Save the date: Join Editor-in-Chief John Elsasser live on LinkedIn on Aug. 22 at 1 p.m. ET for a writing refresher with Ann Wylie.
What’s the least important element in a release — less important even than the dateline or the boilerplate?
Quotes, say one in four reporters surveyed in a study by Greentarget. According to Greentarget’s research:
- 13% of journalists never use quotes from releases.
- 31% rarely use quotes from releases.
- 28% use quotes from releases only when they’re on deadline and can’t get an interview.
- 28% use quotes from releases regularly.
What’s their beef?
- 50% complain that the language doesn’t sound natural.
- 34% say the quotes aren’t substantive enough.
- Only 9% have no complaints about the quotes.
Many PR professionals agree. One frustrated writer says: “Most quotes in press releases sound like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons: ‘Wah wah wah wah.’”
So how can you make your sound bites sound better? Make them:
- Short
While PR quotes measure in the triple digits, journalists use much shorter quotes. In fact, the average length of a quote in a recent issue of The New York Times, not including attribution, was between 19 and 20 words, according to a Wylie Communications analysis. The most common length: seven words.
So “peel the quote back to one great sentence,” counsels Jacqui Banaszynski, a chaired editing professor at the University of Missouri.
Instead of:
“My partner Rick Sullivan and I are thrilled to announce the addition of MSDP to our portfolio,” said Tom Callahan, Managing Director at Lincolnshire. “Under the leadership of a talented management team, MSDP has developed into a world-class performance automotive business managing great brands and boasting key strengths in both ignition and electronic tuning technologies. MSDP provides the ideal partner for Holley, a Lincolnshire portfolio company that is the leading manufacturer and marketer of performance fuel and exhaust systems. Together, these two iconic franchises, Holley and MSDP, will serve future generations of brand conscious street performance enthusiasts, hot rodders and racers with innovative new products and category-leading lines of refreshed, rejuvenated and improved versions of existing products.”
Make it:
“Hot rodders, racers and other street performance enthusiasts will now be able to do something better [we can’t figure out what from the release], thanks to our merger,” Callahan says.
- Rare
Don’t use quotes to convey basic information, as in this release on the Hip Hop Hall of Fame:
“The program curriculums are currently being designed and prepared to launch first class this fall with all classes online in 2025,” stated Pierre Voltaire, the Educational Program Coordinator Consultant.
Instead, paraphrase.
- Personable
Clearly, no human ever uttered the words, “MSDP provides the ideal partner for Holley, a Lincolnshire portfolio company that is the leading manufacturer and marketer of performance fuel and exhaust systems.”
Just as no human has ever sought “customizable, comprehensive literacy solutions.”
Write quotes that sound human, not like a computer spit them out. Here’s one to model, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Daily News about the declining health of rescue workers:
“I’m begging for someone to help me,” Valenti said. “I do not want to die.”
Ann Wylie works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Don’t miss a single tip: Sign up for Ann’s email newsletter here.
Copyright © 2024 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.
Illustration credit: tutti_frutti
