How to write a PR draft? You need these tips!

The so-called public relations article , to put it simply, is a kind of article carrier that companies use to convey information to the public, usually disseminated through the media. It is not difficult to write a PR draft, but it is difficult to write it well. Many people encounter the following problems when writing PR drafts:

Leaders always say that manuscripts are dry and boring, but how vivid can a public relations manuscript be?

The manuscript is too soft, and even if you want to pay to publish it in high-quality media, it is often rejected.

No one reads the PR article you write, so writing it is just a waste of time.

In an era of information explosion and scarce attention, writers of all kinds are racking their brains to attract users. Corporate public relations articles, which have boring and self-contained nature as their "original sin", seem to have been pushed into a corner long ago.

However, public relations releases always play an important role in a company's external communication process. An excellent public relations article can allow people to clearly understand the message that a company wants to convey to the public. It is the easiest way for the media or the public to understand the dynamics of a company. Public relations manuscripts are also an essential skill that a copywriter cannot avoid in his or her career.

Even if PR articles aren’t the kind of content that users will be talking about, they can still be good or bad, and it’s worth honing our writing skills for them. After all, what we need to solve is the problem of "quantity" (such as making a 60-point PR article into a 90-point one), rather than worrying about the problem of "quality" (we must admit that we cannot make a PR article as eye-catching as entertainment gossip).

1. Calibration needs: Enterprises vs. media vs. audiences

In order to avoid the common problems encountered in PR writing, it is best to ask yourself three questions before writing:

• What does the company want to say?
• What content are the media willing to publish?
• What content do users want to read?

This step is called "calibrating tripartite requirements". An excellent public relations article can often balance these three issues to the greatest extent and meet the demands of the three parties: the enterprise, the media, and the users. This also means that the entire information transmission process can have less friction and achieve the best communication effect: the enterprise says what it wants to say, the media will not reject the article because it is too "soft", and users will have a higher degree of acceptance.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to clarify the key demands of the three parties. For enterprises, it is important to convey the information they want to convey completely and clearly, and try to make it as readable as possible . To achieve this, it depends on professional training in writing skills. The relevant skills will be introduced in detail in the second part of this article.

For the media, they pay more attention to "incremental information", that is, what new information is added to the article that has not been published before. Content related to news and hot topics is also popular with the media. When writing public relations articles, try to put new information "front", that is, put it in the first paragraph or reflect it in the title of the article. If you can take advantage of recent news and hot topics to speak out, it is also a good choice.

For users, they pay more attention to information that is highly relevant to their lives, and the interestingness of the content also determines whether it can attract their attention. I wrote in my book "The Basics of Copywriting" that people tend to be more sensitive to information that is highly relevant to themselves and are unwilling to miss it. This is also why some copywriting can quickly attract widespread attention and spread, such as "A new poison is popular now, and it may be in your refrigerator", "Putting these things at the bedside will cause you to be grouchy when you wake up", etc. They are all very close to the users' lives.

2. Three elements of an excellent PR article

Unclear logic, wordy writing and boring content are common problems in many public relations drafts. To put it simply, it is "simply unbearable to read." To avoid this dilemma, we need to use some writing techniques to help PR releases get rid of the negative labels they often have. In general, an excellent public relations article has these three elements: clear appeal, rigorous logic, and concise writing. Let’s analyze what writing techniques can be used to successfully possess these three elements.

1. Clear demands: PAST principle

Having a clear appeal means that when we write public relations articles, we must be clear about the most important information we want to convey to the media and the audience. On this basis, we use writing skills to cut out redundancies to make the entire article clear and focused. In order to make the article appeal clear, American writer Naveed Saleh mentioned a technique in his book The Art of News Writing , called the "PAST" principle:

All essays have certain basic characteristics in common that should be carefully considered before you begin writing. In other words, every article has its own PAST: purpose, audience, scope, and topic.

For example, if you are writing an article about plastic surgery for high school students, the purpose of the article might be to warn high school students about the dangers of plastic surgery. Secondly, every article has its own audience or readers, and you must consider carefully when writing. Since the audience for this article on cosmetic surgery is high school students, it is best to avoid using medical terms without explanation. Again, every article has a certain scope or width, and the content of the article should focus on this scope. For example, if the article is still about plastic surgery, its scope should be focused on plastic surgery. There is no reason to discuss neurosurgery unless there is a clear connection between plastic surgery and neurosurgery and it is relevant to the topic of the article. Finally, every article has a theme. Obviously, cosmetic surgery is a medical topic.

The "PAST" principle can be used as a "ruler" when writing public relations manuscripts to help us calibrate the writing path. First of all, we need to clarify the Purpose. Generally speaking, whether it is to announce the latest corporate developments (financing, conferences/press conferences, announcements, etc.) or to promote new products, "delivering information that is beneficial to the company" is the most natural purpose of a public relations article. Different types of articles will target different audiences (Audience), define different scopes (Scope), and convey different themes (Topic). For example, the audience of financing news is mainly the venture capital circle, and the audience of product articles is mainly vertical media and C-end users. Clarifying the four elements in PAST is very helpful for us to write public relations articles with clear appeals.

2. Clear logic: “Information map” + “three-stage” structure

Many times, the main reason why PR drafts are “unreadable” is that the logic is confusing and the core information cannot be clearly presented to the readers. When we write, we must keep in mind one thing: the main task of a sentence is to lead to the next sentence. If you find that a sentence in the manuscript does not have such a function, it means that its existence is redundant and it must be deleted. There must be coherence between sentences, like tightly meshed gears, one after another.

The advantage of a PR article with clear logic is that it can reduce the user's reading cost and allow them to obtain core information more quickly. Here I would like to introduce two methods to make your manuscript more logical: one is the method of sorting out your thoughts before writing, called the "information map", and the other is the content presentation technique when writing, called the "three-paragraph" structure.

1) Map your information

"Information map" is an effective method of logical organization. It means spreading out all the information elements that a manuscript should contain on a piece of white paper, and then "assembling" them into different categories to ensure that the manuscript is concise and well-organized. Generally speaking, the template of an information map is as shown below:

When drawing an "information map", we need to prepare a title first, because the title often contains the most core and important information of an article. It needs to be "front-loaded" and given the largest font size and a separate line of text for presentation.

After drafting the title, sort out the key information that the article needs to carry. Generally speaking, there should be at least 3 and at most 7 key information points. Too little key information will make the article appear to be insufficient in information, while too much key information will lead to information overload. The key information should be controlled between 3 and 7 points, and the manuscript will be most readable.

Once we have the key information, we also need to find highly matching "arguments" to help readers better understand the key information. One piece of key information supplemented by 1 to 3 arguments is enough.

Before I start writing, with this "information map", the logic of the article has become clear, the information is clearly prioritized, and the division of labor is clear, which can work together to convey the core information.

2) "Three-part" structure, say goodbye to "one shot"

For some PR articles, even if readers finally muster up the courage to finish reading them, they will still feel exhausted. This type of article is usually a "one-shot" article: except for the title of the article, there is not a single subheading in the text, and it is filled with long, continuous paragraphs. Such articles are basically asking readers to extract the core information themselves. Who has the time for that?

Through the logical analysis of the "information map" step above, we can already extract several core information of the article. The next thing to do is to convert these core information into subheadings of the article, dividing the entire article into several relatively independent but logically connected parts, so that the structure of the article is more three-dimensional and the key points are more prominent.

Generally speaking, for manuscripts with more than 800 words, it is recommended to use a "three-paragraph" structure, that is, an article should extract three key information points and use three subheadings. Of course, the number of paragraphs depends on the amount of information in the manuscript and can be flexibly adjusted accordingly. The biggest advantage of a three-paragraph article is that when readers don’t have the time and patience to read the entire article (which is the case in most cases), they can at least quickly get the core information of the article through a few subheadings.

In addition to a few core subheadings, an excellent introduction is also crucial to the manuscript. The introduction, which is the beginning of the manuscript, must be intriguing enough to attract the reader's attention. Naveed Saleh believes that "a good lead should be simple, relevant, engaging and focused. A good lead should create suspense and make the article interesting and newsworthy."

Different types of PR drafts are suitable for different types of leads. The most common is the summary lead of a press release: five "Ws" and one "H", namely When, Where, Who, What, Why and How.

In addition, there are various types of lead-ins, such as close-up lead-ins, narrative lead-ins, suspense lead-ins, interesting anecdotes lead-ins, paradox lead-ins, etc., which can be selected according to the audience and content style of the manuscript.

3. Be concise: the 50% rule

In PR writing or even any type of writing, eliminating nonsense is an iron rule. We must ensure that every sentence in the article has a necessary reason for its existence. If it is optional, delete it.

Generally speaking, writers always have some affection for the words they write, and deleting a manuscript is as painful as cutting flesh. But in fact, most PR articles can carry the same amount of information using half of their original word count. In the writing process, you can first add and then subtract, write down the core information and relevant important arguments and materials, and then examine which ones are important and which ones are more important, and make reasonable cuts.

When editing, you can use the "50% principle", that is, while ensuring that the amount of information remains unchanged, try to cut out half of the unnecessary content to make the entire manuscript clearer and more concise.

3. What should you do before writing a PR article?

To write a good public relations article, the author needs to be "both inside and outside". "Internal" means that there should be sufficient communication with relevant departments within the company to ensure that the information output through the public relations release is internally unified; "external" means that it is necessary to maintain consistency with external news, hot topics, industry trends, etc. as much as possible to enhance the dissemination of the release.

Rather than sitting in front of a computer and racking your brain, reading more relevant industry information, professional reports, or communicating and interviewing more professionals are more valuable "warm-up exercises". Only in this way can you obtain as much incremental information as possible and make the public relations articles you create more valuable.

Author: Copywriter and Art

Source: Copywriting and Art