Quick! Which would you rather read?

Or:

You probably prefer the second one. And so would your readers.

I coached a group of Public Relations Society of America members last week to help them draw readers in with reader-centric messages. Here’s what we did:

1. Focus on the benefits — not on the features.

The original focuses on grants and the organization:

The revision focuses on what the grants will do for communities:

2. Write about people — not about things.

The original focuses on a program:

The revision focuses on what people can do with the program:

3. Write about the impact, not the event.

The original focuses on the event — an awards announcement:

The revision focuses on the impact — what these awardees did to be honored:

Transform your writing

Would you like training and coaching to transform your messages from meh to mesmerizing? Join us at Wylie’s Writing Lab.

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“On average,” said ad man David Ogilvy, “five times as many people read your headline as the body copy.  By the time you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent 80 cents of your dollar.”

Call it the 80/20 test: Your headline gets 80% of your audience members’ attention; the rest of your message the other 20%.

So how can you get 80% of the ROI on your message from your headline? Here are nine ways:

1. Think Like a Reader.

I once worked with a client on an article about customer service. The head:

Be A Customer Champion. Be Elite

About 250 words in — in an oh-by-the-way aside — the article mentioned that winners would get an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas.

Here’s a winning marketing strategy: Giving away a trip to Vegas, a drone or an Apple watch? Mention that in the headline.

Here’s the rewrite:

Win a trip for two to Las Vegas

ABC customer service program honors XYZ

2. Call out to readers.

“If you want mothers to read … display ‘Mothers’ in your headline,” advised advertising guru David Ogilvy.

So call out to readers. Write headlines that start with IT managers, Business owners or Nurses, for example. I love this one, from Workers Compensation Board-Alberta:

Case managers: There’s an app for that!

Injured workers can now get claims updates on their phones

3. Use this headline formula.

Want to boost click through rates, engagement and sales? Here’s a simple formula to try for writing a great headline:

Write about your greatest benefit for your reader’s greatest need.

For communicators, that might be:

Sail through the approval process and go home early.

For semiconductor engineers, that might be:

Move from concept to simulation to prototype with a few keystrokes.

For gamers, that might be:

Level up your character to 85.

4. Focus on benefits, not features.

“Would you rather read a letter labeled ‘Dues Notice’?” asks Jeffrey Gitomer, principal of BuyGitomer Inc. Or one with the headline, “Build your business and boost your bottom line next year”?

Your conference isn’t a benefit. Your product isn’t a benefit. Neither are your services, programs or ideas.

What those things will do for the reader is the benefit.

Instead of:

Women’s Health Conference

Make it:

Revitalize your sexuality and justify your chocolate obsession

Instead of:

XYZ Company announces new disability insurance

Make it:

Get back to work faster with ITT Hartford’s new Ability Assurance

Instead of:

XYZ Company announces new product

Make it:

Grow bigger, lusher plants — and never have to water again — with XYZ’s SuperPlantGro

“It’s not about what you do,” writes Alan Weiss, consultant and principal of Summit Consulting. “It’s about what I can do after you’re done.”

Readers love benefits, because they focus on readers’ favorite topic: themselves. So don’t be afraid to layer on the benefits. Recreational Products Insurance published a brochure for agents with this head and deck:

Rev Up Your Sales

Launch more business with more products

Subheads continued to ladle on the benefits:

Crank up volume

Drive in profits

Collect a bonus

5. Use power words.

Benefits are verbs, not nouns. So to write effective headlines, focus on benefits-oriented verbs and verb phrases. Here are some to get you started:

These work for content marketing, digital marketing, email marketing, subject lines — even LinkedIn headlines and ad headlines.

So instead of:

New webinar helps managers improve productivity

Try:

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

(The latter, by the way, is one of my favorite marketing headlines of all time.)

6. Quantify and specify benefits.

While reviewing a marketing post for a client recently, I came across this headline:

Reap many rewards.

Well … that’s a little broad. It’s not very interesting, because it’s not visual. It begs credibility, because it sounds like the communicator couldn’t come up with any real benefits. And it could apply to virtually any product from virtually any company in virtually any industry.

If your benefits statements are too broad, they’ll come off sounding generic and meaningless. To make your message more concrete, compelling and credible, quantify and specify your benefits.

A participant in one of my writing workshops was working on a brochure to convince customers to move from paper statements to electronic ones. His first headline:

Save the environment with paperless statements.

I want to believe. But the benefit is so over-the-top, I just can’t. So I asked him to specify his benefit statement with a tangible, true detail. His rewrite:

Save half a tree a year with paperless statements.

One way to make your benefit more concrete is to add a numeral. Woman’s Touch Mammopad communicators, for instance, went for this broad — and to some women, somewhat discomforting — message in a brochure:

Discover the comfort of a softer mammogram. … Mammopad is like adding a woman’s touch to the procedure itself.

And the communicators buried this quantifiable detail at the bottom of the message:

Three out of four women reported a reduction in discomfort of nearly 50%.

So how about a headline like:

How would you like your next mammogram to be 50% more comfortable?

Hey, I’m happy with an asterisk to mousetype legalese if it allows me to write a quantifiable benefit.

Notice how quantifying and specifying make this envelope teaser for the World Wildlife Fund more powerful:

Every day an estimated 800 dolphins, porpoises and whales will die …

… unless you act now

Yikes! I’m writing a check before I’ve opened the envelope!

The more you know about your products and services, the more specific you can be. So drill down. Study the spec sheets. Ask questions.

Learn enough about the people, places and things you’re promoting to quantify and specify.

7. Add a numeral.

Speaking of numerals …

Next time you hit the Safeway, take a look at the magazines displayed at the checkout counter. Chances are, you’ll find that they’re packed with numerals.

There’s a good reason for that: Headlines with numerals, like Top 10, promise quantifiable value. And that draws readers. “Numbers sell,” writes Richard Riccelli, president of Post Rd, Inc.

Whether you’re writing a tipsheet or service story, a blog post or a marketing piece, add a numeral to the headline. That will increase your message’s chance of getting opened, read and shared.

Add numerals online. Numerals are power tools that get:

1. Shared in social media. Articles with numerals in their headline tend to be shared more on Facebook than stories without digits, according to research by viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella.
2. Engagement on blogs. My year-end roundup posts of PRSA’s Issues & Trends blog always score Nos. 1 or 2 for the year, according to editor John Elsasser. That’s because they include numerals, like “7 writing tips for the New Year.”
3. Attention on webpages. Numerals are more scannable, according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen. And they deliver tangible facts, which is what web visitors seek online.
4. Readership of releases. News releases with numerals in the headline performed better than those without, according to a study by PR Newswire.
5. Opened in email. EmailLabs ran a split test of these three subject lines:

Using Link Click-Through Tracking to Segment Your List

3 Tips to Improve Your Newsletter’s ROI

Build Your List Through “Piggy-Back Marketing”

The subject line promising “3 Tips” produced both higher open and click-through rates than the other two.

Select the right numbers: To choose the best numerals for your headlines:

1. Favor odd numbers. Oddly, odd numbers sell better than even ones, according to Folio: So 7 Steps may be more effective than 10 Tips.
2. Choose specific numbers. “101 or 99 work better than 100,” Riccelli writes. “65 is better than 75.” 59 seconds is more specific than one minute, for instance.
3. Better yet, make it 7. That number seems to appeal to readers. The number 13, on the other hand, does not.
4. Don’t overwhelm readers. I’m not looking for “66 steps to 6-pack abs.” “Saying ‘35 best exercises’ is too many,” Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko told The New York Times. “But ‘789 great new tips for summer’ is fine. That says value without saying work.”
5. But don’t underwhelm readers, either. Posts with headlines promoting seven or more items outperformed those with six or fewer, according to an internal study of HubSpot’s blog. While HubSpot still posts pieces with six or fewer items, writes Pamela Vaughan, HubSpot’s lead blog strategist, the inbound marketing experts don’t promote that quantity in the headline.
6. Avoid numbers for serious subjects. “14 ways to deal with breast cancer,” for instance, sounds flip.

So instead of:

Increase profits

Take a tip from Ann Bloch, principal of Ann Bloch Communications, and try something like:

Do 3 things you hate … and watch your income double

Or steal a trick from the tabloids with something like:

Lose 7 pounds a week without drugs or a diet

8. Develop a vignette.

Keynote speaker Tom Antion suggests:

Speaking puts me in a higher tax bracket

Maybe it can do the same for you

9. Get found by search engines.

At Wylie Communications, we use SEMRush to help us find the right search terms.

And we use SEMRush’s SEO Writing Assistant for Google docs for help writing pages and posts. It includes help for headline writing, as well.

SEMRush has helped us boost our search results. We think it can help you, too. (We are not affiliated with SEMRush; we share it just because we like it.)

How to write a good headline

Ready to write? Here’s a quick checklist to run on your marketing headline. Does your headline:

• Think Like a Reader? Does it focus on what readers want, not what you want from readers?
• Call out to the reader? Have you started with IT managers, Business owners or Nurses, for instance?
• Use a proven headline formula? Are you writing about your greatest benefit for your reader’s greatest need?
• Focus on benefits, not features? Does it cover what readers can do with your Whatsit, not on your Whatsit itself?
• Use power words? Do you use verbs and verb phrases like Make money, Save time, Avoid effort?
• Quantify and specify your benefits? Are they tangible and credible instead of generic and meaningless?
• Include a numeral? Do you demonstrate the quantifiable value you deliver in your message?
• Draw readers in with a vignette? Do you show how great readers’ lives could be with your services?
• Include searchable elements? Did you use online tools to make sure your headline is optimized for search engines?

If so, it’s time to press Send.

Keep building your skills

Check out these resources for improving your headlines and marketing messages:

• How to write a good headline: Make the most of the first element readers see
• How to write a press release headline: 57% of news audiences read little else
• How to craft persuasive writing: Grab readers’ attention and move them to act
• Polish your skills with writing workshops: Learn headline writing, marketing writing & more
• Get better every day: Join our members-only training and coaching site

The post How to write a marketing headline appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Consider the numbers:

• Readers spend 56% more time looking at headlines than at text, according to the Eyes on the News study by The Poynter Institute.
• Some 57% read just the headlines, the headlines and a sentence or two or headlines and just one or two stories, according to a Harris Interactive poll.
• A catchy headline in the No. 1 way to get audience members to read your news, according to the Harris research.

How do you read the news — in print or online?
	Item	Total %
	I normally just read the headlines, but maybe one or two stories in full	34
	I skim the full article	25
	I read every word in the article	19
	I normally will read the headlines and a few sentences into most stories	15
	I normally read just the headlines	8
Source: Harris Interactive Poll Note: Responses may not add up to 100% due to rounding

That means the best way for you to get the word out in your press release is through your headline. And, if you don’t get attention by writing a great headline, your audience may never read the rest of the press release.

So how do you do that? Here are 7 steps for writing great press release headlines:

1. Focus on your readers.

Too many communicators (and, let’s be honest, their reviewers) believe that the company or its product or service is the topic of the release. But the real topic is the reader or what the reader can do.

Just listen to what journalists say:

• Journalists’ biggest pet peeve: releases that aren’t relevant 
to the target audience. — Greentarget survey of journalists
• “The St. Louis Post-Dispatch did a study in which interviewers asked readers who or what was most important to them. Their answer was surprising. 
Many did not say their families, children or God. Instead, their answer was: ‘Me.’” — Dick Weiss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• “There’s nothing wrong with a story about a new product. But readers want to know, ‘How am I going to use it?’ I’m not interested in ‘new and improved.’” ​​— Stephany Romanow-Garcia, 
senior process editor, Hydrocarbon Processing
• When asked how to get a release covered by Forbes, Bruce Upbin, senior editor at Forbes, replied, “Present the key element that explains how your story can benefit Forbes readers.”
• “What I really like about a release is when it scratches my reader’s itch and not your client’s itch.” — a trade journal editor quoted in PRSA’s Tactics

Despite all of this, “Organizations write press releases for themselves, not for readers,” writes frustrated PR pro.

Well, not all organizations. While I still see “XYZ Company announces ABC” as the headline in Everybody’sNewsroom.com, at a much higher level, PR pros are using what I call Selfish Altruism. That is, they’re writing about the end user, not themselves. And in doing so, they are getting more coverage, engagement and bottom-line business results for their releases.

Who are those folks? PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winners.These pros earn top national awards for campaigns that earn their organizations money, get laws passed and otherwise change behavior. Not for clicks, clips and comments — but for bottom-line business results.

So why not steal best practices from the top-performing P.R. campaigns in the country? Here’s what I see at that highest echelon of press releases:

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

10 million taxpayers face an estimated tax penalty each year

Act now to reduce or avoid it for 20xx; new webpage can help

Parents and teen drivers dangerously disconnected

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

Take a tip from these Silver Anvil Award winners: Write headlines that focus on what your audience members can do with your product — not on the product launch itself. That’s the way to get great media coverage and great KPIs.

(Note: A laser focus on the reader also helps you get results in social media and other digital marketing efforts, as well.)

2. Choose better verbs.

When it comes to headlines, The New York Times’ leap into action: People, places and things arrest, attack, confront, explode, fight, grow, spread, struggle and work.

“A story is a verb, not a noun.” Something should be happening here.

— Byron Dobell, former editor of Esquire

News release headlines, on the other hand, are far less active. There, organizations tend to announce, launch, introduce and report.

“A story is a verb, not a noun,” writes Byron Dobell, former editor of Esquire. Something should be happening here.

If the verb is the story, then release headlines tell the same story over and over again. And it’s not a very compelling tale.

To write an attention-grabbing news release headline:

Avoid PR verbs. The verbs we use most often in press releases are weak and boring. According to a Schwartz MSL analysis of 16,000 releases on Business Wire, the verbs used most often in releases are:

• Announces: 13.7% of the time
• Launches: 2.4%
• Partners: 1.8%

What? No introduces?

Why say:

XYZ LLP Announces Investigation of Resonant, Inc.

When you could say, more clearly and with fewer words:

XYZ LLP Investigates Resonant, Inc.

Compare those to the athletic verbs in headlines that top news stories in the media outlets we wish to find ourselves in. Here, for instance, are two Wall Street Journal heads:

Stocks Roar Back Late in Day

Medicare Flip-Flop Roils Elderly

Don’t commit verbicide. These headlines got passed through the de-verb-o-rizer a few times:

Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage Technologies

Global Markets and Technologies for Medical Lasers

Drug Discovery Technologies, BCC Research

In fact, one in 10 of the PRNewswire news release headlines we reviewed were label heads. You can do better: Don’t let your verb go missing in action.

And … Write in the active voice, present tense.

3. Focus on the front.

At this point, Google is sophisticated enough to know what your headline is about even if your keyword is not at the front of your headline.

Humans are less sophisticated. We tend to look at just the first couple of words of headlines in lists, like search engine results pages, wire services and your own newsroom.

So focus on the front. Don’t bury your story in a headline like this:

ROSEN, A LEADING, LONGSTANDING, AND TOP RANKED FIRM, Reminds Kandi Technologies Group, Inc. Investors of Important Deadline in Securities Class Action – KNDI

Instead, uncover your story by putting the topic up front, as Natural Resources Conservation Service does in this Silver Anvil Award-winning release:

Cover crop mixes — they just work better

4. Make it factual and free of hype.

On my desk is a New Yorker cartoon where a CEO is talking to his PR executive. “Here it is, the plain, unvarnished truth,” the CEO says. “Varnish it.”

Skip the varnish. One of my clients actually included this at the beginning of a news release headline:

In a move that sets the next industry milestone and reinforces its leadership position …

Your news headline should sound journalistic, not like marketing hype.

5. Think SEO.

At Wylie Communications, we use a tool called SEMRush to help us find the best search terms. Then we use SEMRush’s SEO Writing Assistant for Google docs for headline writing help. It includes information like character and word length.

6. Keep it short.

Here’s what a New York Times headlines looks like:

Once Again, the Earth Is Being Wrung Dry

Here’s what a press release headline looks like:

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 33 words, that’s a paragraph, people!

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.
• Longest headline. Times: 14 words. PR Newswire: 33 — 136% longer.
• Shortest headline. Times: 4 words. PR Newswire: 4. These are too short for good search engine optimization. Google prefers headlines of 5 words or longer.

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

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

Bottom line: Keep your headlines to five to eight words — 25 to 40 characters.

How are we doing? According to the Schwartz MSL analysis of 16,000 news releases:

• The average headline was 120 characters — three times as long as recommended.
• 79% were longer than 65 characters — 63% longer than recommended.
• 2% were longer than 300 characters. That, Friends, is a long paragraph!
• The longest was 2,141 characters. That’s more than twice as many words as the average journalist reads in an entire release, according to Greentarget research.

Are you including too much information in the headline?

7. Don’t drop the deck.

The deck — the one-sentence summary under the headline — is one of the best-read elements on a page, according to the Eyetrack III study by The Poynter Institute.

Double your headline power: Make sure your press release template includes this key element.

Here, for example, is a headline and deck from a Be the Match Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign:

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

The deck can be a great way to make sure you cover only a single subject in your headline.

Here’s a quick test to run on your headline: Count its commas, semicolons, dashes and other punctuation. The total should usually be zero.

More than that? That punctuation can be a clue that you’re trying to cover too many ideas in your headline.

Tempted to write headlines like these?

Copper Wire Theft Rising in XYZ Service Territory; Thefts Pose a Safety, Reliability Threat

XYZ Company Plans Expansion of its Texas Eastern System; Shippers Sign Long-Term Transportation Contracts to Serve Northeast Markets

New California law bans home disposal of cell phones and common batteries; residents can drop off cell phones and dead batteries at XYZ Company stores

Move everything after the semicolon into the deck.

Write good press release headlines

Ready to write? Here’s a quick checklist to run on your headline:

Do you focus on the reader? Are the first couple of words about the end user — or about your organization and its new whatsit?
How strong is your verb? Are you writing roils and flip-flops? Or introduces and announces?
Did you focus on the front? What will people skimming your headline on a list learn about your topic in the first two words?
Is it factual and free of hype? Did you skip the varnish?
Will Google be able to find it? Did you use online tools to make sure it’s optimized for search engines?
Is it short? Five to eight words — no more than 40 characters?
Did you include a deck? Or did you drop the one-sentence summary under the headline that may be the best-read element on your page?

If so, it’s time to press Send.

Keep building your skills

Check out these resources for improving your press releases and headlines:

• How to write a good headline: Make the most of the first element readers see
• How to write a marketing headline: 9 ways to draw readers in, move them to act
• Get the word out with PR writing: Reach journalists, bloggers and readers
• Polish your skills with writing workshops: Learn headline writing, PR & more
• Get better every day: Join our members-only training and coaching site

The post How to write a press release headline appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When I turned 64, I celebrated my birthday by lifting 205 pounds. When I turned 63, I celebrated my birthday by lifting a toothbrush, so that was quite an accomplishment.

How did I hit my personal best so quickly? I hired a coach to show me insider tricks, practiced with him regularly, took his feedback and got a little better every day.

Before I knew it, I was twice as good, then three times as good, then four times as good. And then, suddenly, I was picking up the combined weight of myself and all my roommates with my own personal biceps.

How can you hit your personal best?

I’ve used a similar approach to become a better business owner, teacher and writer, as well. Here’s how I’ve done it, and how you can do it too:

1. Train. Only the best writers come to writing workshops. The rest are busy doing things exactly as they have done for years. No train, no gain!
2. Practice. Practice makes perfect — but only if you’re practicing best practices. Reading a blog post doesn’t polish your skills. Learning, followed by action, does.
3. Get feedback. Work with a coach who can show you how to take the next step, continue to improve and get a little better every day.

One of my business coaches likes to say, “If you get 1% better every day, in 70 days, you’ll be twice as good.”

How good will you be by Feb. 27?

The post Put a coach in your corner appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Hey Siri: Some 50% of searches are voice search these days, according to comScore. So optimize for voice search.

Here’s how:

1. Ask ChatGPT, “What questions are XX asking about YY?”

People tend to pose voice searches as questions: “Siri, what time is sunset today?” Find out what your audience is asking by asking ChatGPT. Or click the Questions tab on a tool like SEMRush.

Then create pages, posts and other pieces with the question as the headline and its answer as the content.

2.Choose long-tail search terms.

Voice searchers don’t ask for simple terms like “LAX flight delays.” Instead, they’re more likely to ask a longer, more conversational, more precise question: “Will Flight 457 on XYZ Airlines be delayed out of LAX?”

Indeed, most searchers use three or more keywords in their searches, according to a study of 10 million U.S. internet users by Experian Hitwise. Consider that when choosing your terms.

3. Explain how to

The number of how-to searches has increased by 70%.

Check the search volume on terms like for “How to [your topic]” and choose the subjects your audience seeks help with. Use “How to [your topic]” for the headline, page title and page description.

4. Use conversational keywords

People write more formally when they’re typing into a search box. But they speak more conversationally when asking Siri to search.

The post Optimize for voice search appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Reach more email recipients with this three-step process for writing subject lines:

1. Post your email in ChatGPT. Ask for three subject lines.
2. Test those subject lines in Omnisend’s email subject line tester. Use its suggestions for improving your subject line.
3. Choose the strongest element for the subject line. Use the others for the headline, deck or preheader.

That’s important. Because 69% of recipients mark emails spam based on the subject line.

Thank you to David Brierley of Sentry for sharing this tip. One thing I love about teaching is that I always learn from my brilliant students!

Learn my full system for writing subject lines that get opened and emails that get read, clicked and shared!

The post 3 steps to better subject lines appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

It might be your CEO’s favorite email. Every policy wonk in D.C. sits by their inbox waiting for it to come. It’s the only newsletter I know of that has ever been covered — for formatting! — by The New York Times.

It’s Axios. And if you haven’t started stealing from it yet, started stealing from it now.
Here are four things to steal from — and one way to improve on — everybody’s favorite newsletter.

1. Report average reading time.

If your newsletter is short, you might boost readership by letting readers know.

This issue of Axios weighs in at 4.5 minutes. That would be a little long, if editors didn’t have a great formatting trick. (See No. 4.)

2. Run a short breaking news story.

This one’s one paragraph — one sentence — of 29 words long. Outwrite Axios: For clarity, chop your 29-word sentences in half.

3. Cover One Big Thing.

Email newsletter subscribers ding senders for underpromising and overdelivering. Give them less, and make it better.

Focus your newsletter on one story, and cover it well.

4. Pass the Palm Test.

Break your copy up with bullets, bold-faced lead-ins and links to make it look easier to read. The easier it looks, the more people will read it.

(And there’s your solution for the 4.5-minute newsletter.)

5. Pass the Skim Test.

Outwrite Axios: Can skimmers learn everything you want them to know about your topic — without reading the paragraphs? If so, you pass the Skim Test. If not, you need to keep working.

Axios breaks the newsletter up — but does not facilitate skimming — with emphasized words. Here’s what a skimmer would read:

Help skimmers get more from your message with a better strategy for emphasized words.

Are you ready to be loved by your recipients?

Boost open and clickthrough rates, readership and shares: Learn my full system for writing marketing emails and newsletters.

The post How to write like your CEO’s favorite newsletter appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Stop writing 103-word leads

Are you still smooshing all of the W’s into the first paragraph of your press release?

Stop that!

“If the copy doesn’t excite me within 20 words,” says one editor, “I won’t read the rest of it.”

You’d think PR pros would have noticed that the media outlets they wish to get published in write short, snappy leads.

Here, for example, is an 8-word lead by The New York Times:

Russia has a new enemy: the currency markets.

And here’s a 103-word news release lead:

Which would you rather read?

Your news vs. creation of the universe …

But don’t ask me. Ask the media.

“‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,’” says John McIntyre, copy desk chief, Baltimore Sun. “The creation of the universe has a 10-word lead!

“So why do you need 40 words to say that your chief accountant has just completed the necessary certification? The answer, of course, is you don’t.”

Are you ready to make journalists love you?

Want to learn more tricks for gaining better press coverage? Learn my full system for getting the word out via PR.

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

Here are three ways to write news release headlines that readers want to read and that journalists want to cover:

1. Lead with the reader.

Journalists care about their readers. And their readers care about themselves, not about you and your stuff. So take a tip from these PRSA Silver Anvil winners, and lead with the reader:

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

Teens Get Opportunity to Celebrate With an Idol

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

Parents and teen drivers dangerously disconnected

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

Repeat after me: The topic isn’t the topic. The product isn’t the topic. Your organization isn’t the topic. The reader is the topic.

2. Use strong verbs.

“A story is a verb, not a noun,” writes Byron Dobell, former editor of Esquire. The verb is the story. Something should be happening here. So model the strong verbs in these two Wall Street Journal heads:

Stocks Roar Back Late in Day

Medicare Flip-Flop Roils Elderly

And avoid weak PR verbs: announces, launches, partners and introduces.

3. Don’t get your head cut off.

To avoid getting your head cut off by Google, social, mobile or readers, keep your headline to 30 to 40 characters or less. At 36 words long, this is a paragraph, people:

UPDATE – INVESTOR ALERT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP Commences an Investigation of the Board of Directors of Entropic Communications, Inc. In Connection With the Fairness of the Sale of the Company to MaxLinear Inc. — ENTR

But don’t make it too short: Google prefers headlines of at least 5 words. Shorter, and your release may not get indexed.

Learn my full system for getting more coverage with PR writing.

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You’ve read the headlines: “ChatGPT Invented Everything in Lawyer’s Court Brief.”

Misinformation and inaccuracies top the list of communicators’ concerns about using AI to write, according to a study by The Conference Board and Ragan Communications.

How can you make sure using generative AI to write won’t cost you your job and reputation?

This one’s easy.

You’re already fact-checking, right? You’re not pulling stuff off SomeRandomWebsite.com and running that in your news release? You’re using your journalism-adjacent skills to confirm that the source and information is reliable before using it.

Keep doing that with AI. Hack: I use ChatGPT 4.0 with the Google Chrome Web Access Plug-in to fetch me information. It includes a resources list with links. I check those before I run with a data point.

And always cite your source, of course. But, then, you’re already doing that.

Get ready to fall in love with generative AI

What you don’t want to do is get so spooked about using AI for writing that you miss out on using this power tool. AI has been proven in the lab to make writing 59% faster and 18% better (MIT).

Want to write better and faster with AI while avoiding potential pitfalls? Learn all of my hacks.

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