Try a feature lead

Take a tip from Silver Anvil Award-winning campaigns and make your copy more creative

by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.

I know, I know.

A beat reporter for your local paper came to your PRSA chapter meeting and told you not to write a feature lead.

And I understand why. She's seen so many awful PR feature leads comparing some company's new strip center to a phoenix rising from the ashes that she wants to protect herself from more.

But contrary to popular opinion, reporters don't hate feature leads. They hate crappy feature leads.

Great feature leads actually get a lot of play in the media.

How do I know? I review PRSA's Silver Anvil Award-winning PR campaigns each year. Judges bestow the Silver Anvil not for excellent writing, but for excellent results — great media coverage that produces great business results for the organization.

And a preponderance of leads in Silver Anvil-winning campaigns are feature leads.

So instead of a fill-in-the-blanks PR 101 lead ("XYZ Company today announced …"), make your release stand out from the crowd with feature techniques like these from recent Silver Anvil winners:

Start with a story

Anecdotes make your messages easier to believe, understand and remember. They can also make your story more entertaining:

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?"

— Korbel Champagne Cellars pitch

Take readers there with description

Description puts your reader in the scene. That allows readers to experience the situation — in this case, a chilling post-op incident:

Imagine the first few hours in the recovery room following a hysterectomy or … ligament repair. Consider what post-surgical life has been like for some pets undergoing common surgical procedures; intense hours WITHOUT pain medication. …

— Pfizer Animal Health release

Rhyme sometimes

This giddy riff on "Night Before Christmas" surprises and delights the reader:

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the place, there are gifts to be wrapped, and no time to waste! With scissors in hand and gift-wrap galore, you plow through the pile … only a few more! When what to your bleary eyes should appear, but that bicycle for Johnny and your hubby's new John Deere. "How do I wrap these?" you say to yourself. Have no fear — this year, there's help!

If you're among the one-third of Americans who wait until the last minute to wrap your holiday gifts, then you might consider taking advantage of the first-ever, toll-free Scotch Brand Gift Wrapping Tips Hotline.

— 3M release

Astonish your reader with startling statistics

A startling statistic can set up your story beautifully. (Underline "startling." We're not talking about packing your first paragraph with a bunch of boring numbers here):

Every day, each of the 25,000 U.S. veterinary clinics will get, on average, a visit from two arthritic dogs. Odds are, one of those dogs will leave the clinic untreated, still suffering in silent pain.

More than 10 million dogs (that's one in five adult dogs) suffer from osteoarthritis …

— Novartis Animal Health's Deramaxx release

Bring it to life with human interest

What's more compelling: an announcement about custom-fitted breast prostheses? Or a "breast cancer survivor profile"? Let customers demonstrate the benefits of your organization's products and services:

In 1989, Elizabeth McCann of Spring, Texas, felt a knot in her left breast. Her physician told her that she needed a biopsy, but was 99 percent sure it would be benign. McCann kept putting it off — until the pain in her breast woke her up at night. …

— ContourMed backgrounder

Make your story stand out with a feature lead

Forget packing your lead with who, what, when, where, why and how.

Feature leads stand out in the stack of PR 101 releases. Try a feature lead on your next release to make your copy more creative — and more compelling to the media.

Anatomy of a press release and pitch

Do you want more techniques for writing world-class media relations pieces? Join Ann Wylie at PRSA’s “Make Your Copy More Creative” teleseminar on Sept. 20. Sign up or get more details: http://tinyurl.com/2tl2ga or contact Colleen Seaver at 212/460-1408.

About the author

Ann Wylie works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. To learn more about her training, consulting or writing and editing services, contact her at ann@WylieComm.com.

Get a FREE subscription to Ann’s e-mail newsletter at WylieComm.com. Get more writing tips at RevUpReadership.com.

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