Entice the Reader in the Title of Your Press Release

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The title is the first thing your readers will see, and it alone determines if they will read the rest. They most likely will not even skim the release if the title doesn’t intrigue them. So what makes an intriguing title?

In the past several newsletters, we’ve discussed and analyzed press release titles to see what makes them successful. What better example can we use than those that we actually wrote and sent out for our clients that proved effective?

This continuing feature series, therefore, will give illustrative examples of titles of real press releases done by the professional writing staff at Press-Release-Writing.com. We will examine the reasoning behind the choice of words so you, too, may create titles that look professional and draw the reader into the release.

For example, a client who created a unique company dedicated to people who wanted to gripe about something entitled her Web site Gripes2solutions.com. The idea was that people could contact the site, post a complaint and suggest a solution to the problem. Each time people registered a complaint and solution on the site, they received points. The points made them eligible to win prizes so that was the reward.

We had to think this one out, as it was a bit complex. How do you entice people to go to a Web site to complain let alone come up with a solution? As we all know, most complainers just want to complain. They don’t want to really solve the problem. So we had to appeal to their greedy little hearts.

Wanting to be heard is the usual motivation for a complainer. But would writing a complaint out on an anonymous Web site to an unknown audience be sufficient motivation to go to the site, let alone read a press release about it?

Remember, press releases are generally written for media people. That’s why they are called press releases. But also remember, press people are human too. What appeals to the public will also appeal to them. Potential public interest is what makes the news, after all.

So rather than emphasize the act of complaining, we grabbed onto the tangible rewards angle thus we spelled out in the title what possible prizes they could win: “Free cruises, travel and shopping.” Anything “free” appeals to people. As a matter of fact, marketing studies have reported consistently that the word “free” in any advertisement or promotional material produces the most interest.

Our heading was “Gripes2solutions.com Offers Free Cruises, Travel & Shopping to Whiners with Solutions.” We created conflict by using “Whiners with Solutions,” words with opposing meanings. The word “Whining” connotes a negative image while “Solutions” portrays a positive. The act of complaining is negative while the act of finding a solution is a positive so it created intrigue. A press person might think, “Hmmmm, interesting. How will this site get complainers to come up with solutions?” So the reader will read on to find out.

That’s the bait. Entice the reader to read on. You will find no better way to do this than in the title. So make your titles your tools to entice.