Anecdotes make great feature leads
Here’s how Korbel Champagne Cellars topped a PRSA Silver Anvil Award-winning pitch:
Have you heard about the guy who mowed “Will You Marry Me?” into his lawn? How about the practical joker who “accidentally” dropped a fake diamond ring overboard, only to watch his girlfriend jump off their sailboat to retrieve it?
Storytelling is the most powerful form of human communication, according to Peg C. Neuhauser, author of Corporate Legends and Lore. No wonder anecdotal leads are so effective. If you need to win the hearts and minds of your audience members, tell them a story.
Draw readers in with award-winning leads to try … >>>
Here are four ways to find stories for your leads:
1. Look for moments of truth.
Find the Aha! moment — aka the moment of truth or desk-pounding moment. Here’s how Eastman Chemical Company launched an annual report feature:
“I thought the equipment was broken,” he recalls.
Instead, the Illinois farm boy was seeing evience of the discovery of a lifetime. He had found a low-cost route to epoxybutene, a building block for scores of industrial, specialty, and fine chemicals.
Want to grab attention and move people to act? Steal a tip from Pulitzer Prize-winning feature articles and tell readers a story.
Learn 3 more ways to find stories for your leads. >>>
What structure draws more readers?
Writers say, “We use the inverted pyramid because readers stop reading after the first paragraph.” But in new research, readers say, “We stop reading after the first paragraph because you use the inverted pyramid.”
If the traditional news structure doesn’t work, how should we organize our messages?
Master a structure that’s been proven in the lab to outperform the traditional news format at Catch Your Readers, our persuasive-writing workshop, starting on May 16.
There, you’ll learn an organizing scheme that grabs readers’ attention, keeps it for the long haul and leaves a lasting impression.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.