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..

What’s in a name?

A great headline can mean the difference between a story that gets read — or one that gets passed over.

So what’s the headline formula that will produce compelling headlines that appeal to search engines as well as to your target audience? Whether you’re writing a blog post, news release or social media status update, try these tips for drawing readers in with your headlines:

1. Avoid vague heads.

These are actual headlines that appeared in actual publications:

Prepare for the worst

Help me cope

Keeping it together

These headlines are so vague, they could all apply equally to stories about my husband getting ill, my business going bankrupt or my finding out that the mini-mart is out of Twix bars.

If your headline could apply to any story, you shouldn’t use it for any story. The best headlines are ultra-specific. Write a unique headline for your unique story.

2. Tighten loose heads.

These, too,are actual headlines that appeared in actual publications:

Preparing for the successful sale of your business

(I’m sure there was a more successful way to write this headline.)

What is intellectual property, and why should you care about it?

( I already don’t care about it, because this is such a bad headline.)

Vague heads are less like headlines than story ideas. “I know, let’s do a story on what is intellectual property, and why should you care about it?”

A story idea isn’t a headline. Good headlines take time and effort to write.

3. Reverbify label headlines.

In 1986, The New York TImes ran a column about Canada’s campaign to forge a free-trade deal with the United States. The headline:

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

Michael Kinsley, then the editor of The New Republic, declared it to be the most boring imaginable headline.

Label headlines — like Worthwhile Canadian Initiative — are boring. They identify the topic without saying anything about it. They are nouns or noun phrases without verbs.

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

Bulletins

Chemical update

Field distribution

Graphics systems

Strategy statement

With label headlines, you miss the chance to reach the huge and growing percentage of your audience who just read the display copy. You lose readers who rely on headlines to draw them into the story. And you sap the energy from your pieces, because labels have no verbs.

But a headline isn’t just a topic.

Avoid label headlines.

To fix label headlines, say something about the topic, and make sure your subject has a verb.

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

Verbs are power words. Make sure your headline has one.

4. Stop ing-ing.

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

Introducing the Strategic Growth Incentive

Making dams safer for fish around the world

Ending Child Trafficking through Collaboration, Awareness, and Support

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

Ing-ing headlines focus on your organization’s actions instead of the reader’s needs. They suck the subject out of the headline. And they substitute present participles — weak nonverbs — for power words, like verbs.

Stop ing-ing.

When you find these headlines in your own copy, rewrite. Use subject, verb, object. Then you’ll end up with power words like stoke, step, shape and turn.

And that will put the energy back in your headline.

5. Skip the buzzwords.

Chris Smith, senior lead communications specialist at Entergy, writes:

Indeed. And if you’ve crammed “strategic,” “value-added,” “proactive,” “solution” and “core competencies” into your headline, it’s a bad headline.

6. Skip ‘headline words.’

Copy editors — who must often squeeze sense into a headline or subject line with very few characters — have developed a vocabulary of super-short words.

You see these terms in headlines, but rarely anyplace else. They’re words like:

• Accord for agreement
• Eyes for sees
• Flap for controversy
• Ink for signs
• Irk for irritate
• Mull for consider
• Nab for steal
• Nix for cancel
• Pact for contract
• Pan for criticize
• Scribe for writer
• Slate for schedule
• Veep for vice president
• Vie for compete
• Weigh for consider
• Woes for miseries
• Woo for persuade

Don’t use these words in your headlines. Instead, steal the idea behind these “headline words.” Use more familiar one-syllable words to develop sharp heads of your own.

7. Don’t drop key elements.

Is there a deadline for responding to your message? Create a sense of urgency with a call to action in the headline.

Are you writing to a subset of your target audience: asthma sufferers, maybe, or single moms? Consider calling out to them in the headline.

If there’s a key element to the story, consider including it in the headline.

8. Don’t make the reader groan.

John Russial, associate professor at the University of Oregon, begs you to stop writing headlines like:

The pear facts about anjous

Plan for a fence at jail has some neighbors railing

Rail plan is … on track … off the track … at a crossroads … going downhill … going uphill … moving at full throttle … huffing and puffing like the little engine that could

And anything taxing around April 15.

9. Avoid confusing the reader.

Books bulge with confusing headlines. Among my favorites:

NFL to ask its players to donate brains for study

Ouch!

Include your children when baking cookies

Yum!

Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25

Yup! Or even after age 20.

Read more ridiculous headlines.

10. Don’t get it wrong.

Read far enough into the body copy to get the headline right. A catchy headline does nothing if the information it relays is incorrect.

“Make sure the big type does not contradict the little type,”  writes Russial.

Here’s one that does contradict the little type, from Inc. magazine:

Hot Tip: Set Cost-Cutting Targets

Head first.

Want to convince people to click to read, increase conversion rates and social shares, boost content marketing results and otherwise improve the ROI on your message? Write more compelling headlines.

Headlines get twice the attention of body copy. They change the way people think. And they’re the gateway to your message.

Lose readers in the headline, and you’ll likely lose them altogether.

The post Avoid these common headline mistakes appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

“Funny Girl” starts with Barbara Streisand wishing to be a star.

“My Fair Lady” opens with Julie Andrews wishing for a room somewhere. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” begins with Quasimodo wishing he could belong “Out There.” “Into the Woods” begins with six characters declaring their wishes.

Call it the “I wish” song.

“Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, novelist

Every Disney musical — not to mention many other film and stage musicals — starts with an “I wish” song, reports Ira Glass in a recent episode of “This American Life.” It’s the first song the main character sings.

That motivation launches the story’s action. Overcoming the obstacles that get in the way of your character’s wish drives the action of a good story.

Whether you’re writing social media or content marketing or anything in between, great stories start with your protagonist’s wish.

I wish, I wish, I wish.

So what does your protagonist want?

• I wish I were human. In “The Little Mermaid,” Ariel sings, “When’s it my turn? Wouldn’t I love? Love to explore that shore up above, Out of the sea, wish I could be, Part of that world.”
• I wish I had the perfect husband. In “Fiddler on the Roof,” the daughters sing, “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a match, Find me a find, catch me a catch. Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Look through your book, And make me a perfect match.”
• I wish I were somewhere more exciting than Kansas. In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy sings, “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly, Birds fly over the rainbow, Why then oh why can’t I?”

I wish, I wish, I wish.

The main character’s motivation drives every story:

• In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby wants Daisy to love him. This dream motivates him to overcome the obstacle of poverty to become fabulously wealthy by distributing illegal alcohol, trading in stolen securities and otherwise participating in organized crime.
• In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy wants to get home — and to help her friends get a brain, a heart and some courage. This objective moves her to overcome the obstacles of talking trees, flying monkeys and wicked witches to visit the wizard and do away with the witch.
• In The Princess Bride, Westley wants to save Buttercup. Humperdinck wants to kill Westley. Vizzini wants money for kidnapping Buttercup. Inigo wants to kill the six-fingered man.

What do your characters wish?

The best corporate stories start with a wish, too:

• Nike’s story begins with founder Bill Bowerman wishing he could create a shoe sole that would give runners more traction.
• Hallmark Cards started with entrepreneur J.C. Hall wishing to get out of Nebraska and become a postcard salesman.
• Post-it Notes began with 3M scientist Art Fry wishing for a bookmark that would stay put in his church hymnal.

Hear Ira Glass sing his “I wish” song.

What’s your main character’s “I wish” song?

The post Motivation an element of storytelling appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Beginning, middle, end: A chronological approach is the best way to organize most nonfiction narratives.

That’s the formula Ira Glass uses for the popular National Public Radio program “This American Life.”

“Narrative is basically a sequence of events,” Glass says. “Something happens, then something else, then something else. Human instinct compels us to stick around to see what happens next.”

Avoid ‘and then, and then, and then.’

But chronological structure doesn’t mean that you’ll start at the beginning — say, in the maternity ward of a certain suburban Tulsa hospital in 1959 — then hash out every grunt and groan that follows. (Ever sit through a chronological recitation of someone’s vacation? “Then we had breakfast. …” Hard pass!)

“On the most basic level, readers read to find out what will happen next. It’s like making a person scratch long and hard; before she’ll do that, she needs to feel an itch. Uncertainty is the itch.”

— Nancy Kress, novelist and short story writer

“You can make an interesting story less interesting by putting it all into one strand: ‘and then, and then, and then,’” says author and journalist Adam Hochschild.

Instead, he suggests, look for suspense points, where the reader is wondering what will come next. Then instead of simply listing a series of events in chronological order, find the narrative arc. Move the reader from the inciting incident to rising action to the resolution and, finally, the denouement.

“When you get lost, focus on the chronology. There’s a sign above my computer that says, ‘It’s the chronology, stupid.’”

— Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, on storytelling

Author and writer Steven James agrees.

“The beginning isn’t simply the first in a series of events, but the originating event of all that follows,” he says. “The middle isn’t just the next event, but the story’s central struggle. And the ending isn’t just the last event, but the culminating event.”

Sound complicated? It’s not.

Suddenly, luckily …

“In the first act you get your hero up a tree. The second act, you throw rocks at him. For the third act you let him down.”

— George Abbott, American theater producer and director

In fact, Roz Chast summarizes the narrative arc beautifully in a New Yorker cartoon. Called “Story Template,” it includes four panels:

• Once upon a time
• Suddenly
• Luckily
• Happily ever after

In a business context, you might translate Chast’s template to:

• Introduction (“Once upon a time”)
• Problem (“Suddenly”)
• Solution (“Luckily”)
• Results (“Happily ever after”)

Using this story structure, you can develop a narrative lead, a case study or testimonial, or a short story to illustrate your point.

Move the problem to the top.

Only I’d change one element: Start with the problem.

“When I speak to children about writing, I tell them, ‘You don’t have a story until something goes wrong.’”

— Steven James, author of Never the Same

The conflict or inciting incident is the essence of a story. So start in the middle of things, at the most dramatic part of the story.

Because you don’t have a story until you have a problem. So start with the turning point: The day the tax bill came. The day the bank called your loan. The day you learned the company had shipped its $60,000 circuit board with a fatal flaw.

But if you start with the Suddenly, where do you put the Once upon a time?

You have two options:

1. Sandwich the introduction. That gives us:

• Problem (“Suddenly”)
• Introduction (“Once upon a time”)
• Solution (“Luckily”)
• Results (“Happily ever after”)

2. Blow up the introduction. You can also explode the introduction, weaving the information parenthetically throughout the piece, for this structure:

• Problem (“Suddenly”)
• Solution (“Luckily”)
• Results (“Happily ever after”)

The story template in action

“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.”

— Jean Luc Godard, film director, screenwriter and film critic

That’s the structure PR Manager Robert Kelley used in this piece for Verizon’s employee e-zine:

• Problem: A Montana motorist found himself at the front sales counter at the Verizon Wireless store in Missoula. Big problem: The store does not have drive-up service.
• Background (if necessary): Store Manager Heather Barnhart reported that the wayward driver fell asleep at the wheel in the wee hours of the morning and crashed through the front of her store. Fortunately, there were no injuries.
• Solution: Barnhart’s team along with Senior Analyst-Facilities Jeff Sams worked ’round-the-clock …
• Results: … to have the store open for business by the following morning.

Keep it short.

Your piece doesn’t have to be long to be good.

“I like a good story well told. That’s the reason I’m sometimes forced to tell them myself.”

— Mark Twain, American writer and wit

Chast’s simple structure is a good reminder that a great narrative can also be as short as three sentences. Give one sentence each to the problem, the solution and the result, and you have a mini parable that can help you make your point.

Anecdotes can be as long as your market, message and medium demand.

Luckily.

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Facts tell, stories sell.

But it’s not enough just to have a great story. To make the most of your best business stories, you also need great storytelling.

Fortunately, great storytelling is as easy as 1-2-3.

Here’s how to turn facts that tell into stories that sell, in this rewrite of one of my favorite corporate stories, a piece about FedEx helping rescue a bear named Ben.

1. Problem

“If you’re advertising fire extinguishers,” wrote David Ogilvy, “open with the flames.”

So don’t start your story with a pat on your own back. (It gets in the way of the story, and unless you’re really flexible, it’s hard.) Instead, jump right into the most provocative details of the story at hand:

2. Solution

I know, I know. This is the part you care about most: the part where your organization helped solve the problem. Your readers, however, are more interested in your subject. So make this the quickest part of the piece:

3. Results

Paint a picture of how great Ben’s life is now:

How can you craft a story to make your messages more engaging?

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