|
|
Tantalizing Headlines: Do's and Don'ts
© 2003
by Marcia Yudkin
Put yourself in the position of a newspaper or magazine
editor scanning the newswires and the day's email and faxes
for relevant content. How would you rate the following
headlines, actually found on the Internet:
New Slaves in America
HP Wheels Out Year-long Tour Bringing Digital
Adventure Directly to Consumers
Little Kids Re-introduces Sqwish Ball Adding Shimmer to the
Sqwish!
|
Visitor only for $0.01. Try our pay per click search engine.
The cheapest on the market.
Start here.. |
From the editor's perspective, all three of these
headlines stink, because they do not make sufficiently clear
what the release is about. The first of the three is the
worst, because anyone thinking it concerns human ownership
of other humans will roll their eyes upon learning that the
release touts a book claiming to "break the chains of
economic bondage" through knowledgeable investing.
The second runs aground through its use of the mysterious
phrase, "digital adventure." In fact, it plugs a
traveling exhibition of three truck-mounted houses
containing digital cameras, printers and musical devices.
The third headline stays away from complete disaster only
because the company name, Little Kids, happens to signal
what the product in question is: a kid's toy.
Unlike readers looking at headlines in their favorite
periodical, editors and other media gatekeepers are not
charmed by cute or obscure headlines. Anything mysterious
gets in the way of their task at hand, finding the raw
material to turn into articles for their audience. If the
headline doesn't answer their three paramount questions -
What is this? Who is it for? And where is the news
significance? - they don't have time or inclination to click
through and investigate further.
Understanding the mindset of those culling through press
releases will help you craft informative headlines. If you
need a lot of words to write a clear headline, go ahead. A
good guideline is to include as many of journalism's classic
|
Visitor only for $0.01. Try our pay per click search engine.
The cheapest on the market.
Start here.. |
"Five W's" in the headline as you can: who,
what, when, where and why or how. To address editors' top
three concerns, make sure you specify what you're promoting,
who would care about it and what makes it newsworthy.
To return to the three unfortunate examples found online,
we can fix the first specimen along these lines:
The New Underground Railroad, New Book, Helps Free
Wage Slaves from Bondage With a Beginner's Introduction to
Stocks, Bonds and Investing.
The second headline improves with a few more details:
HP Wheels Out Year-long Traveling Exhibition of Truck-
Mounted Homes Filled with Digital Photography, Computing and
Entertainment Products.
And the annoyance factor disappears from the third headline
when we revise it as follows:
Little Kids Updates Sqwish Ball, Specialty Toy from
the 1990's for Age 5 and Up, With a Holographic Shimmer.
If after adding clarity, you can also inject some wordplay
or fun into the headline, go ahead. But media people giving
your headlines just three or four seconds of attention
aren't really looking for entertainment. They're on a hunt
for relevance, and cuteness runs the danger of getting in
their way.
-----------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Marcia Yudkin <marcia@yudkin.com>
is the author of the classic guide to comprehensive PR,
"6 Steps to Free Publicity," now for sale in an
updated edition at Amazon.com and in bookstores everywhere.
She also spills the secrets on advanced tactics for today's
publicity seekers in "Powerful, Painless Online
Publicity," available from
www.yudkin.com/powerpr.htm
.
|
| Adlandpro
Toolbar gives you instant access to your
Free Email Account, Free Website, submission to
over 8,900 sites, learning tools, free discussion
list on marketing and promotion with 26,000
subscribers, Free 5 day Website Success course by
email, plus instant search. Click
Here. |
|
Free Marketing & Promotion Newsletter