PR writing Archives - Wylie Communications, Inc. https://www.wyliecomm.com/tag/pr-writing/ Writing workshops, communication consulting and writing services Wed, 17 Jan 2024 14:56:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://www.wyliecomm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cropped-wci-favico-1-32x32.gif PR writing Archives - Wylie Communications, Inc. https://www.wyliecomm.com/tag/pr-writing/ 32 32 65624304 Best press release headlines focus on readers https://www.wyliecomm.com/2023/09/best-press-release-headlines/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2023/09/best-press-release-headlines/#respond Tue, 19 Sep 2023 05:00:34 +0000 http://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=13268 Put audience members first

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

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Put audience members first

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

Best press release headlines
Target the reader Take a tip from these Silver Anvil winners — call out to the audience member in the headline. Image by Creativa Images

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

But what’s the topic?

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

Blood Cancer Patients and Advocates Visit Capitol Hill to Inspire Continued Support for Be the Match
July 18 Legislative Day event aimed at delivering more cures to patients in need

— Be the Match Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Teens Get Opportunity to Celebrate With an Idol
State Farm and Grammy Award Winner Kelly Clarkson team up for teen driver safety

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Parents and teen drivers dangerously disconnected
New State Farm survey reveals an alarming gap between parents’ and teens views on driver safety licensing laws

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

Color Your Easter with Eggs
HGTV Interior Designer Sabrina Soto Offers Easter Decorating Tips to “Dye” for

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

Before spring planting, expert says, “Dig a little. Learn a lot.”
— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign
Cover Crop Mixes — They Just Work Better
— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign
Survey: Cover crops deliver strong harvest amid drought
Agency focuses on helping farmers build resilient farms through soil health

— Natural Resources Conservation Service Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

JOIN THE TEEN DRIVER SAFETY CELEBRATION SUPPORTING NEW DRIVERS
Communities commit to drive safe in support of new drivers during National Teen Driver Safety Week

— State Farm Silver Anvil Award-winning campaign

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

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

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

  • Headline-writing course, a mini master class

    Grab readers with great headlines

    By the time you’ve written your headline, said ad man David Ogilvy, you’ve spent 80 cents of your communication dollar.

    Indeed, many times more people will read your headline than your body copy. Are you getting 80% of your ROI out of your headline?

    Learn how to use the most important line in your message at our headline-writing course.

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Use concrete details in your press release lead https://www.wyliecomm.com/2023/09/details-make-the-difference/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2023/09/details-make-the-difference/#respond Sun, 10 Sep 2023 05:00:48 +0000 http://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=12500 Specifics sell products, services & ideas

The internet coffee pot. Word of the year. The Dust Bowl.

Details like these grab attention and help readers see your big idea.… Read the full article

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Specifics sell products, services & ideas

The internet coffee pot. Word of the year. The Dust Bowl.

Details make the difference
Ready for my close-up Think specifics, not generalities, as the writers of these Silver Anvil Award-winning news releases do. Image by ImagesGR

Details like these grab attention and help readers see your big idea.

To use this approach, take a tip from William Carlos Williams, and turn ideas into things —like these PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winners do:

Choose one image to stand for the whole.

Marie Hatter chose a single detail to stand for her point atop the Cisco blog post “Internet of Everything“:

Do you remember the Internet coffee pot? Back in the earliest days of the Internet, researchers at the University of Cambridge put a constantly updating image of their break-room coffee pot on the Internet. It had a utilitarian purpose — why go all the way to the break room if the pot was empty? But it was also a bit of an Internet sensation. I remember showing friends the coffee pot of the Mosaic browser and breathlessly exclaiming, “And this is all the way from England, and it’s live …” There really wasn’t a lot of content on the Internet in those days.

Compare then to this: a coffee maker that tracks your usage, and wirelessly “phones home” to order refills when you’re close to using up all of your coffee pods. If you think this is unusual, then you better strap yourself in, because from here on, things will get faster. The next phase of the Internet is arriving sooner than you think with the Internet of Everything.

So choose an example to stand for the whole.

Internet of Everything? Too big.

Internet coffee pot? Just right.

Binge watching in a detail

Netflix uses the same approach for “Netflix Declares Binge Watching is the New Normal”:

“Selfies” may be the official new word of [the year], but Binge-Watching was a runner up for a reason. A recent survey conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of Netflix among nearly 1,500 TV streamers (online U.S. adults who stream TV shows at least once a week) found that binge watching is a widespread behavior among this group, with 61% binge watching regularly.

If the common perception of binge watching was a weekend-long, pajama-wearing marathon of TV viewing, survey respondents don’t see it that way. A majority (73%) defined binge watching as watching between 2-6 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting. And there’s no guilt in it. Nearly three quarters of TV streamers (73%) say they have positive feelings towards binge streaming TV.

What we think about binge watching? Too broad.

Binge watching as runner-up to word of the year? Just right.

Bringing dirt down to size

PR pros for World Soil Day bring soil health down to earth in their Op/Ed “Soil Conservation: The Next Generation”:

Ken Burns’ recent documentary, “The Dust Bowl,” serves as a sobering reminder that we owe our existence to the top six inches of soil and timely rains. It also reminds us, as President Franklin Roosevelt wrote, “The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.”

In the intervening 75 years since the Dust Bowl, farmers, ranchers, conservationists and policy makers have worked diligently to reverse the tide of soil erosion while making enormous gains in agricultural production. Working to heal much of the nation’s cropland affected by that ecological disaster, generations of farmers, ranchers, policy makers and conservationists deserve our unqualified appreciation and praise.

We now stand on the precipice of a new era in agricultural sustainability — one that seeks to not just stem the tide of erosion, but to rebuild the health and productivity of our nation’s soil. Rebuilding our nation’s soil health may well be the most important endeavor of our time.

All the soil in all the world? Too big!

The top six inches? Just right.

Go tiny.

For a specific-details lead, choose a part — a tiny part — to illustrate the whole.

  • Lead-writing workshop, a mini master class

    Hook readers with great leads

    You’re not still packing all of the Ws into the first paragraph, are you? Cranking out “XYZ Company today announced …” leads? If so, your News Writing 101 class called and wants its leads back!

    To win today’s fierce competition for your readers’ attention, you need more sophisticated, nuanced leads — not the approaches you learned when you were 19.

    Learn how to hook readers with great leads at our lead-writing workshop.

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Set the scene in press release leads https://www.wyliecomm.com/2023/09/description-works-for-pr-leads/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2023/09/description-works-for-pr-leads/#respond Sat, 09 Sep 2023 15:57:33 +0000 http://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=13894 Use the power of description

Imagine the first few hours in the recovery room following a hysterectomy or … ligament repair. Consider what post-surgical life has been like for some pets undergoing common surgical procedures; intense hours WITHOUT pain medication. 

Read the full article

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Use the power of description

Imagine the first few hours in the recovery room following a hysterectomy or … ligament repair. Consider what post-surgical life has been like for some pets undergoing common surgical procedures; intense hours WITHOUT pain medication.  …

Description works for PR leads
Color readers interested Paint pictures in your readers’ minds, as these Silver Anvil Award winners did. Image by David Pisnoy

Paint a picture in your lead through description like this, from a Pfizer Animal Health release.

Description makes a great approach for a PR lead. Here, Silver Anvil Award-winning PR pros show how it’s done.

‘Thick with the smell of fast food …’

This lead helped win support for the nation’s first statewide menu labeling law, sponsored by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy:

In a Capitol room thick with the smell of fast food and breakfast entrees, proponents of Senate Bill 120 (Padilla-D Los Angeles), the proposed nutrition menu labeling law, dramatically illustrated why this legislation needs to be signed by the Governor.

‘Tongs and spatulas flew …’

PR pros for PAM used description for this Silver Anvil winner:

Tongs and spatulas flew in a heated competition that pitted 11 of America’s top grillers against each other at the national Battle of the PAM-azing Grillers grill-off in New York City. …

On a New York City rooftop, (winner Ron) Snider grilled, garnished and grabbed the judges’ attention …

Most obsolete office …

Xerox relied on description to show what the “most obsolete office” in America looks like in this Silver Anvil-winning press release lead:

After stumbling over piles of overflowing files and fumbling with outdated technology that sits on crumbling furniture, employees at Mad Science screamed, “Help, my office is obsolete!” Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) and Entrepreneur magazine listened, naming Mad Science of Scottsdale the winner of their Office Makeover Contest.

Belligerent driving…

Nerves of Steel, a coalition of steel producers, leads by describing belligerent driving in this Silver Anvil-winning release:

We’ve all witnessed aggressive drivers on the road — drivers that speed up until they are within inches of our car, flash their lights at us, or gesture obscenely. Fortunately, according to the results of the fourth annual Nerves of Steel aggressive driver survey released today ….

Next steps

Learn how to add description to your copy.

  • Lead-writing workshop, a mini master class

    Hook readers with great leads

    You’re not still packing all of the Ws into the first paragraph, are you? Cranking out “XYZ Company today announced …” leads? If so, your News Writing 101 class called and wants its leads back!

    To win today’s fierce competition for your readers’ attention, you need more sophisticated, nuanced leads — not the approaches you learned when you were 19.

    Learn how to hook readers with great leads at our lead-writing workshop.

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What’s the importance of public relations writing? https://www.wyliecomm.com/2022/07/importance-of-public-relations-writing/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2022/07/importance-of-public-relations-writing/#respond Wed, 06 Jul 2022 10:42:32 +0000 https://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=30047 Just 3% to 45% of releases actually get the word out

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

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Just 3% to 45% of releases actually get the word out

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

Importance of public relations writing?
Fewer than 50% of releases get covered. So how can you write media relations pieces that actually get the word out? Image from izusek

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.

  • NOT Your Father’s PR Writing — PR-writing workshop

    How can you get your story picked up?

    PR professionals have been married to the traditional news release format since Ivy Lee created the release more than 100 years ago. Why, then, do we need a new approach?

    With 2,500 releases going out each day — that’s one every 35 seconds — the impact of your traditional news release ain’t what it used to be. In fact, fewer than 50% of all traditional news releases ever get covered, according to PR Newswire’s own research.

    Learn to put your PR pieces among the 50% that actually get the word out at NOT Your Father’s PR Writing — our PR-writing workshop.

    There, you’ll learn current best PR-writing practices. And you’ll improve your writing with personal feedback and coaching from the Public Relations Society of America’s “national writing coach.”

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Try second person for press release leads [Examples!] https://www.wyliecomm.com/2022/07/press-release-lead-example/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2022/07/press-release-lead-example/#respond Sat, 02 Jul 2022 09:00:17 +0000 http://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=13040 Lead with you in media relations pieces

It’s counterintuitive, but true: The product is never the topic. The program is never the topic. The plan is never the topic.… Read the full article

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Lead with you in media relations pieces

It’s counterintuitive, but true: The product is never the topic. The program is never the topic. The plan is never the topic. The topic is never the topic.

Press release lead example
Hey, y’all Here’s how six PR pros made the reader the topic in their PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winning campaigns. Image by chrisdorney

The reader is always the topic.

Here’s how six PR pros made the reader the topic in their PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winning campaigns.

Use the ‘Y word.’

The easiest way to write about the reader, in PR as well as in other pieces, is to use the magic word: You. That’s what PR pros did for these award-winning leads:

It’s on you. You have the power to save a life. That’s the message going out to [City] residents — especially those in the African American community — who will be asked to become potential marrow donors at a donor registry drive hosted by Be The Match®. The [date] event is part of a nationwide effort during African American Bone Marrow Awareness Month.

— Be The Match media advisory

The billion dollar-a-year tax increase, Amendment 66, is like the latest “As Seen on TV” product. It’s full of promised innovation and life-changing outcomes, but post-purchase you realize you just spent a lot of money and nothing is actually better.

— Vote No on 66 campaign op-ed

Your school is invited to join Celebrate My Drive (CMD) 2013, an opportunity for students and communities to come together to celebrate 2013’s class of new drivers. The first year behind the wheel is the most dangerous for teens, and it’s an issue we know is important to your school.

— State Farm Celebrate My Ride news release

Use the imperative voice.

Here’s another approach to leading with the reader: Use the imperative voice.

We learned in third grade to call the imperative voice the command voice. And it can be a command: Do the dishes. Make your bed. Clean your room.

When we use it, though, it’s the invitation voice: Grab a spade … prepare your senses … dig a little … learn a lot.

Davis, Calif., April 3, 2013 — As spring temperatures go up, it’s an excellent time for farmers, ranchers and gardeners to focus their attention down to the soil below them. A spring check-up of your soil’s health gives clues of your ground’s ability to feed plants, hold water, capture carbon and more. No fancy equipment required. Just grab a spade or shovel and prepare your senses to dig a little and learn a lot.

— Natural Resources Conservation Service news release

Use a placeholder for ‘you.’

I actually prefer to avoid you and the imperative voice in media relations pieces. For one thing, who’s you — the reporter or the end reader? For another, I still like to retain an objective, third-person voice in PR pieces.

The solution? A placeholder for you: Community members. New drivers. Farmers throughout the state. Teens who commit to safe driving.

That’s how these Silver Anvil award-winners set up their stories:

Community members of all ages are invited to join Celebrity Chefs Nicolas Come of Nicolas’ Garden and Adam Pechal of “Restaurant THIR13EN” and “Tuli Bistro” fame, as they co-host the inaugural “Farm-to-Fork Family Food Feud,” game on Saturday, September 28, 2013, at 11:00 am.

— Nicolas’ Garden news release

Bloomington, III., (Sept. 16, 2013) — Parents of teen drivers believe teens are obeying the letter of the law when it comes to graduated driving licensing (GDL) laws. As it turns out, what parents think — or hope — and what teens report actually doing don’t match up according to a new survey conducted by State Farm.

— State Farm news release

During National Teen Driver Safety Week, new drivers across North America are rallying their communities to commit to safe driving. Car crashes are the number one killer of teens in the US and Canada. Students in more than 3,000 participating high schools are celebrating the joy of driving while at the same time working to reverse this startling statistic.

— State Farm news release

A growing number of farmers throughout STATE have “discovered the cover” — and for some very good reasons. They’re increasingly recognizing that by using cover crops and diverse rotations, if s possible to actually improve the health and function of their soil.

— Natural Resources Conservation Service op-ed

Bloomington, III., (August 15, 2013) — Teens who commit to safe driving could have the chance to bring Grammy Award winner Kelly Clarkson to their hometown for a free concert this coming school year. As part of the company’s Celebrate My Drive® program, State Farm is teaming up with Clarkson and offering teens across the U.S. and Canada the opportunity to learn more about safe driving, win grant money for their school, and be one of two schools to win a free concert by Kelly.

— State Farm news release

Put the end user first.

Sometimes, the topic is just one or two members of the reading community. In this case, start with a placeholder for you anyway. Here, instead of leading with CHS Energy or its Tanks of Thanks rewards program, brilliant PR pros lead with the award winners:

Two local residents have received a special thank you for their contributions to the community. Colleen Wallien and Kirk Zastoupil of Aberdeen, S.D., were selected to receive free fuel from Tanks of Thanks®, a program that rewards people who do good deeds to help make their community just a little bit better.

— CHS Energy Communications news release

Want reader interest? Take a tip from these Silver Anvil winners and write about the reader and the reader’s needs, not about “us and our stuff.”

  • Lead-writing workshop, a mini master class

    Hook readers with great leads

    You’re not still packing all of the Ws into the first paragraph, are you? Cranking out “XYZ Company today announced …” leads? If so, your News Writing 101 class called and wants its leads back!

    To win today’s fierce competition for your readers’ attention, you need more sophisticated, nuanced leads — not the approaches you learned when you were 19.

    Learn how to hook readers with great leads at our lead-writing workshop.

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How to write short quotes https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/06/how-to-write-short-quotes/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/06/how-to-write-short-quotes/#respond Tue, 15 Jun 2021 16:51:13 +0000 https://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=26939 Put the bite in the sound bite

Mark Twain once defined a sound bite as “a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.”

So this quote, from The New York Times’ “Riches to Rags for New York Teenager Who Admits His Story Is a Hoax,” makes a lot of sense.… Read the full article

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Put the bite in the sound bite

Mark Twain once defined a sound bite as “a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.”

Short quotes
More sense, less sound If sound bites are, as Mark Twain said, “a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense,” how much sense does a 100+-word PR quote make? Image by ChristianChan

So this quote, from The New York Times’ “Riches to Rags for New York Teenager Who Admits His Story Is a Hoax,” makes a lot of sense. The reporter asks the subject if he had in fact made any money at all.

“No,” he replied.

But how much sense does this quote, from a release posted on PRNewswire recently, make?

For the reporter’s perspective, I pulled three such quotes for a column I was writing for PRSA Tactics. However, I was able to use only one, because at 100 to 200 words, each sucked up 20% to 40% of my word count.

That doesn’t make sense at all.

So how long should your quotes be? Keep them to:

1. 20 words or less, plus attribution

Twenty words is the average length of a quote in one issue of The New York Times, which Wylie Communications analyzed a couple of years ago. (We skipped the sports pages.)

We found that, excluding attribution, The New York Times’:

  • Average length of a quote was 19 to 20 words.
  • Median length was 18 words.
  • Most common length, with 22 examples in one day, was 7 words.

Can you write like the Times? Here’s what quotes of this length look like:

20 words:

“An officer can gain no Fourth Amendment advantage,” the chief justice wrote, “through a sloppy study of the laws he is duty-bound to enforce.”

18 words:

“He knew he was deserting the Army and would be charged, but killing himself was a bigger sin,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army psychiatrist who testified for the defense during the sentencing phase of the trial.

7 words:

“You can predict behavior you can’t observe,” said Aleksander Obabko, a computational engineer at Argonne.

As long as you’re writing like the Times, why not target the news giant’s 7-word most-common length instead of its 20-word average?

Pro tip: Benchmark your preferred media outlets. How long are their quotes? How long are yours?

2. Pass the 1-2-3 Test.

When you write quotations, usually:

  • 1 sentence is enough.
  • 2 are OK.
  • 3 are too many.

So DO write quotes like this, from the Times:

“You would think increased competition would cause price to go down, but it’s the opposite,” said Dr. Stein, the study’s author, who was then a student at Temple University School of Medicine.

DON’T write quotes like this — a 4-sentence, 177-word quote from a release on PR Newswire:

That’s a maximum of sound to a minimum of sense.

3. Even better: Make it 1 sentence.

Did I say 1-2-3? Let’s make it 1.

“Peel back the quote to one great sentence,” suggests Jacqui Banaszynski, associate managing editor at The Seattle Times.

Carving out the most provocative sentence alone can make your quote more interesting. Indeed, some of the most interesting quotes in The New York Times were just one sentence long.

Model quotes like this, from the Times:

When [Pope Francis] identified himself, the astonished telephone operator at the Jesuit Curia said his first thought was, “Sure, and I’m Napoleon.”

And stop writing quotes like this — a 4-sentence, 177-word quote from a release on PR Newswire:

That’s a lot of sound to a little bite.

So what if we peeled that quote back to one great sentence?

1. First, highlight the most interesting parts of the quote. Digging through all of the chest-pounding and self-adulation, I find this promising phrase:

“… street performance enthusiasts, hot rodders and racers …”

2. Now peel it back to one great sentence. If there’s nothing to interest readers in the quote, you might have to go out and dig up more details. Note that I’ve left a spot here for reader benefits:

“Hot rodders, racers and other street performance enthusiasts will now be able to do [XX] better, thanks to our merger,” Callahan says.

Pro tip: Take the one-sentence-quote pledge: Try limiting your quotes to a single sentence for the next month, and watch your sound bites become tighter and more interesting.

Shorter’s better.

Why so short?

Because short quotes sound better. They’re easier to read and understand. They’re sharper and more substantive.

“Even a lame quote will sound better if it’s brief,” writes Jim Ylisela Jr., president of Duff Media Partners.

Not only is he right, but he said it in 10 words. That’s a maximum of sense to a minimum of sound.

  • Press Release Quotes-writing workshop, a mini master class

    Boost PR coverage with killer bites

    25% of reporters rank quotes as the least important element in a press release — after the boilerplate and dateline (Greentarget).

    How can you turn lame-ass, unimportant quotes into scintillating sound bites that reporters actually appreciate and use?

    Learn how to write killer sound bites for your releases and other messages at our executive quotes-writing workshop.

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Master of metaphor writing https://www.wyliecomm.com/2014/06/master-of-metaphor-writing/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2014/06/master-of-metaphor-writing/#respond Tue, 03 Jun 2014 16:15:12 +0000 http://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=7273 PNNL science writer shows how to communicate complex concepts

When Pacific Northwest National Laboratory science writer Tom Rickey wrote a release about the lab’s work “Making dams safer for fish around the world,” he didn’t get lost in the scientific gobbledygook.… Read the full article

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PNNL science writer shows how to communicate complex concepts

When Pacific Northwest National Laboratory science writer Tom Rickey wrote a release about the lab’s work “Making dams safer for fish around the world,” he didn’t get lost in the scientific gobbledygook. Instead, he wrote:

Master of metaphor writing - fish tale
Fish tale When these Chinook salmon pass through the turbulent waters near a dam, the resulting pressure change can feel like riding an elevator to the top of Mount Everest — in the blink of an eye. Or so writes PNNL science writer Tom Rickey. Photo courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

“Think of the pressure change you feel when an elevator zips you up multiple floors in a tall building. Imagine how you’d feel if that elevator carried you all the way up to the top of Mount Everest — in the blink of an eye.

“That’s similar to what many fish experience when they travel through the turbulent waters near a dam. For some, the change in pressure is simply too big, too fast, and they die or are seriously injured.

“Those sudden changes can have a catastrophic effect on fish, most of which are equipped with an organ known as a swim bladder — like a balloon — to maintain buoyancy

We say “I see” to mean “I understand.” When the writer sees how complex processes work and shows us what he sees, the reader can see and understand too.

And that’s what makes Rickey, PNNL’s senior advisor for News and Media Relations, a master of metaphor.

4 ways to write like Rickey

Tom Rickey started his career as a high school teacher and soccer coach. And — were it not for an incident involving breaking the principal’s car on the way to a soccer match, losing the match 12-0 then losing the principal’s gas credit card on the trip home — he might be still be a high school teacher and soccer coach today.

Tom Rickey - master of metaphor
When I grow up, I’m going to write like this guy. Tom Rickey brings to life stories of PNNL scientists who are solving the mysteries of the universe.
Instead, Rickey has been covering science for more than 25 years, at the University of Rochester, the University of Rochester Medical Center and PNNL.

Want to become a master of metaphor yourself? Take Tom’s tips for clarifying complex concepts using metaphor writing:

1. Picture each step. Visually understand the process you are trying to describe.

“The microbe sticks to the plant,” your subject matter expert says.

How? You ask. Like Velcro? Or does it skewer the plant — like, stick a sword in and then the sword gets stuck, like Excalibur? Or does it just become a big sticky blob, like chewing gum?

You need to know.

For one PNNL release, “How a plant beckons the bacteria that will do it harm,” Rickey wrote:

“A common plant puts out a welcome mat to bacteria seeking to invade, and scientists have discovered the mat’s molecular mix.

“… [T]he humble and oft-studied plant Arabidopsis puts out a molecular signal that invites an attack from a pathogen. It’s as if a hostile army were unknowingly passing by a castle, and the sentry stood up and yelled, “Over here!” — focusing the attackers on a target they would have otherwise simply passed by.

“‘This signaling system triggers a structure in bacteria that actually looks a lot like a syringe, which is used to inject virulence proteins into its target,’ … said Thomas Metz, an author of the paper and a chemist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.”

2. Ask. Ask again. Keep asking. Ask the source — again and again, if necessary — to describe the process.

When PNNL engineers invented a chemical reactor that produces crude oil from algae, Rickey knew that timing was everything. So he asked the subject matter expert — again and again — how long the process took. By the third interview, Rickey still wasn’t getting the answer he was looking for.

“At one point he gave me maybe a 500-word answer, very complex, and I just kept pushing,” says the senior advisor for News and Media Relations for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Rickey finally asked, “Well, from the time you put algae in the front end, how long before you get oil out the back end?”

The scientist “did all sorts of mathematical tricks and then said, ‘about 45 minutes.’ And there I knew I had it.”

For the resulting release, he wrote the headline “Algae to crude oil: Million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab.” Here’s the lead:

“Engineers have created a continuous chemical process that produces useful crude oil minutes after they pour in harvested algae — a verdant green paste with the consistency of pea soup.

“In the PNNL process, a slurry of wet algae is pumped into the front end of a chemical reactor. Once the system is up and running, out comes crude oil in less than an hour, along with water and a byproduct stream of material containing phosphorus that can be recycled to grow more algae.”

The release went viral. It generated 250,000 hits on the PNNL website, another 250,000 hits on the video, and coverage around the world.

3. Do the math. Analogies help readers see size and scale. So how small is small? How huge is huge?

Do the math - analogies help see scale size
An analogy that traveled the globe Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists created a microbattery “just slightly larger than a long grain of rice,” writes PNNL science writer Tom Rickey. Photo courtesy of PNNL

For “A battery small enough to be injected, energetic enough to track salmon,” Rickey wanted to show how small the battery was. He toyed with “pencil eraser,” “fingernail” and a few other analogies.

“But really,” he says, “I got hold of this thing, and it looked like a grain of rice.”

Here’s the lead:

“Scientists have created a microbattery that packs twice the energy compared to current microbatteries used to monitor the movements of salmon through rivers in the Pacific Northwest and around the world.

“The battery, a cylinder just slightly larger than a long grain of rice, is certainly not the world’s smallest battery, as engineers have created batteries far tinier than the width of a human hair. But those smaller batteries don’t hold enough energy to power acoustic fish tags. The new battery is small enough to be injected into an organism and holds much more energy than similar-sized batteries.”

The result: That analogy “took off around the world,” Rickey says.

4. Make a metaphor. Next, compare your complex topic to something real, tangible and present in everyday life.

Your experts likely have metaphors that they use often. But give yourself the authority to improve upon them. Chances are, you’ll be able to take the analogy much further than your expert ever could.

For the release “Scientists Discover Previously Unknown Cleansing System in Brain,” Rickey crafted this analogy:

“The team found that glial cells called astrocytes use projections known as ‘end feet’ to form a network of conduits around the outsides of arteries and veins inside the brain — similar to the way a canopy of tree branches along a well-wooded street might create a sort of channel above the roadway.”

Master your metaphors.

Follow these steps for metaphor writing, and you too will soon be a master of metaphor.

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Shake it up https://www.wyliecomm.com/2013/10/shake-it-up/ https://www.wyliecomm.com/2013/10/shake-it-up/#respond Mon, 14 Oct 2013 04:01:39 +0000 http://www.wyliecomm.com/?p=5750 Osborn Barr reimagines a press release

When Rachel McGrew, manager at Osborn Barr PR, wrote a release about a client product, her first instinct was to take the traditional route.… Read the full article

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Osborn Barr reimagines a press release

When Rachel McGrew, manager at Osborn Barr PR, wrote a release about a client product, her first instinct was to take the traditional route.

Shake it up
I like to move it, move it Why stick with the expected? Make like Rachel McGrew, and shake up your release. Image by Sundaresh Ramanathan

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).”

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