Talk about TMI: Your readers receive the data equivalent of 174 newspapers — ads included — every single day, according to USC’s Annenberg School for Communication.

Too much incoming, too little getting in

But with all that incoming, very little information gets through to our readers. People spend, on average:

1. More than five hours a day on interpersonal emails, according to the 2019 Adobe Email Usage study. That includes:

• Three-plus hours a day on work messages: “Can we meet at 3?” “Here’s the report I promised.” “When can you get me the social media strategy?”
• Two-plus hours a day on personal email: “Would you pick up Greek yogurt on your way home from work?” “I have good gossip; meet for margaritas at 5?” “May I show you the most darling picture of my kitty?”

Add Slack and text messages, and you can see that we spend the bulk of our days communicating interpersonally.

But that’s not the kind of information PR pros and other communicators are worried about …

2. 48 minutes a day reading for business, according to a study by The Economist Intelligence Unit and Peppercomm.

That includes The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Business Review, the best trade publications in the business, PR Tactics and other association publications, the latest leadership books, the HubSpot blog and more.

Whatever time remains — and that’s not much — may get divvied up between business-to-business brand content.

Let’s get real: How much of that 48 minutes are they spending with your white paper?

3. 16.2 minutes a day reading for fun, according to the 2019 American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Right now, I’m squeezing into my 16.2 minutes a day: Melissa Banks’ novel The Wonder Spot, Psychology Today, a guidebook on Uruguay and The New York Times.

That leaves virtually zero seconds for your email newsletter on “3 reasons you need an eye exam (even if you have 20/20 vision),” your message inviting me to share my thoughts on your business or other business-to-consumer messages.

Let’s get real: How much of that 16.2 minutes are they spending with your email newsletter?

How to get through to readers …

One way to get through to readers with way too much to read and way too little time to read it is to give readers more for less. Give them more information they can use to live their lives better in less time and space.

Keep this formula in mind: The average reader reads about 200 words per minute. That means they’re reading, on average, 9,600 words a day for work and 3,240 for fun.

Does it make sense for you to ask them to spend a third of that on your blog post?

Let’s get real.

The post Let’s get real appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Edward R. Murrow said of Winston Churchill: “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

He rallied the British, defied the Nazis and inspired the United States to fight. Some say he saved the Western world with his words.

“Never, never, never give up.”

He was captured by the Boers and escaped. He wrote about his military adventures in newspaper articles and books. By 1899, he was one of the highest paid and best known British war correspondents.

“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

In 1900, when Churchill came to the United States for a lecture tour, he was introduced by Mark Twain.

“There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”

He coined phrases like “Finest Hour,” “Never give in” and “Iron Curtain.” He showed that words can change people’s minds and move them to act.

“Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory.”

He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his contributions to the written word. In his spare time, he wrote 40 books in 60 volumes and painted more than 500 paintings.

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant.”

His words still inspire, 50 years after his death. He’s been quoted by presidents — and on Angelina Jolie.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

May I ask why every corporate communicator on the planet isn’t using Churchill as her personal and professional muse? Why don’t we model his words every time we write a speech, a sound bite or an executive message?

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Stop modeling tedious executive quotes.

One problem with executive quotes is that we model them after other executive quotes. That’s how we wind up putting together ridiculous lines like these, from the UK Press quote generator:

“A market first, our cutting-edge software product is a major move towards WAP-enablement.”

“Representing a radical step-change, our new product set tests the performance of enhanced customer care.”

“Out-of-the-box, our end-to-end solution recognises the importance of mission critical operations.”

If you want to write better quotes, steal from better sources. Raise the bar. Change the benchmark. Model the masters instead of the amateurs.

Raise the bar.

So instead of using other executive quotations as your models, model rhetorical masters like Churchill. He’s the guy who said:

“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”

And:

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

And:

“Kites rise highest against the wind — not with it.”

Don’t you wish your executives sounded like that?

They would — if you wrote better sound bites.

Find quotes to model.

Once you run out of Churchill quotations, model Lincoln. Or Reagan. Or Clinton. Or George W. Bush. Or Obama.

Find world-class quotes to model at BrainyQuote and Fagan Finder’s Quotations and Proverbs Search.

Learn more about modeling the masters.

The post How to read like a writer appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

If you wanted to keep teens from smoking weed, what message might you communicate?

One health organization, reports Guy Kawasaki in his book Enchantment, used the message that young people who smoked weed were five times more likely to engage in sex.

Have you ever met a 17-year-old football player? For that matter, have you ever met a 58-year-old writing coach?

Many humans — except perhaps for those who work for this one particular health organization — actually enjoy sex. I myself have met several people who feel their lives would be much less interesting without it.

One group tried to cut teen weed use by saying that weed smokers were 5 times more likely to have sex. … Have you ever met a 17-year-old boy?
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Not to say that the five-times-less-sex message wouldn’t work on a different audience. If you were trying to convince parents, teachers or school board members to campaign against teen weed-smoking, then that data point might be compelling.

For most other audiences, though, the promise of five times more sex might just convince the most sober among us to wake and bake, nod off on the couch during all-day “I Love Lucy” marathons and come to surrounded by empty Cherry Garcia cartons.

And that’s the problem with this message: It has a WIIFM, or a “What’s in it for me?”

It just focuses on the wrong M.

Answer your reader’s No. 1 question.

The first thing your reader wants to know from your message is “What’s in it for me?” Advertising writers long ago shortened this term to WIIFM, pronounced “wiffum.”

So think like your readers:

• Your customer readers don’t care that your organization is putting $100 million more into R&D this year. They want to know whether that means their computer will be faster and easier to use.
• Your employee readers don’t care that your organization is adding $10 million to the profit-sharing coffers. They want to know whether that means they’ll be able to retire early.
• Your media contacts don’t care that your organization has launched a revolutionary new toothpaste. They want to know whether it’s going to reduce their own readers’ dental bills.

So answer the reader’s No. 1 question: “What’s In It For Me?”

But first, you need to know who Me is.

Whatever happened to Step 1B?

You remember Step 1B of the five-step communication planning process. It’s “Target your audience.” It comes right after identifying the business challenge and before setting goals for, developing, implementing and measuring the success of your communication plan.

So whatever happened to Step 1B?

I’ll tell you what happened to Step 1B. The internet happened to Step 1B. All of a sudden, we weren’t targeting our readers — our readers were targeting us.

Which meant that instead of targeting anybody, we were suddenly targeting everybody. (And remember what Mom said about trying to please everyone.)

There is a solution to this problem, and it is to have readers target themselves:

• Offer separate doorways on your website. For a health care site, for instance, you might offer doors for patients and doctors — and never the twain shall meet. Understand that if I stumble onto my doctor’s web pages, I will decide that your site is not for me. And if my doctor finds herself on web pages targeted at my level of medical expertise, she will decide that your site isn’t for her. Target each of us, separately.
• Offer separate social media feeds. A river runs through my city, and 14 bridges connect the east and west sides of town. If my bridge is closed, I want the DOT to tweet urgent updates every five seconds. But if your bridge is closed, I never want to hear about it at all. The solution: Offer separate Twitter streams for each bridge.
• Offer separate news releases, tag intranet articles for certain departments, segment email blasts. That doesn’t mean you need to multiply your work. Just finesse the headline, deck, lead and nut graph of each piece to focus on your targeted audience’s needs.

But every day, I work with communicators who don’t do that. Instead of targeting audience members or helping audience members target themselves, they target everyone.

Their every web page is for all comers. Their all-in Twitter streams drown disparate followers in irrelevant messages. Their e-zines and newsletters go to employees, to customers, to legislators.

Even if the WIIFM that would compel one audience would repel the rest. (Remember: sex.)

We need Step 1B. Help me bring back Step 1B!

Because not all of your Me’s are the same. The rich, for example, are different.

The rich are different.

I’m not just saying this. It’s true: While most parents tend to teach their kids to prioritize the needs of the group over their own needs, wealthier parents tend to teach their kids to succeed on their own.

It shows up in charitable giving: Wealthy adults are less likely to share what they have with others.

So how do you get the wealthy to give? Frame their giving as a personal accomplishment, say three researchers.

They found in one study that wealthier people — those with incomes higher than $90,000 — were way more likely to click “Donate today!” when giving messages stressed individual achievement (“You = Life-Saver”) instead of emphasizing a common goal (“Let’s Save a Life Together”).

In another study, alumni from an elite business school gave $150 more on average when asked to “Come forward and take individual action” than when they were asked to join their community to “support a common goal.”

That’s their WIIFM.

That message won’t work for everyone. And that’s OK. It doesn’t have to. You can use the common-goal message with your less wealthy givers.

But do target your audience members and focus on what’s in it for them. That’s how you put the M in WIIFM.

___

Sources: Guy Kawasaki, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, Penguin Group (USA) LLC, March 8, 2011

Ashley V. Whillans, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Eugene M. Caruso; “How to Get the Wealthy to Donate”; The New York Times; May 12, 2017

Ashley V. Whillans, Eugene M. Caruso, Elizabeth W. Dunna; “Both selfishness and selflessness start with the self: How wealth shapes responses to charitable appeals”; Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; volume 70, May 2017, pp. 242-250

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If I told you there was a communication tool that reduces readership, diminishes understanding and causes engagement to take a nosedive, would you use it?

Friends, there is such a tool, and you are using it every day. It’s called the inverted pyramid.

That’s what researchers learned in the  “Ways With Words” (PDF) study, a collaboration of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the St. Petersburg Times and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

For the study, St. Petersburg Times beat reporters covered their regular beats, writing four versions of each story:

• Inverted pyramid, the traditional news structure
• Narrative, or storytelling with a beginning, middle and end
• Opinion piece, offering a visible point of view
• Radical clarity, where the reporter explains everything that might possibly be explained. So if you mention dog, for instance, you might add “a four-legged canine domesticated for human companionship.”

Then, in phone interviews, researchers asked subscribers:

• How much of the story they read
• Whether they followed the jump
• What they understood, using true-or-false questions
• How fair and balancedthe story was
• Whether they cared about the subject — including whether the stories connected with their own experiences and made them want to find out more or get involved

The results?

The pyramid tanks

The inverted pyramid does “not work very well with readers,” researchers concluded.

Specifically, the inverted pyramid:

• Scored lowest in readership and getting the reader across the jump. The inverted pyramid starts out boring and “gets more boring as the reader reads down,” researchers said. Who needs to stick around for the rest of that?
• Scored lowest in understanding.“Journalists put background and context in the second half of the pyramid, so the reader who does not know that background cannot understand the top of the story,” researchers said. “As a result, only journalists and sources can fully understand inverted-pyramid stories.” Is that your audience?
• Made a mediocre showing in “involvement,”or whether the story made readers connect with and want to get involved in the topic. In our business, we call involvement “engagement.” Note that engagement and the inverted pyramid are mutually exclusive.

Why are we still using this thing?

The feature structure soars

The feature, or narrative, structure, on the other hand, tended to outperform the other structures in the study. Features scored highest of all of the formats in reading and getting readers across the jump. They also made a good showing in understanding.

Instead of sticking with the inverted pyramid, a story structure that’s been proven in the lab not to work, you’d think writers would stick a fork in it, then go experiment with other story structures. But no.

“The basic conservatism and frantic pace of our profession keeps us from enlarging our repertoire of forms,” the researchers lamented. “So … we keep boring and confusing our readers, and driving them away. … We should think of the inverted pyramid as A form, rather than THE form.”

___

Source: “Ways With Words: A Research Report of the Literacy Committee,” American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1993

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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.

The reader is always the topic.

So put the reader first: Next time you find yourself writing a press release, write to and about your target audience, not about us and our stuff.

Here’s how to do it, stealing an approach from the lead of a PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winning release by the California Milk Advisory Board:

Dairy farmers throughout California — the nation’s No. 1 milk-producing state — will have an opportunity to learn the basics of cheese making in a comprehensive, one-day seminar being offered during February and March throughout the state. Sponsored by the California Milk Advisory Board …

Note that this release:

1. Starts with the reader. “Dairy farmers throughout California …” See what happens when you begin your lead with the stakeholder, instead of with your organization’s or product’s name? You push the benefits toward the front of the lead.

2. Follows up with the benefit. “… will have an opportunity to learn the basics of cheese making …” We still haven’t mentioned the organization or offering. Why? Because the reader benefit is more important.

   Notice how putting the reader first forces you from passive voice into active voice.

3. Only then introduces the product or service. “… a comprehensive, one-day seminar …” The product or service is best placed, as in this release, after the end-user and benefit. In fact, the second paragraph is high enough for the product name.

4. Ends with the organization’s name. “Sponsored by the California Milk Advisory Board …” Trust me, if someone cares about your release, they’ll get to your organization’s name.

   And journalists, bloggers and others are more likely to read or run the release when you focus on their audience members instead of on your organization and its stuff.

   Notice how much more newsworthy and interesting this approach is than the traditional product announcement release, which is dated, formulaic and — let’s face it — dull.

   Now you do it:

You’ll wind up with something like this:

The 2,000 commuters who now spend an hour each day driving from Sunrise Beach to Osage Beach will soon be able to make the trip in 15 minutes.

The reason: a new, $24 million bridge that Community Transport Corp. will build this summer.

Here are three other ways PR pros made the reader the topic in their PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winning campaigns.

1. Write to and about you.

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 [this year’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

2. 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.

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

Working late again? You’re not alone, according to a new study by University of Arizona germ guru Dr. Charles Gerba. You have plenty of bacteria keeping you company.

The study, the first of its kind to measure normal bacterial levels inside offices across America, found paper isn’t all that’s piling up on desks. In fact, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat.

— Clorox Silver Anvil Award-winning release

3. 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

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

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

Get ready, racing aficionados, zombie slayers, sports fans, warriors and entertainment lovers. The Xbox team is planning one of the biggest entertainment premieres of the year to celebrate the launch of Xbox One with Xbox fans around the world, when it launches next Friday, Nov. 22.

— Xbox Silver Anvil-winning promotion

Stop wasting their time.

Next time you’re ready to send a press release, it will probably look at first glance like a news story:

The California Milk Advisory Board announces a comprehensive, one-day seminar on cheese production.

But if you want to write an effective press release … if you want to engage editors or reporters — and their readers — in your story, take a tip from these Silver Anvil winners: Once you’ve written a press release, make sure you’ve put the most important information — how readers can use your product or service — up top.

It’s more important than the contact information. More important than press release distribution. Way more important than including a quote. Even more important than the press release headline.

So focus on the reader and the reader’s needs, not on us and our stuff.

The post Write leads for your PR target audience (Examples!) appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

How do you define readability? Readability measures how easy your message is to read. That measurement is based on factors like sentence and word length.

Two elements of readability

Two elements contribute to reading ease, according to readability expert William H. DuBay (PDF): the reader and the writing.

1. The reader. Reader traits that affect readability include:

• Reading skills. Caution: Your reader’s skills might not be as good as you think.
• Prior knowledge. The more they know, the more interested they are. And the higher their reading skill, the more general knowledge they’ll have.
• Interest. How much do they care about, say, the company’s new mission statement?
• Motivation. What carrots and sticks are in play for learning this information?

Easier writing, DuBay writes, can compensate for these issues.

2. The writing. In What Makes a Book Readable, researchers William S. Gray and Bernice Leary identified 228 elements of readability. Then they organized them into four components:

• Content — arguments, structure, coherence
• Style — semantic (words) and syntactic (sentences)
• Design — typography, layout, illustrations
• Organization — chapters, navigation, headings

There’s not a lot you can do about your reader’s skills, knowledge, interest and motivation. But you can make your writing more readable.

Readability tools

The good news is, it is possible to measure, monitor and manage readability to reach more readers. More than 130 years of readability research gives us standards to shoot for. And online readability tools make it easier than ever to make sure we’re meeting these standards.

Among my favorite online readability tools: StoryToolz’ Readability Calculator. (Learn about some of my other favorite tools.)

Plug in a chunk of copy, and STORYtoolz will run it through seven readability indexes. STORYtoolz also delivers a wealth of other readability information. You’ll get 34 pieces of data in all, from your longest sentence length to the number of to be verbs.

Ready? Let’s grab your numbers.

How readable is my message?

Run your message through StoryToolz and capture your numbers here:

Reading levels

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level    __________________________

Flesch Reading Ease               __________________________

(Don’t worry about the others.)

Learn more about readability indexes.

Sentence information

Number of characters              __________________________

Number of words                    __________________________

Characters per word                __________________________

Syllables per word                  __________________________

Number of sentences               __________________________

Words per sentence                 __________________________

Number of short sentences      __________________________

Number of long sentences        __________________________

Number of paragraphs            ___________________________

Sentences per paragraph          __________________________

Number of questions               __________________________

Number of passive sentences  __________________________

Longest sentence                     __________________________

Shortest sentence                     __________________________

Word usage

Number of to be verbs            __________________________

Number of auxiliary verbs      __________________________

Number of conjunctions          __________________________

Number of pronouns               __________________________

Number of prepositions          __________________________

Number of nouned words     __________________________

Learn more about word usage and readability.

Sentence beginnings

Pronouns                                 __________________________

Question pronouns            __________________________

Articles                                    __________________________

Subordinating conjunctions     __________________________

Conjunctions                           __________________________

Prepositions                            __________________________

Learn more about sentence structure and readability.

Now what?

These content metrics and readability formulas will help you measure readability — how easy or difficult to read your message is. Use these readability scores to identify opportunities to make your messages easier to understand. (Tip: High-school grade-level averages are too high for most audiences.)

Learn more about measuring readability.

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