphor appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

What makes one email campaign generate an amazing 93% open rate, while another languishes at a dismal 0.5%?

Ask the researchers at MailChimp, an email service provider. They analyzed open rates for more than 200 million emails.

Make emails “short, descriptive and provide the reader with a reason to explore your message further.”

— MailChimp

“The best email subject lines are short, descriptive and provide the reader with a reason to explore your message further,” write the researchers. “Splashy or cheesy phrases more often cause your email to be ignored rather than make them stand out.”

A peek inside MailChimp’s top 5 subject lines all clearly state what’s inside the message.

What do recipients really want?

Subject lines help the folks on your email list decide whether the juice is worth the squeeze — or the e-zine is worth the open. To increase your open rates, write good email subject lines that:

1. Tell, don’t tease.

Don’t make your subject line a teaser to get recipients to open the message. Instead, make your subject lines clear, like these, suggest the folks at the Nielsen Norman Group:

dyad: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

— Word of the Day

Term Loans — Rates as low as 5.5%

— Commerce Bank

NFL Postseason Ticket On-Sale Information

— Kansas City Chiefs

“It might be tempting to think that a generic subject line will entice users to open a message to see its content. After all, if users can see the content in the subject line and determine they’re not interested, they won’t open the message,” writes Janelle Estes, senior user experience specialist at the Nielsen Norman Group.

“It’s much better to inform the user and let them decide than to require them to open a message to find out that they’re not interested in it. Many people may not bother at all and simply delete it instead.”

2. Consider your subject line a promise, and keep it.

If your subject line is Get to know Karelyn Lambert, then your content better not be “shop her favorites” with a link to all of your products. (Maybe make that a call to action or next steps, instead.)

3. Don’t over-deliver.

If you promise targeted content, recipients expect focused, simple content — not sprawling lists of everything including the kitchen sink.

“Users expected the payoff to be high when they clicked to view any email,” write Kim Flaherty, Amy Schade, and Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group.

“They were satisfied when their expectations were sufficiently met with content that delivered on the promise that the subject line made. However, they were increasingly frustrated when content was only loosely related, or forced them to go to the site to get the information advertised in the subject line with many users stating that they felt mislead by the email.”

And when that happens, your emails are likely to wind up in recipients spam folders.

Avoid generic email newsletter subject lines.

Generic subject lines — “Newsletter name” — are more likely to be deleted than opened. So says usability guru Jakob Nielsen. So says MailChimp.

Why avoid generic subject lines? Repeating subject lines:

1. Reduces email open rates.

“It’s obvious that if you send the same campaign over and over again (such as reminders for an event), your open rates will decline with each subsequent campaign,” write the experts at MailChimp.

How much should you expect it to decline? In one study, MailChimp tracked the results of these similar event reminders:

• 1st email: Funk n Sandi @ The Roxy on 3 March — 8% open rate
• 2nd: Funk ‘n’ Sandi @ The Roxy on 3 March — 6.3%
• 3rd: This Sat 3 Feb — Funk n Sandi @ The Roxy — 5.1%
• 4th: Don’t forget — Funk ‘n’ Sandi this Sat 3 Mar!— 3.5%

2. Makes your message hard to store.

I save my e-zines for reading on planes. I’ll bet you save yours for a more convenient time, too.

The problem with generic subject lines is that they’re hard to store. When I save one with a generic subject line to my “reads” file, I have to rewrite the subject line:

• Instapaper
• Instapaper-2
• Instapaper-3
• Instapaper-4
• Instapaper-5

3. Makes your message hard to find.

Oh, my God! An article in one of your e-zines has changed my life. I want to be able to refer to it often and share it with everyone I know.

But where is it? Will I find it in:

• HubSpot Blog, Opinion
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-2
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-3
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-4
• HubSpot Blog, Opinion-5

How to write specific subject lines

So how can you make your subject lines less generic?

1. Tell the story.

For years, the folks at Daily Puppy sent out this subject line … every … day:

The DailyPuppy | Pictures of Puppies

I like pictures of puppies as much as the next gal, but I’m not sure I’d open that after, say, the 100th day. But Daily Puppy recently changed its subject lines to include the puppy’s name and breed. Who wouldn’t want to:

Meet Pistachio the English Bulldog!

Don’t write e-zine subject lines like this:

April news from Litmus

New Post is up on That’s Not My Age

What’s new in MailChimp: April 2018

Instead, treat your subject lines as headlines. Summarize your lead article in subject lines like these:

5 Types of E-Commerce Shoppers

— Nielsen Norman Group

Police officer’s good deed draws praise on Facebook

— SmartBrief on Social Business

The Interpreter: How America came to love small wars

— The New York Times

Voter registration + turnout = historic midterm election

— Indivisible

Starbucks will close 8,000 locations for racial bias training

— Eater

2. Don’t repeat the sender in the subject line.

They’ve already seen your From line. Avoid wasting any of your 25-40 characters repeating that information.

Instead of …

Alan Weiss | Unique development from Alan Weiss

… how about delivering some details about the development?

Alan Weiss | Multiply your income with new classes

Instead of …

SEO Tips List | [SEO-Tips] Tomorrow’s SEMRush Meetup

… how about delivering some details about the development?

SEO Tips List | Save $50 on tomorrow’s SEMRush Meetup

3. Drop the date.

Most email clients display this information near the subject line. (Not that recipients are scanning your subject line for calendar information.)

Plus: Don’t let dreary details like dates get in the way of the information that actually drives opens: the contents of your e-zine or newsletter.

Overcome sender unfamiliarity.

While generic subject lines don’t get clicked, enticing ones drew them into the email — even when they weren’t familiar with the senders. (And overcoming sender unfamiliarity isn’t easy.)

“When users are looking through their inboxes and dealing with vast amounts of email, any indication that a message is worth opening is helpful,” Nielsen writes.

Like this one, from Roger Dooley:

Simple Hacks to Develop a Magnetic Memory, more

Want to get opened? Before sending an email, make sure your subject line is clear and easy to understand — and change them up.

Learn more

• How to add a sense of urgency to email subject lines
• How to write a recognizable ‘from’ (email address) line
• Don’t be afraid to use questions in subject lines. But skip exclamation points.
• Tips for writing effective social media, blog posts, content marketing pieces
• Learn to get read on mobile devices.

___

Sources: “Best Practices for Email Subject Lines,” MailChimp, June 20, 2018

Janelle Estes, “Email Subject Lines: 5 Tips to Attract Readers,” Nielsen Norman Group, May 4, 2014

Kim Flaherty, Amy Schade, and Jakob Nielsen; Marketing Email and Newsletter Design to Increase Conversion and Loyalty, 6th Edition; Nielsen Norman Group, 2017

The post Tips for writing email subject lines appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

The most valued email newsletters in the Nielsen Norman Group’s latest round of usability studies used these formats:

1. Headlines with short blurbs. This was, by far, the most favored format.

If you have more than 5 topics or articles, consider:

• A concise headline
• Blurbs ranging from 1 line to 2-4 sentences to even a few brief paragraphs
• Link to the full story for more information

If your email newsletter also covers more than 2 printed pages, add a table of contents.

2. Bulleted lists of information such as upcoming events, discounts and specials.

3. Single-story newsletters, such as daily meditations, articles, recipes, promotions, promotion, recipes or events. Include the full story if you use this approach.

Make them short and focused.

Note that all of these formats are short and focused. Subscribers considered newsletters with too much information or diverse content overwhelming and cluttered.

Note: Include no more than two full-length stories in your email newsletter. Keep them tight.

Be consistent.

Whatever format you choose, be consistent. Subscribers learn your format and use it to find what they’re looking for.

Subscribers also valued in email newsletters:

• Relevant, interesting information
• Clean, easy-to-use design, little clutter
• High-quality graphics and images
• Few ads

Subscribers did not value in email newsletters:

• E-commerce or sales newsletters
• Irrelevant, impersonal information
• Frilly design
• Unsolicited newsletters

What format do you use for your email newsletter? What format makes the most sense?

___

Source: Kim Flaherty, Amy Schade, and Jakob Nielsen; Marketing Email and Newsletter Design to Increase Conversion and Loyalty, 6th Edition; Nielsen Norman Group, 2017

The post 3 email newsletter formats that work appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Decks — those one-sentence summaries under the headline — do the heavy lifting on webpages.

Indeed, according to The Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack III study of reader behavior:

• 95% of webpage visitors read all or part of the deck. That’s huge when compared with any other element on the page.
• Visitors spend five to 10 seconds, on average, looking at the deck.That seems like a flash, but it’s actually a substantial investment in a scanner’s time.
• Decks “may be the only thing many readers view,” Eyetrack III researchers say.

If you want visitors to pay attention to your point, the researchers say, put it in the deck. Yet too many corporate communicators drop this power tool of communication.

Why decks?

No doubt about it: Decks are power tools of communication. Decks are important because they:

• Orient visitors at a glance, letting them know whether they’ve arrived at the right place.
• Offer a second layer of detail to scanners who don’t read word-by-word.
• Take a load off (and words out of) the headline.

(Not sure what the deck is? The deck for this piece is “Because it’s the best-read element on the page.”)

Put your message where your deck is.

Once you’ve gained attention in the headline, use the deck to sell the story. To write an effective deck:

1. Explain your message in one sentence.

Make it a full sentence.

2. Telegraph a single point.

Choose a secondary angle deck to go with news headlines, a summary deck to go with feature and benefits headlines.

3. Tell, don’t tease.

Don’t try to trick visitors into reading the page. Instead, summarize the page so well that visitors can get the gist of the story without reading the text.

4. Don’t repeat yourself.

A deck is an extension of the headline. It should expand on the headline, not duplicate it. So don’t repeat a single word from the headline in the deck.

This is San Francisco real estate. Make each word do new work. (Besides, repeating words in the head and deck may be a clue that you’re saying the same thing twice. Force yourself to revise repetitious layers of information.)

5. Use sentence-structure capitalization.

Sentence Capitalization is Fresher and More Contemporary than Title Capitalization.

But don’t include a period.

6. Keep it short.

Aim for 14 words or fewer. That length is easy for people to read and understand, according to research by the American Press Institute.

People read decks because they’re short and easy to scan. If your deck becomes a paragraph, it will lose its power to attract.

Don’t drop the deck.

This second layer of headline is essential to communicate to today’s audience of flippers and skimmers.

So don’t drop the deck — from webpages, news releases, blog posts and other pieces. Why skip the most important element of your piece?

The post Why write a multi-deck headline? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When edible marijuana consumption spiked, the Omaha World Herald came up with this headline and deck:

Baking Bad

Police say edible forms of pot hit new high

List, rhyme and twist is just one way to come up with a stellar twist-of-phrase headline. Here are four techniques to try:

1. List, rhyme and twist.

Call it list, rhyme and twist:

• Start with a list of keywords from your article. Baking, maybe.
• Find words that rhyme with your keywords. These rhyming dictionaries will help. Maybe you’ll come up with Breaking.
• Find familiar phrases that include those rhyming words. See the phrase resources below. Breaking Bad.
• Twist the familiar phrase by subbing in your original key word. Baking Bad.

When a shortage of telephone numbers required that Colorado residents use area codes on local calls, the Rocky Mountain News newspaper headline substituted a rhyming word into a 1948 movie title:

Sorry, long number

This headline from a New York Times “DataBank” piece covering a blistering (and bearish) week in August played off a familiar phrase:

It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Economy

And eMarketer editors used this approach to create this line to head a story covering Playboy.com:

Silly Rabbit, These Clicks Aren’t For Kids

How can you list, rhyme and twist your way to a winning feature headline? Of course, you’ll avoid groan-worthy punny headlines. But when you use words that sound similar, you can come up with a good pun that’s worthy of the front pages of the New York Post.

2. Switch a vowel.

Copy editors for The Los Angeles Times dropped an “o” from a word to create this headline, an ACES award winner:

A circuit bard for Silicon Valley

Computerese isn’t the only language in the capital of high tech. Today, the ‘Hollywood for engineers’ unveils its first poet laureate

Want to write an award-winning headline yourself? Play with the English language. Try switching, dropping or adding a vowel.

3. Flip a phrase.

When a former aspiring governor from Virginia shifted gears, The Washington Post copy editors came up with this headline:

Now, the oyster is his world

Ken Cuccinelli has shucked off the sting of his Virginia gubernational defeat to find a new venture: Bringing a sustainable source of jobs to Chesapeake’s Tangier Island

One easy way to twist a phrase is to shift the order of the words. When New York magazine covered the story of angry residents calling the MTA’s removal of 81 trees “arborcide,” editors twisted the title of a best-selling grammar book for this headline:

MTA kills shoots and leaves

The Washington Post’s Jim Webster flipped and switched for this headline:

The man who put the mettle in the petal

A basement botanist helped revive the rose

How can you create a new phrase just by flipping the words in a familiar one?

4. Find phrases to twist.

How do you write an award-winning headline like this?

Party like it’s $19.99

Local decorator shows you how to entertain on a tight budget

Adapt titles or lyrics of popular songs, movies, plays, TV shows, ads, company slogans or product names.

And here are some resources to get you started. Plug your key words into these databases to find familiar sayings that include your terms:

• Common phrases: PhraseFinder
• Movie titles: Internet Movie Database
• Music lyrics: Lyrics.com

Get more wordplay resources.

The post Examples of puns in headlines appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Note to self: “Label headline” is not a headline.

Label headlines like Label headlines carry a double problem. They skip the verb, so they suck the action out of your headline. And they don’t say anything about the topic.

That’s why serious communicators and publications like The New York Times avoid them. We analyzed 99 headlines in one edition of the Times, skipping the sports pages. Of those, just 7% were label heads.

Yet the most common type of headline I review as a writing coach is — by far! — a label headline. I’m convinced that most corporate communications, marketing and content marketing headlines are label headlines.

What’s a label headline?

Good news headlines “need at least two things … a noun and a verb.”

— Mary Pretzer, design columnist, Editor’s Workshop newsletter

This subhead could have said “Label headline definition.” But that would be a label subhead.

Label heads are those that identify the topic but don’t say anything about it. They are nouns or noun phrases without verbs.

“Every good title is a short story.”

— Russell Banks, American writer of fiction and poetry

Examples of label headlines

Here, for example, are a few of the label heads that have crossed my desk lately:

Bulletins

Meetings

Volunteers

Chemical update

Manager’s letter

Field distribution

Graphics systems

Strategy Statement

Tornado Chase Q&A

US Recruiting Trends

Health considerations

Disposable air cleaners

COBRA/HIPAA Process

Improvement by Transformation

Innovation & Growth Video Series

First-ever 3D virtual retinal display

A New Target in Healthcare Marketing

Systems Integration and Testing Facility

Modification to the NSA mission and vision

Manager’s guide to selecting a proxy or delegate

And … drum roll, please: The worst label head I’ve ever seen was on a sales letter encouraging me to increase the size of a directory ad. The headline:

Sales Letter

Why avoid headlines like Sales Letter when your headline tops, say, a sales letter?

Why avoid label headlines?

“Lose your reader with your headline, and you’ve lost the reader altogether.”

— Alan Sharpe, business-to-business direct-mail copywriter

Why avoid label heads? With label headlines, you:

1. Miss the chance to communicate. Headlines get twice the attention of text. They change the way we think. “Readers” might not read anything else. If your headline says nothing, you’ve missed your best opportunity to reach and sway the huge and growing percentage of your audience who just read the display copy.
2. Make your story dull and boring. While some readers get all of their information from the display copy, others use headlines to decide whether to read. If your headline says Strategy statement, I can almost assure you that readers will choose not to dive in.
3. Sap the energy from your story. Without verbs, your story has no action. Without verbs, there are no benefits. Readers can’t see what they could do differently with your product, service, program or idea.

How to fix label headlines

“Nouns are important, but the nouns must do something.”

— Pete Hamill, novelist, essayist and journalist

How can you fix label headlines?

1. Say something about the topic. If you find yourself writing “headlines” like “Graphic systems,” ask yourself “Graphic systems what?” Or “What about Graphic systems?” Are we for them? Against them? Should I get one if I don’t have one? Should I get rid of one if I do?
2. Add a verb. “A story is a verb, not a noun,” writes one of the former editors of The New York Times. That means that something essential is missing from a label head. Unless you’re writing a feature headline, use a dynamic verb in every headline. Bonus points for putting that verb in present tense.
3. Develop creative standing heads. You may want to use a label for the name of a recurring column or department. But surely, given all your talent and education, you can come up with something better than “Bulletins” or “Manager’s Letter.”

I’d like to buy a verb, please.

So instead of:

Charity Collection for Geneva and Africa

Write:

Help African orphans, vulnerable children, Manchester’s poor

Donate to XYZ’s autumn charity collection Oct. 15-31

Instead of:

Eighty two million and counting

Write:

245 XYZ employees take on the Global Corporate Challenge

Teams walk 82 million steps in 100 days

Instead of:

XYZ Talks registration — Behind the scenes at the Hermitage

Write:

Go behind the scenes at the Hermitage

 Learn about Russia’s treasured art collection at XYZ Talks on Oct. 10

Instead of:

HPV and throat cancer

Write:

HPV virus? You could be at risk for throat cancer

Get a free screening, answers to your questions, on April 16

Instead of:

Weather Update

Write:

Work from home tomorrow!

Please stay safe and warm during Detroit’s snow emergency, parking ban

See what a difference a verb makes? Stop labeling the topic of your blog post, article or content marketing piece. Start using your headline to actually say something about your story.

The post Avoid writing label headlines (Examples!) appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Barney Kilgore, the legendary editor of The Wall Street Journal, once wrote: “If I see ‘upcoming’ slip in[to] the paper again, I’ll be downcoming and someone will be outgoing.”

I’m with Barney: Stop ing-ing. Especially in headlines.

Now, to be fair, Kilgore’s comment refers to gerunds: verbs that get turned into nouns with the addition of an “-ing,” as in “Writing is fun.”

What I’m talking about are present participles, aka progressive verbs, as in “I am writing.”

Avoid present participling-noun headlines.

So who ever decided that “Present Participling Noun” was a clever headline? You’ve seen (maybe even written!) ing-ing headlines like these:

Hiring to Win

Taking Farming Further

Scaling the China Opportunity

Introducing A New App for Android

Committing to Our Ag & Turf Ambition

Introducing the Strategic Growth Incentive

Creating Meaningful Relationships at Work

Making dams safer for fish around the world

Announcing Our 2014 Scholarship Program Recipients

Transforming and Deepening Our Strategic Partnerships

Understanding Biofilm Roles in Reactions and Processes

Enabling better outcomes and lower costs through integration

Ending Child Trafficking through Collaboration, Awareness, and Support

So what’s wrong with “Introducing the Strategic Growth Incentive”?

Why avoid present participle headlines?

Ing-ing headlines like these:

• Focus on your actions instead of the reader’s needs. Instead of “Introducing A New App for Android,” how about “Get your job done in 12 minutes a week with new Android app”?
• Suck the subject out of the headline. We’re supposed to be writing about people doing things. Where are the actors in these headlines?
• Ing the action. The verb is the story. Ing-ing verbs are weaker.
• Just point to the noun. Instead of “Announcing Our 2014 Scholarship Program Recipients,” how about “2014 scholarship recipients headed to Harvard”?
• Take the benefits out of the headline. Which would you rather read: “Transforming and Deepening Our Strategic Partnerships”? Or “6 ways to jumpstart strategic partnerships”?
• Rarely get used by serious journalists. The New York Times, for instance, mostly avoids them.

Write like the Times.

We analyzed 99 headlines in the Dec. 15, 2014, edition of the Times. (We skipped the sports pages.) Of those, just four — about 4% — were ing-ing heads:

Stoking a Creative Spark

Stuart Shugg and Anna Azrieli in the DoublePlus Series

Stepping Back Into a Role’s Shoes

James Morris’s Unexpected Return to ‘Meistersinger’

Shaping a Shepherd of Catholics,
From Argentine Slums to the Vatican

‘The Great Reformer’: Austen Ivereigh on Pope Francis

Turning #IllRideWithYou Into Real-World Action in Australia

When you find these headlines in your own copy, rewrite. Make it subject, verb, object. Then you’ll wind up with verbs like:

• Stoke
• Step
• Shape
• Turn

Take a tip from the Times: Limit ing-ing drastically. Even better, stop ing-ing at all.

The post Stop it with the ing-ing headlines (Examples!) appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..