How Journalistic Thinking Can Save Your Brand's Messaging

You have to stop thinking like a journalist if you’re going to succeed in this job.

That’s what I was told years ago when I switched careers to work in PR and marketing.

That was lousy advice.

Yeah, I had a lot to learn about how businesses operated and communicated. But the most successful work I’ve done over my career often happened because I relied on my journalistic instincts.

Seeing things from all sides. Asking good questions. Pushing back on assumptions. And, most importantly, getting to the heart of a story.

In journalism, nothing gets to the heart of a story quite like a great headline. Now, it would be easy to dismiss headline writing as something that only applies in news. But boy does it apply in business.

Because what’s a headline? It’s a succinct, provocative distillation of an entire story. And guess what? So is a brand. Or an ad. Or the hook of a blog or social media post. The main point of an investor presentation or sales or staff meeting. And it’s not just the line itself. It’s the whole way you think about your story.

Writing a great headline isn’t about dazzling people with clever wordplay. It’s about honoring their time. A good headline acts as an invitation. If it’s confusing or boring, people ignore it and move on. If it’s riveting, you’ve got ‘em.

So today, I want to share what makes a good headline and how it can be used to do what all businesses strive to do: get people to stop in their tracks and pay attention.

Let’s start with the anatomy of a great headline.

These are the non-negotiables.

·       Six to twelve words.

·       It has to be crystal clear. No ambiguity whatsoever.

·       It has to capture the essence of everything in the story that follows.

·       And the biggest one of all: Does it spark curiosity and give the people you’re trying to reach a reason to care, right now?

If your headline doesn’t meet those criteria. Trash it and start over.

And you should be starting over a lot. I’d say a good rule is that you probably need to try out, tweak, and rewrite fifty headlines to get one good one.

To start, ask yourself: If the person I’m trying to reach only remembers one thing about my story, what would I want it to be? In plain English. No jargon. No superfluous adjectives. No chest beating or bragging. One thing they’d really care about. That would matter to them.

The fundamental difference between corporate writing and journalism comes down to this: Businesses write to explain themselves; journalists write to satisfy a reader's curiosity.

Too often, when companies tell their stories, they lead with their products or all the wonderful things they do that they want the world to know about. That’s a lot less effective than thinking about what people care about and then finding a way to wrap your story around that.

What you need to do is shift your focus from a “Company Activity” mindset to a “What’s My Customer’s Urgent Problem” mindset.

Here’s an example of the prior and the latter:

Company X Announces its New Website Architecture Services to Scale its Revolutionary B2B Solutions for Clients.

A better approach would be:

Why most B2B Websites Lose 30% of Leads in the First 3 Seconds, and How Company X is About to Change That.

If what you’re doing or communicating isn’t changing something for someone, rethink whether you need to say it.

I also recommend the "Fresh Eyes" test.

Journalists work with editors every day. Because as the author, you lose having an outsider’s perspective. That’s where an editor comes into play. They see your story fresh, and from the reader’s vantage point. This allows them to notice holes, zero in on what doesn’t make sense or isn’t clear.

Even if you don’t work with professional editors, take whatever you’ve written or created and give it to a colleague. Say read this. Tell me what it’s about. And would you have wanted to read it if I hadn’t just asked you to.

If it can’t pass that simple test, it’s back to the drawing board.

Strange as it may sound, I think the process that goes into great headline writing is more important today than ever. Because of how much information you and your business need to cut through to stand out.

It also has another benefit. Writing a headline forces you to really think about your business. What’s most important. Whether the way you describe yourself is easy to get right away. Whether you’re focused on the most important things about your business.

A headline is just handful of words. But they do some pretty hefty lifting. Those words – and the ideas behind them – are often what’s bridging the gap between you and your customers, or employees, or anyone else who’s important to you.