5 Tips for Writing Better Press Release Headlines

The first step to achieving your press release marketing goals is to motivate others to read your press release. What’s the first thing they’re going to read? Your headline. A good headline will inspire your audience to read more. Writing attention-grabbing headlines is a skill, and it’s one that you can develop and grow. The following press release headline tips will help.

1. Write Your Press Release First.

Write your press release headline last. Save it for after you’ve completed your release and you have a solid release. It will help you be more productive with your headline writing because you can refer to the material for inspiration and you can make 100 percent sure that your headline is relevant to your content. Too often people write the headline first, and then have to fit the content of the release to the headline. They often miss the mark and the result is either an ineffective headline or weak press release content.

2. Where’s the Value?

In many cases your headline is the only thing that readers will see. It’s what’s included in a newsfeed. So your headline has to give your audience a reason to click. That means it needs to promise some sort of benefit to the reader. Once you’ve written your headline, ask yourself…”would I click on this?”

3. Choose Your Words Carefully.

You have so many options for your headline. As you’re choosing your words consider the following:

  • Keywords – Keywords may help with SEO, however they’ll also help with audience response rate. When a potential reader recognizes words that they used to search for information they’re more likely to click and read.
  • Power Words – “Power words” are words that incite emotion and motivate action. For example, there’s a difference between using the words “valuable” and “worth its weight in gold.” One is much more powerful and visual, and will more likely motivate action.
  • Trending Words – If there are words that are hot right now and part of a #hashtag craze or newsworthy you might consider including those words in your headline, assuming that you can logically connect them to your press release purpose and content.

4. Short and Succinct.

There’s absolutely no reason to be long-winded with your press release headline. In fact, most search engines will cut off text beyond 100 characters. Additionally, people are more likely to read your headline if it’s brief. Boil it down to exactly what you want your readers to learn, and nothing more.

5. Use Data, Numbers and Facts.

People generally respond to data. If you can include relevant data in your headline you may receive a better open rate.

Finally, when you’re writing your headline don’t be afraid to write 10, 20, 30 or more headlines. Start writing and just let your ideas and words flow. You’ll be able to narrow it down to a few potential candidates. You can then work with those headlines until you’ve crafted the perfect one.

Catch up on the rest of your content marketing news and strategy