t always astonishes me that PR departments and agencies pay top dollar to release news electronically and make such basic mistakes. Here are a few from recent news releases.
In this story, from the world’s premier news release distributor, with basic attention to simple Better PR Writer techniques, more than 20 per cent of the copy can be removed from the headline, lead and second paragraph.
This news release from Nikon at first glance looked very well done and was a successful PR tool. It’s still effective. However, in studying it, the word repeats surprisingly made me re-think my original assumptions.
When 36 per cent – or from 75 to 48 words – can be removed from a news release, without changing the meaning, then Better PR Writer alarm bells ring, and the editing PR Tools must be deployed right away.
This PR Tools news release excellently illustrates the benefits of several important Better PR Writer lessons: avoid the passive voice, get rid of ‘of’ and edit out location words (in, located in).
This PR Tools news release demonstrates that by locating ‘Of Is and By,’ the key target words described in How to Be a Better Online Writer Overnight, the lead can be compressed significantly, reducing the word count from 75 to 65 words.
In a few short steps, this PR Tools news release benefited from easy and basic Better Writer edits and reconsidered emphasis.
Once again, a paid news release, the essential PR Tool, is issued, and ignores the most essential news development, preferring to describe its achievements before getting to the reason for sending the release over PR newswires.
When 57 words can be reduced to 43, nearly 25 per cent – and mean the same thing – then there is clearly something careless about the original. As it’s also about job losses and other crucial information, then it’s particularly heedless to bury the news.
In this news release, definitely for a good cause, there are several instructive writing tips that shorten the headline and lead, but also add clarity.