Publicity - How to Write a Headline That Will Garner Free Publicity

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Author: Ned Steele

Article source: http://www.hometomorrow.com/. Used with author's permission.

Taking your ad and turning it into paragraph-style prose is not a press release - chances are it will only lead the publisher to call and invite you to run it as a paid ad. A press release is for news or for information about a topic the audience needs to know.

Any press release that reads too much like an ad will likely lead a media person to forward it to the advertising department.

For example, here's a headline that sounds too much like an ad:

"Financial Planner Chet Thompson Saved Families $600,000 On Estate Taxes Last Year"

This headline is attention-getting, but for the wrong reasons. It doesn't tell the media person anything other than that Chet Thompson is a good financial planner. This isn't news. But that same headline can easily be rewritten to sound more "newsy":

"Estate Planning Tips Saved Local Families More Than $600,000 Last Year"

This same information is now a headline that will grab a media person's attention. It suggests questions that their readers will be interested in: What tips?

Remember—you are never the news. News is information. As much as possible, keep ego tripping out of a press release and focus on the information that will help improve the lives of readers/listeners/viewers.