When Americans bought more plastic and candy eggs and fewer real eggs for Easter 2012, the American Egg Board turned to Edelman to take back Easter.

But Edelman and the Egg Board didn’t send out releases and tweets saying, “Eggs are great.” Instead, they created tip sheets on how to hard-boil, dye, decorate eggs and create dishes for Easter.

The result of this and other campaign tactics: Americans bought more than $40 million extra eggs for Easter 2013. And Edelman and the Egg Board earned a PRSA Silver Anvil award for their campaign.

They’re incredible! They’re not edible! They’re tip sheets!

And that, my friends, is the power of tip sheets.

Tipsheets are more likely to get read, shared, used and acted upon, according to research. They’re also, obviously, more likely to sell eggs — not to mention other products, services, programs and ideas.

Here’s a look at one of Edelman and the Egg Board’s tip sheets. How can you model this master to create powerful tip sheets for your own campaigns?

The post How-to story example: The American Egg Board appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When PR pros at the U.S. Green Building Council needed to round up resources in their Green Apple Day of Service, they didn’t write stories telling volunteers to get donations.

Instead, they produced a tip sheet called “Five tips for a successful Green Apple Day of Service.” That approach was so effective that it helped the council earn a Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil Award.

Explain “how to,” and watch reporters pick up your release — and readers dig into your piece.

How to write a tip sheet

Here are eight steps for making the most of your next tip sheet:

1. Draw readers in with how-to stories.

Tip sheets are popular because they deliver “news you can use to live your life better.” So explain how to do whatever it is your organization helps people do.

These tip sheet topics from other Silver Anvil Award winners might inspire you:

• Cigna offered an interview opportunity on “how people can get more use out of their health coverage.”
• Novartis Animal Health, makers of Deramaxx canine pain-control medicine, gives tips for how to know whether your dog is in pain.
• Korbel Champagne Cellars outlined “Top Ten Signs He’s About to Pop the Question,” “Top Ten Tips to Secure a ‘Yes!’ During Proposal Season” and tips for avoiding the “Top Ten Proposal ‘Don’ts.”
• Select Comfort, creator of the Sleep Number bed, offered tips for “making the most of your sleep schedule,” “Back-to-School Sleep Lessons for Parents” and “Secrets of Sleeping for Two: Sleep Tips for Pregnant Women.”
• UPS developed a release on “10 tips for worry-free packing, shipping.”
• VOX vodka created a tip sheet on how to “Infuse your party with style: Tips and trends for a spectacular summer soiree.”
• Xerox published “10 signs that suggest you need to enter Xerox’s office makeover contest.”
• MSA Safety Works released a tip sheet called “10 Easy Ways to Improve Safety During Home-Improvement Projects.”

2. Reach flippers and skimmers with a deck.

Add that one-sentence summary after the headline to deliver more details. Instead of:

Five tips for a successful Green Apple Day of Service

Make it:

Five tips for a successful Green Apple Day of Service

Draw volunteers, donations for your Martin Luther King Day event

3. Set up the story in the introduction.

Here’s the lead for the U.S. Green Building Council tip sheet:

It could be better. The best tip sheet intros:

• Illustrate your point in the lead. Grab attention by showing instead of telling with a story, statistic, analogy or other concrete, creative element.

• Give context in the background section. Summarize “Why these tips now?” with research or broader context.

• Summarize your story in the nut graph. Now that you’ve grabbed reader attention by showing, it’s time to tell folks where you’re taking them. Here’s where you transition into the tips.

4. Organize tips logically.

Choose the right structure for the body of the story:

• Alphabetical structure is best for glossaries, for instance.
• Chronological structure is the right choice for a series of steps. (As everyone who’s ever put together an Ikea bedside table well knows.)
• Hierarchical structure works best for top 10 lists.

The U.S. Green Building Council used hierarchical structure, which makes sense for this piece.

5. Add bold-faced lead-ins to each item on the list.

Lift ideas off the screen: Show scanners the items on the list with bold-faced lead-ins.

Then make sure those bold-faced lead-ins are parallel and action-oriented. You should be able to begin each bullet with the same phrase, “To make your event successful …”

Try it:

• To make your event successful, think locally. Check!
• To make your event successful, potluck! Hmmm … that doesn’t work. Instead, use the imperative voice: Host a potluck.
• To make your event successful, there is such a thing as a free lunch! Nope; doesn’t work. You need the imperative again: Offer a free lunch.
• To make your event successful, get online. Check!
• To make your event successful, get creative. Check!

6. Number your list.

If you promise five items in the headline, demonstrate that you’ve met that promise in the list itself. So:

1. Think locally.
2. Host a potluck.
3. Offer a free lunch.
4. Get online.
5. Get creative.

7. Break up paragraphs.

Aim for an average of 42 words or less. Go too much longer, and people will skip your paragraphs.

The U.S. Green Building Council’s paragraphs weigh in at an average of 67 words each — 60% longer than recommended. But was easy to wrestle them down into these crisper chunks, averaging 38 words:

8. End with a bang.

Draw to a conclusion with a:

• Wrapup that includes a call-to-action. Restate your key message in the penultimate paragraph.
• Kicker that leaves a lasting impression.

Instead of:

Make it:

Need more inspiration?

Check out some of Ann’s tip sheets.

Learn why tip sheets are valuable communication tools.

Get more tips on tipsheets.

The post How-to story map: Green Apple Day of Service appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Service stories aren’t news articles. Which means that the inverted pyramid isn’t the right structure.

Instead, use the feature-style story structure, and organize your piece like this:

Introduce your piece in the intro.

1. Illustrate your point in the lead. Grab attention by showing instead of telling, as in this piece on 7 steps to service stories.

2. Summarize your story in the nut graph. Now that you’ve grabbed reader attention by showing, it’s time to tell folks where you’re taking them.

3. Give context in the background section. Summarize “Why these tips now?” with research or broader context.

Develop your story in the body.

Here’s where you list your tips, using an alphabetical, chronological or hierarchical structure.

Come to a close in the conclusion.

1. Restate your point in the wrapup. Now that I’ve shared this information with you, this penultimate paragraph suggests, we can only agree that …

“News you can use to live your life better” is the currency of most successful content marketing and PR writers.

2. Illustrate your point in the kicker. Leave a lasting impression with a concrete, creative, provocative final paragraph.

Investor’s Business Daily’s motto is, “Don’t read it. Use it.” Shouldn’t that be your motto too?

The post Try this how-to story template appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When the folks at Topolobampo, Chicago’s cathedral to Mexican cuisine, wanted to sell more syrah, they didn’t put signs on the tables saying “Buy wine!” Instead, they provided nifty little tabletop tipsheets on how to pair wine with Mexican food.

Take a tip from Topolobampo: Instead of always pushing your products, offer your customers news they can use to live their lives better. Tip sheets position your organization as the expert in the field and may drive more sales than purely promotional pieces.

Here are seven ways to make the most of your next tip sheet:

1. Find a topic.

Explain how to:

• Cut costs during the recession
• Save on taxes
• File for Social Security
• Grow a great lawn
• Reduce gas consumption
• Or do whatever it is your organization helps people do

Stumped? Check out this list of benefits. How can you help readers save money, save time, avoid effort and otherwise live their lives better?

The key here is to provide real value. Tip sheets on “Five reasons to work with Ann Wylie” will never gain traction. “10 tips for choosing an XYZ vendor” won’t change anyone’s life either.

Instead of offering self-serving tips, remember this content marketing formula: “Give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, ask.”

2. Organize tips logically.

Choose the right structure:

• Alphabetical structure is best for glossaries, for instance.
• Chronological structure is the right choice for a series of steps. (As everyone who’s ever put together an Ikea bedside table well knows.)
• Hierarchical structure works best for top 10 lists.

3. Use the language of service stories.

How-to language — like top, 10, you, most, best and, of course, how to — has been a mainstay of service journalism for years. These days, this language tops the list of most-shared words and phrases on Facebook and Twitter, according to Zarrella’s research.

4. Put a number in the headline.

Numerals sell stories. That’s why coverlines on best-selling magazines are packed with numbers, from “Six Steps to Six-Pack Abs” to “101 Best Cheap Eats.” Blog post headlines and subject lines with numerals are more likely to get shared and opened, too.

But be careful: It’s not enough just to slap a 10 onto the headline. Odd numbers tend to outperform even numbers; specific numbers (99) are better than round ones (100); and 101 of anything is too many, unless you’re offering chocolate chip cookies or cute kitten videos.

5. Write in the imperative voice.

Speak directly to “you” using the second person, and start each item with a verb, like find, organize, use, put or write. That will also help you make your list of tips parallel, which your third-grade English teacher and I will appreciate.

6. Format your tips.

Numbered lists, bullets and bold-faced lead-ins lift your tips off the page and screen and make it easier for people to read your tips.

7. Deliver “go and do” information.

Links, phone numbers, times, dates, addresses and maps not only boost value. Links increase your message’s chances of going viral. And maps and addresses improve the chances that readers will act on your information.

Deliver news you can use.

“News you can use to live your life better” is the currency of most successful content marketing and PR writers.

Investor’s Business Daily’s motto is, “Don’t read it. Use it.” Shouldn’t that be your motto too?

The post How to write a how-to story appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

What makes people share information?

News they can use to live their lives better, according to Chadwick Martin Bailey research. Here are the Top 3 reasons people share:

• Because I find it interesting/entertaining: 72%
• Because I think it will be helpful to recipients: 58%
• To get a laugh: 58%

Want your blog posts and status updates to travel the world instead of staying home on the couch? Make them helpful to your social media network.

Writers take classes on how to show, don’t tell; how to use storytelling to make corporate messages as interesting as fiction writing; how to write in the CEO’s voice and from her point of view.

But how about a writing class on how to deliver news readers can use to live their lives better? How-to stories and tipsheets are effective, because:

1. How-to stories get read.

Making a publication “easy to read” is the No. 1 way to increase readership, according to Impact, an extensive study by The Readership Institute.

And one of the handful of ways to accomplish that is to include more “go and do” information. “Go and do” information is the nitty-gritty details that help readers take action on a story:

• Phone numbers
• Times
• Dates
• Addresses
• URLs
• Contact names
• Maps

These elements greatly increase the value and usefulness of the story to readers.

Impact found that if newspapers (and, by extension, other communications) become more “relaxing to read” and make it easier “to find what I’m looking for,” people will:

• Spend more time reading the publication
• Read it more completely
• Read it more often

Communicators can make messages more relaxing and easy by:

• Including more “go and do” — or how-to — information
• Offering more feature-style story structure
• Promoting content more effectively within the publication

2. How-to stories get shared.

What kind of information do people retweet? News and how-tos (PDF), according to research by Dan Zarrella, viral marketing scientist for HubSpot:

• News: 78%
• How-to information: 58%
• Entertainment: 53%
• Opinion: 50%
• Products: 45%
• Small talk: 12%

Please note: News is what CNN and the BBC report. It’s not your urgent updates about your Widget 2.6.3.1.

Don’t worry, though. That leaves how-to information as our best bet for content.

Want more retweets? Write blog posts packed with tips, techniques and step-by-step how-tos..

3. How-to stories get followed.

Informers are the 20% of Twitter users who tweet information, ideas and insights, new studies, quotes, resources and insights. “Meformers” are the 80% who tweet urgent updates about themselves.

Not surprisingly, informers have nearly three times as many followers as meformers, according to a study by Rutgers University professors Mor Naaman and Jeffrey Boase.

4. How-to stories get picked up.

Why how-to stories?

• Journalists and bloggers love tipsheets because they’re ready-made, how-to stories, sidebars and USA Today-style tips boxes. Your fire-safety tips post, for example, might accompany a news piece about a big apartment fire.
• Social media channels run on “Top 10 ways to …” listicles.
• Customers and clients will read the tipsheet you write today for years to come, making tip sheets the ultimate evergreen with an almost limitless shelf life.

5. How-to stories move readers to act.

The best communicators want to move their readers to action, not just to inform them. In one study, the addition of a simple element — a map — increased action by 28%.

In the study, social psychologist Howard Levanthal wanted to persuade a group of Yale seniors to get a tetanus shot. He gave each senior a booklet that:

• Detailed the dangers of tetanus
• Explained the importance of inoculations
• Reported that students could get free shots at the campus health center

After reading the booklets, the students understood the dangers of tetanus and the importance of the shots and said they were likely to get inoculated.

But only 3% actually got the shot.

In a later study, Levanthal added:

• A map of the campus with the health building circled
• A list of times the shots were available

The result: 28% of seniors actually got the shot.

“Go and do” information — like maps, hours of operation and contact information — increase readership. Levanthal’s study suggests that they can also increase action.

Why?

“The students needed to know how to fit the tetanus stuff into their lives,” writes Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point.

“The addition of the map and the times when the shots were available shifted the booklet from an abstract lesson in medical risk — a lesson no different from the countless other academic lessons they had received over their academic career — to a practical and personal piece of medical advice. And once the advice became practical and personal, it became memorable.”

How-to stories work.

How do you write messages that grab attention, get read, shared and acted upon? One of the best ways to write a good story is to focus on writing tips and tricks and techniques. So when looking for your next story idea, look for how-to stories.

Why not write a how-to story today?

The post Why write how-to stories? appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..