Embeddable tooth implants. Batman’s tax bill. Zombie slayers.

Like squeezing together a lump of coal to make a diamond, compression of details condenses fascinating facts into a passage that’s more than the sum of its parts.

Take a tip from these Silver Anvil Award winners, and try compression of details.

Pit that nickel against Nickelodeon

Fleishman-Hillard’s John Armato used that approach for this lead for a press release for H&R Block by Fleishman-Hillard/Kansas City:

For this approach, you choose more than one (and, to be fair, almost always three) examples to make your broader point.

The internet in my tooth …

Marie Hatter uses compression of details for the Cisco blog post “The Internet of Everything Hearts Your Health”:

Internet of Everything? That’s huge! The internet in my tooth? Now we’re talkin’.

Make your audience the lead.

Lisa Gurry brings the world of gaming down to size with a compression of details in the promotion “Your Invitation Has Arrived: Xbox One Ready for Millions of Fans on Nov. 22”:

Xbox One? Too big. Zombie slayers? I’m in.

… Who lived in a shoe.

Mark Zelermyer brought this lead, for Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, home with compression of details:

That’s compression of details.

When does this approach not work? When the details aren’t really details.

In “Extra! Extra! New Cisco Brand Launches Today — Get the Details Here,” writers miss the mark by compressing generics:

TV? Newspaper? Internet? TOO BIG!

To get our attention, bring it down to size.

Next steps

Learn how to get concrete details into your lead.

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One way to pitch a story that reporters want to catch: Start with an anecdotal lead.

Anecdotes make your PR pieces easier to believe, understand and remember. So use an anecdotal lead whenever possible to illustrate your key idea.

As they rounded a bend on the country road …

Take a tip from this Department 56 Silver Anvil Award-winning release lead, and tap the power of storytelling:

Buddy was hit by a car …

And this Deramaxx Silver Anvil Award-winning release lead is one of my favorites. Note the story in the quote:

Tell me a story.

Want to stand out from the crowd of “today announced” and fact pack PR leads? Try storytelling instead.

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PR professionals have been married to the traditional PR writing approach since Ivy Lee created the news release more than 100 years ago.

Why, then, do we need a new approach?

With an estimated 3,000 releases going out over the wires each day — that’s one every 29 seconds — the impact of your traditional PR piece ain’t what it used to be.

In fact, fewer than 50% of all traditional PR pieces ever get covered, according to PR Newswire’s own research. Dennis L. Wilcox and Lawrence W. Nolte, authors of Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques, go further. They estimate that some 55% to 97% of all PR pieces sent to media outlets are never used.

Why?

What’s wrong with releases?

Most news releases are:

1. Irrelevant

Most journalists receive more than 50 releases a day, according to a survey by Greentarget. But those releases aren’t useful to their target audiences:

• Most trade magazine editors surveyed said fewer than half of the releases they receive are relevant to their publication, according to a survey by Thomas Rankin Associates.
• 65% to 75% of city editors surveyed believed press releases promote “products, services and other activities that don’t legitimately deserve promotion,” write Wilcox and Nolte.
• No wonder journalists’ biggest pet peeves are releases that don’t pertain to their beats or aren’t relevant to the audiences they serve, according to the Greentarget survey.

“I recently got a message from a reporter working at a small local paper who received 80 press releases in one day,” says Jeremy Porter, digital communications strategist. “Of them, only two were relevant to the information his paper covers.”

2. Poorly written

Most PR pros are bad at pitch writing, according to a study by New York-based DS Simon Productions.

• Television news professionals reported that only 41% of the pitches they receive are good.
• Those TV journalists say that only 33% of the PR people they work with are knowledgeable about the program they’re pitching.
• And pitches are getting “significantly worse” than they used to be, according to 22% of the reporters, editors and analysts surveyed in a Softletterpoll.

Entry-level PR pros are worse, according to a study by Michigan State University and Calgary’s Mount Royal University.

In the study, more than 950 members of the Public Relations Society of America and the Canadian Public Relations Society gave PR pros with five or fewer years of experience failing grades in writing skills.

That’s too bad. Because writing tops the list of five essential PR skills, according to Wilcox.

3. Ineffective

As a result, according to Greentarget, journalists turn to other sources for stories:

• 68% of journalists surveyed by Greentarget get their story ideas from sources.
• 41% get ideas from other news outlets.
• Just 34% get them from releases.

Write better releases.

But a well-written release can help you gain media coverage, reach clients and customers directly, get shared as social media content and draw more visitors to your site.

So how can public relations professionals and PR firms write releases that are among the 3% to 45% of those that actually get the word out? Write releases that:

• Are relevant and valuable to the journalist and her readers. Focus on “news you can use to live your life better” and tipsheets and other value-added story angles.
• Tell a story instead of just reporting facts. The traditional news release format, with its terse hierarchical blurtation of facts, is so tedious and dry, it makes folks’ eyes glaze over.
• Make it easy to read and use. Subheads, bullets and other display approaches make details easier for the reporter to read. Multimedia elements make the release easier to use.

Good public relations writing is good strategic communication.

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When I was editor of an executive magazine, I received dozens of press releases every day.

This was back in the day when releases moved on paper, so I read them over the trash can, giving myself just a few seconds from the time I picked the release up off the stack to the time it hit the circular file.

In that time, I could usually read five words of the lead. The five words I read most often?

XYZ Company today announces that …

Announces what?

I’ll never know; your release is already in the trash.

If you have something to announce, announce it! Don’t announce that you’re announcing it. Remember, the press release itself is the announcement.

Get to the verb quicker.

“A story should be a verb, not a noun,” says Byron Dobell, former editor of Esquire and American Heritage.

One problem with announcement leads is that they make the verb “announce” the story.

Another problem is that they upload the story with nouns. It’s never really “XYZ Company today announces that …,” after all. It’s:

XYZ Company, the leading maker of petroleum-based pet-feeding solutions and a division of ABC Conglomerate, today announces that …

Whatever verb comes after the “that” is the real story:

• Announces that … we’re launching a new product.
• Announces that … we’re taking this position on an issue.
• Announces that … we’re making a hostile takeover bid for Google.

In these announcements, the verbs “launch,” “take” and “make” are the real stories. So one way to check the strength of your lead is to count the number of words that come before these verbs. The more words, the further you’re delaying the story.

Drop ‘today announced.’

I’m not the only communicator who’s bored by “today announced” leads.

Internet World’s “Blah, blah, blah” column used to excerpt and annotate the worst releases the editors had received that month. My favorite:

The annotation:

Don’t wear your readers out. If you have news to announce, announce it.

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When PR pros at Toyota American Motor Sales needed to announce record-level production recently, they started with a traditional announcement release:

But after a writing workshop with yours truly, those same PR pros came up with this feature approach:

Features first

Why feature releases?

• Features increase reading and satisfaction, according to recent studies.
• On the other hand, research shows that inverted pyramids “do not work well with readers.”
• More than half of business-to-business editors seek more feature releases, including case studies and how-to stories, according to a survey by Thomas Rankin Associates.
• No wonder the Associated Press now offers feature leads with all the stories it sends across the wire.

Features at Toyota

Features have been generating results at Toyota, too. Take a package of feature releases about Yellowstone (“Buffalo and Bears and Batteries – Oh My!” and “Yellowstone … Where the Deer and the Antelope and the Prius Play”).

“We’ve had almost 1,100 unique page views of the battery story and about 850 unique page views for the background story, both much higher than average,” says Brin Wall, writer at Toyota Motor Sales.

“Time spent on both was longer than average for our site, and the battery story was picked up by Motor Trend, Popular Science, Autoblog Green, Daily News and Automobile magazine, along with many ‘green’ outlets.”

Ready to take on a feature release yourself? Here are six ways to gain inspiration from some of Toyota’s recent feature releases.

1. Tell a story. “When you have news, report it. When you have a story, tell it.” Or so advises Poynter Institute senior scholar Roy Peter Clark. Instead of just reporting this news, Toyota PR pros told a story in this release.

2. Show drama. Is there conflict in your news? Make that the story, as Toyota PR pros did in this release:

3. Try human interest. Stumped for a lead? Look for the people behind the news, as Toyota PR pros did in this release:

4. Turn statistics into people. Write about people, not about statistics. Here’s how Toyota PR pros did it:

5. Use concrete details. Concrete details — the 42-pound CRT from 1997, the after-college futon — make this release lead creative. And turn numbers into things, as the PR pros at Toyota do in the last paragraph here.

6. Try wordplay. Alliteration, twists of phrase and plays on words — as in this release — grab reader attention:

Focus on features.

“What really helps get [releases] picked up is a great story,” says Toyota’s Wall. And a feature release can help you put your great story in the best light.

Take a tip from Toyota: Tackle a feature release.

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Seventy-one percent of high-performing organizations focus their messaging on audience’s point of view. Just 45% of average organizations do.

Or so says Stephen Welch, president of IABC UK and an independent consultant.

Welch worked with Michael Ambjorn, director-at-large at NearDesk, to develop a benchmarking database that correlates communication practices with organizational performance. They looked at 81 organizations with some 390,000 employees across 10 countries.

High-performing organizations communicate better.

In the study, Welch and Ambjorn learned that high-performing organizations are:

• 60% more likely to think about communication from the audience perspective. Five in eight high-performing organizations say they like to talk about themselves; seven in eight average organizations do.
• Twice as likely to make emotional connections to their audiences.
• 40% more likely to limit the number of messages in their communications. Average organizations are more likely to pack a lot of messages into their pieces.
• Twice as likely to keep language simple and jargon-free. Only 21% of average organizations say they keep their language simple and jargon-free, compared to half of high-performing organizations.
• 80% more likely to have a process for creating great corporate stories.

Are you on an SOS team?

Half of organizations say that senior executives generally devise corporate messages. However, only 20% of benchmarked organizations think their leaders are good at communicating.

This approach turns some communications departments into SOS — “Send Out Stuff” — teams. But perhaps that’s best.

Only half of communicators surveyed said they align their work to corporate strategy and goals. And only a third ranked their level of business know-how and understanding high.

“Two-thirds of communicators,” Welch writes, “need to improve their business understanding if they want to advise business people.”

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When Rachel McGrew, manager at Osborn Barr PR, wrote a press release about a client product, she didn’t rely on the PR 101 approaches she learned in college. Instead, she reimagined her release to write for the reader, not for fill-in-the-blanks PR conventions.

Write news releases for the reader, not for fill-in-the-blanks PR conventions.
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“We received way more coverage than we expected,” McGrew said. “We targeted several major national agriculture publications, and the release was picked up by all of them.”

Here’s how to write a press release that focuses on the reader:

1. Write about the reader in the headline.

We think the topic is the topic. But if you want to get read, make the reader the topic of every story.

Do focus your headline on what the reader will get out of the product, service, program or idea:

Farmers: Pen-and-paper crop scouting becomes obsolete

Don’t announce that you’re launching a new product, service, program or idea:

Rev!Co introduces new mobile crop scouting application

Bonus points: Grab attention by calling out to readers in the headline.

Reboot the release: Focus on the reader, not on PR 101 approaches.
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2. Introduce the product in the deck.

The deck, that one-sentence summary after the headline, is soon enough to focus on the product.

Do introduce and define the product and summarize what it will do for your readers:

New mobile application Rev!ID scouts, syncs and saves

Don’t mention partnerships, use hype words (revolutionize) or otherwise gaze at your navel:

Rev!ID Partners with SST Software to Revolutionize Crop Scouting

Bonus points: Rhetorical techniques like alliteration (scouts, syncs and saves) make display copy more eloquent.

3. Show in the lead.

One key to grabbing reader interest in the lead is to show instead of tell.

Do illustrate the problem you’re solving with your product, service, program or idea:

In 2013, tractors can practically drive themselves, and farmers tweet up to five times a day. But crop scouting is still done with pen and paper. This technology gap in the ag industry costs farmers and retailers time and money.

Don’t tell about the product, peppering the first paragraph with your brand name:

The new agriculture crop scouting application, Rev!ID, hit the market last week with a revolutionary approach. Rev!ID is a mobile all-in-one tool that allows crop consultants, growers, retailers and field scouts to work independently or together from a single program. Rev!ID is the first mobile app that allows you to scout more than 300 crops and track/identify over 1,500 issue types.

Bonus points: At 40-words long, the final lead is much more accessible than the 61-word “don’t” version.

4. Tell in the nut graph.

Now that you’ve grabbed the readers’ attention by writing about his needs, explain how you’re going to solve that problem in the second paragraph, aka the “nut graph“:

Do write about what the reader will get, not about what you are selling:

Now crop scouting joins the digital age, thanks to a new software solutions company, Rev!Co. With the company’s scouting application, Rev!ID, farmers and their retailers the can electronically scout and record common crop issues. In real time. …

Don’t write about the partnership or pat yourself and your colleagues on the back with adjectives like innovative and influential:

The use of mobile technology in the field continues to rise, and Rev!ID joins forces with some of the most innovative and influential information technology companies in the world. Among them is SST Software, the leader in agriculture information management.

We think the topic is the topic. But if you want to get read, make the reader the topic of every story.
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5. Focus on people, not things.

It’s the rare reader who cares about what went into the sausage. Instead of focusing on the technology, show your clients using the product, service, program or idea in the field.

Do write about people doing things:

Users can take pictures of scouting events with their mobile device, create field-specific reports and email results to retailers, applicators and growers.

With this tool, users can cross-check photos and diagnoses from the palm of their hands.

Don’t write about the technology behind the stuff:

Rev!ID leverages the power of the SST agX issue and crop taxonomy data. In addition, a revolutionary feature is Rev!ID’s field boundary integration.

6. Use creative techniques.

Creative elements help readers “see” your point.

Do use metaphor, alliteration and other creative devices:

Rev!ID also uses its own “Wiktionary” photo and reference tool to harness the power of groupthink.

Don’t rely on just the facts, ma’am:

With Rev!ID, we integrate a retailer or consultant’s existing SST Summit field boundaries so the scouting information is captured on one set of field records.

7. Lift ideas off of the page with display copy.

News releases still look pretty much the same way they did when Ivy Lee invented the release 106 years ago: like one long river of gray text.

Do make your release more scannable with subheads …

Rev!Co partners with SST Software

Geared for success

… and callouts:

With its powerful tools and timesaving functionality, Rev!ID enhances the value of field scouting in the 21st century.

Don’t leave out the display copy. Readers don’t want to wade through a river of unbroken text.

Read the full release, before and after.

How can you reboot your release to increase interest and coverage?

Reboot the release: Instead of focusing on the stuff, show people using your product, service, program or idea.
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When Rachel McGrew, manager at Osborn Barr PR, wrote a release about a client product, her first instinct was to take the traditional route.

Before: a traditional PR 101 release

McGrew’s first draft used conventional approaches that rarely stand out from the crowd, let alone generate a great deal of interest and coverage.

PR 101 releases tend to:

• Focus on the client’s stuff, not the readers’ needs
• Lead with a dry, familiar news announcement
• Include longish paragraphs, sentences, phrases and words
• Make copy impossible to scan with one long, unbroken block of text

Here’s how that looked:

New Mobile Application Makes Pen-and-Paper Crop Scouting Obsolete

Rev!ID Partners with SST Software to Revolutionize Crop Scouting

The new agriculture crop scouting application, Rev!ID, hit the market last week with a revolutionary approach. Rev!ID is a mobile all-in-one tool that allows crop consultants, growers, retailers and field scouts to work independently or together from a single program. Rev!ID is the first mobile app that allows you to scout more than 300 crops and track/identify over 1,500 issue types.

The use of mobile technology in the field continues to rise, and Rev!ID joins forces with some of the most innovative and influential information technology companies in the world. Among them is SST Software, the leader in agriculture information management.

Rev!ID leverages the power of the SST agX issue and crop taxonomy data. In addition, a revolutionary feature is Rev!ID’s field boundary integration. Users can draw their own field lines, upload a shape file or utilize Rev!ID’s automated sync with boundary providers such as SST Summit.

“The partnership with SST for field boundary record integration is so critical for scouting,” said Mark Green, vice president and general manager, Rev!Co. “Today, retailers and consultants are using multiple files to manage records about farm fields. With Rev!ID, we integrate a retailer or consultant’s existing SST Summit field boundaries so the scouting information is captured on one set of field records. This increases efficiencies and accuracy of data.”

The need for the pen and paper process of crop scouting is obsolete with Rev!ID. Users can take pictures of scouting events with their mobile device, create field-specific reports and email results to retailers, applicators and growers.

Also, Rev!ID uses its own “Wiktionary” photo and reference tool to harness the power of group think. This tool allows users to crosscheck photos and diagnoses from the palm of the hand.

Users can also drop pins on maps where they found issues, share this information digitally and see what is most common and accurate across fields. Favorite or common issues can be tagged for quick access to create event reports.

All data is stored on a secured Rev!ID web management site. Users can set up collaborations, manage their account, track their issues, edit reports, download and share. Rev!ID can be downloaded today from the iTunes store. It costs $.01 per acre scouting and $25.00 per month. To get started with Rev!ID, go to www.revidapp.com and create an account, or call 888-721-1971.

“Our mission is to uncover opportunities to create value in the agriculture industry where it’s previously absent or needs advancement,” Green said.

After: a feature story with a WIIFM angle

But then McGrew brought me to Osborn Barr for a Catch Your Reader workshop. After the workshop, she took another whack at the release to:

• Refocus the message on the readers’ needs instead of just promoting the client’s stuff
• Surprise and delight readers with a feature-style lead instead of a dry news announcement
• Make reading easier with bright, tight copy
• Lift ideas off the screen, making copy more scannable, with subheads, callouts and other display copy

Here’s how that looked:

Pen-and-Paper Crop Scouting Becoming Obsolete

New mobile application Rev!ID scouts, syncs and saves

ST. LOUIS (July 29, 2013)— In 2013, tractors can practically drive themselves, and farmers tweet up to five times a day. But crop scouting is still done with pen and paper. This technology gap in the ag industry costs farmers and retailers time and money.

Now, thanks to a new software solutions company, Rev!Co, crop scouting joins the digital age, offering farmers and their retailers the ability to electronically scout and record common crop issues. In real time. In one single application. The company’s scouting application, Rev!ID, provides consultants and field scouts one central tool and field reference that leverages integration of the farmer or retailer’s precision ag field boundary data.

With its powerful tools and timesaving functionality,
Rev!ID enhances the value of field scouting
in the 21st century.

Rev!ID hit the market May 1, 2013. It’s the first mobile-all-in-one scouting tool with capabilities to scout more than 300 crops. The app also has a reference library of more than 1,500 issue types. Farmers, retailers, crop consultants and field scouts can work independently or together and collaborate via Rev!ID for synchronized records.

Rev!Co partners with SST Software

Rev!Co works with some of the most innovative and influential technology companies in the world. One partner is SST Software, the leader in agricultural information management.

The Rev!Co scouting app, Rev!ID leverages the power of SST’s agX issue and crop taxonomy data to drive the recording of field-level issues and disorders. In addition, within the iPad app, users can automatically sync with boundary providers such as SST Software through the Rev!ID open API. Users can also draw their own field boundary lines or upload .shp files.

“Today, retailers and consultants use multiple files to manage records about farm fields,” said Mark Green, Vice President, Rev!Co. “With Rev!ID, we deliver value to the retailer in two specific ways – we integrate existing SST Summit field boundaries capturing scouting data on the same field boundaries that the retailer services the farmer. And two, the scouting data can be an important input to the operational analysis for the farmer by the retailer’s precision ag departments.”

Geared for success

Connected with the Rev!Co retailer management software platform, Rev!Matic , retailer field sales consultants now have a real-time view of what is happening on and around the fields of their customers, and can take immediate action or see what was ordered to resolve a scouting issue.

Users can take pictures of scouting events with their mobile device and create field-specific reports. Then, they can email results back to the retail office, applicators and farmers.

Rev!ID also uses its own “Wiktionary” photo and reference tool to harness the power of groupthink. With this tool, users can cross-check photos and diagnoses from the palm of the hand.

All data is stored on a secured Rev!ID web management site. Users can set up collaborators for shared scouting events, manage multiple accounts and users and invoicing, track issues, edit and customize reports, download and share.

Rev!ID can be downloaded today from the iTunes store. It costs $.01 per acre and $25.00 per month. To get started, visit www.revidapp.com and create an account, or call 888-721-1971.

The result?

“We’ve already gotten some amazing coverage,” McGrew says. “It was picked up by Ag Professional (among many others).”

How can you reboot your traditional releases to increase interest and coverage?

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