List, rhyme and twist
When the Federal Trade Commission needed to explain why the agency has decided not to develop a do-not-spam registry — officials feared that spammers would target people on the list — a spokesperson said:
“You’ll be spammed if we do — and spammed if we don’t.”
You’ve got to love that sound bite! How can you craft such a memorable, quotable line for your copy? One approach is to list, rhyme and twist. Here’s how:
1) List.
Write down the key or topic words from your article.
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Write Killer Bites in Chicago
Turn lame-ass quotes into scintillating sound bites
Half of reporters complain that quotes in releases don’t sound natural, according to a 2014 Greentarget survey. Maybe that’s why 78% of them don’t regularly use quotes from releases.
No wonder! As one of my clients says, “Quotes in news releases sound like the teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon: ‘Wah wah wah wah.’”
So how can you get the wah-wah out and instead write quotes that reporters will actually use?
At NOT Your Father’s News Release — our two-day PR-writing master class on May 18-19 in Chicago — you’ll learn how to transform your quotations from bleh to brilliant.
Specifically, you’ll learn how to:
- Write tight bites. Even a lame quote will sound better when you use our quote length targets.
- Put a quota on quotes. Steal a trick from The New York Times to avoid overquoting.
- Write quotes that sound human — not like a computer spit them out.
- Avoid the worst PR clichés. PR Newswire sees 1,284 of these in a single month.
- Steal techniques from Silver Anvil winners. Make your sound bites sound better.
Last call to register for Not Your Father’s News Release in 2017.
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Polish your skills at these Master Classes
Learn to Master the Art of the Storyteller, Catch Your Readers, Get Clicked, Cut Through the Clutter and more
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