People skim-read headlines: here’s what you can do about it

Your press release’s headline must convey the story’s most important fact. The story’s combined headline and synopsis should deliver all of the story’s key information.

We know that when people browse through news stories, many tend to skim-read the headlines and may not get as far as reading the whole story. This behaviour is true for many types of content – and despite the received wisdom that attention spans are getting shorter, this has long been true. In his 1963 book, Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy observed that, “On average, 5 times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar. If you haven’t done some selling in your headline, you have wasted 80% of your client’s money.”

Unlike advertisements, press releases can’t use a smart, super-creative headline to draw people in, we pretty much have to stick to the facts. Knowing that people may not read all of the story, writers try to shoehorn too many facts into the headline, making it too long – according to a study undertaken by Schwartz MSL Research Group, of 16,000 headlines, around 80% of them were too long.

What is ‘too long’? Well, anything greater than 65–70 characters is pushing it for Google’s desktop and mobile search results, for readers on mobile devices and indeed for readers who want to skim-read. Yet the average press release headline is around twice that.

How do we solve the problem of keeping the headline short and yet delivering the whole story for people who won’t read on? And, at the same time, try to hook them so they do?

• Focus on one key fact and sacrifice everything to that. This will be the ‘main point’ of the story, something you’ll need to dig out and perhaps agree with stakeholders.
• On most news websites, the headline will work in concert with a synopsis. Use both together to deliver a more complete picture – but remember that the synopsis may not always be there and that the headline may have to work alone.
• Most mainstream news outlets – say, BBC News and Sky News – typically have headlines of no more than 8–10 words and synopses of around 10–15 words which are used on the story but not always on the news listings. Both are models of brevity worth studying.
• If your headline must use more than 10–12 words, keep the most important facts at the start, so they will remain visible if (or when) the headline is truncated. For the same reason, front-load the facts in your synopsis, especially if it’s longer than is ideal.
• Reducing the number of prepositions (words such as ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘of’ and ‘to’) can reduce a headline and make it punchier. You can often use punctuation (such as ‘:’, ‘;’ and ‘–’) to link separate phrases instead.
• Spend time crafting a great headline and synopsis. David Ogilvy said 20% of writing time; I’d say more. (I recommend setting aside up to half of your press release’s overall writing time for editing, in any event.) It’s worth it.?
• Play around with alternative wordings and phrasings. Be dispassionate when doing so. Cut what doesn’t genuinely add value for the reader. Focus on the external impact of the story: this is what makes it newsworthy.

Although this isn’t a press release, let’s look at how news outlets handle the heading and the synopsis – this exemplary wording is from BBC News:

Italy quake: Norcia tremor destroys ancient buildings

Towns and villages in central Italy have been hit by an earthquake for the fourth time in three months.

Few business press releases ever come close to this in terms of succinct delivery. To be fair, that’s seldom possible – a press release is a piece of business promotion. It has to convey more because the reader has less pre-existing knowledge.

Here’s an example headline and synopsis from one of my press releases:

Blue Eskimo deploys the LPI’s Capability Map to reinvent L&D recruitment

By integrating the Capability Map into its systems and processes, Blue Eskimo delivers game-changing improvements in speed and accuracy when matching candidates and jobs.

Yes, these are longer than the BBC example, but are significantly shorter than the average business press release – and comfortably within our parameters.?

Language offers endless permutations; it’s one of the wonderful things about it. There are lots of ways to restructure a message, each with its own pros and cons. In the real world, there are valid reasons for exceeding these ‘limits’ so it’s better to see them as goals of excellence to strive for rather than a hard rule which can’t ever be broken.?

It’s worth the effort though. A long headline or synopsis has no benefit to readers or for search optimisation. People scan-read: get over it, and write for it.

This is one of the topics covered in my latest book, Is It News? The book outlines strategies for writing, structuring and optimising a press release headline – using detailed examples to show how this is best done.

Is It News?

How to write really great press releases

My book,?Is It News??– co-written with Rob Clarke, publishing editor of newswire Learning News – covers the subject of writing press releases in depth.?Download an entire, unabridged, chapter from?Is It News??‘Writing compelling headlines’ explains why a headline can make or break a press release – and shows you how to write headlines which sell the whole story, at a glance.?Download free chapter?or?buy from Amazon.

Training and coaching

Myself and Rob – authors of?Is it News??– are available for in-depth coaching sessions for marketing teams and business managers. We cover not only all aspects of writing news stories, but also help you put in place strategies to reinvent your approach to publicity – increasing the success you get from it.

Peter Labrow

Peter is a marketing consultant and the owner of content marketing agency Content Productions. For help with your press releases, publicity or marketing,?contact Peter Labrow.

Robert Clarke

Rob is managing editor of specialist newswire Learning News. To publish L&D news stories, contact?Robert Clarke.