Native ads are failing to capture audiences, study suggests

From Re/code:

Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile says that while 71 percent of surfers will stick with a “real” article for more than 15 second, that number drops to 24 percent for native ad stuff.

“What this suggests is that brands are paying for — and publishers are driving traffic to — content that does not capture the attention of its visitors or achieve the goals of its creators."

How to write a Nut Graf

Very early in any brand article you write for a client’s prospects or customers, usually about the third or fourth paragraph, you will need to drop in what journalists call the Nut Graf.

The Nut Graf has three primary purposes:

1. It provides a transition from the lead paragraph to the body of the story.
2. It tells readers why the story is timely and pertinent.
3. It encourages the target audience to continue reading.

This is not time to be coy, creative or cute. What you want to write is a direct, tight summary of what your story is about. This summary will serve as your guide for composing the rest of the story. It will also help your readers quickly assess whether your story interests them and determine if they should continue reading it.

Keep your Nut Graf to one paragraph of less than 50 words. You can break it up into two or even three sentences.

Collection and assembly

Probably the easiest way to write the Nut Graf is to collect the individual parts, then assemble them:

• WHO are the specific customers you want to reach? Make it clear in the Nut Graf:  This story is for you.
• WHAT is problem your story is solving? Again, be both clear and specific. Imply that you are making a promise: If you read this story, it will show you how to solve this problem. The “what” usually includes one or more of the keywords from your SEO research.
• WHEN and WHERE is the problem most likely to occur? This is your news peg. It explains why the customer must read your story right now.

For example, in my story about diagnostic testing for West Nile virus in horses:

• The WHO are veterinarians who work with horses.
• The WHAT is the need to prevent, detect and diagnose the disease that is caused by the West Nile virus.
• The WHEN is the summer, when mosquitos are most common and the disease is most likely to spread to horses.
• The WHERE is the United States.

When I assembled the parts, I got this Nut Graf:, which I also used as the lead:

“Summer is when the West Nile virus poses the greatest threat to the health of horses in the United States. It’s important for veterinarians to work with horse owners this time of year to prevent, detect and accurately diagnose a potential infection.”

It’s simple, direct and just 42 words. There’s nothing “creative” about it. (Like David Ogilvy, I generally avoid “creative” approaches. They tend to confuse readers. When confused, readers rarely try harder. They just quit reading.)

Here’s an example from a web story from Cosmopolitan magazine headlined: “Want to get rid of your cellulite? These 9 smooth operators can help!”

• The WHO are women who want to make their bodies more attractive.
• The WHAT is their desire to hide the cellulite that may accumulate on their butts, thighs and stomachs.
• The WHEN is the approach of bikini season. As an additional news peg, the story references a recent hit song by the pop group Black Eyed Peas, “My Humps.”
• The WHERE is the beach.

When assembled, the Nut Graf looks like this:

“We're 100 percent sure women everywhere loved Fergie's song, "My humps, my lovely lady lumps," but 90 percent of them probably sing a different tune when it comes to actual lumps aka cellulite. But while there's still no cure (what is taking so long?!), you can at least camouflage the "orange-peel" look of skin temporarily. We suggest slathering up now, and your butt, thighs, and stomach, should be in top shape (with the help of eating right and exercising!) by the time bikini season rolls around.”

This is certainly longer and more creative than the first example. (After all, it is Cosmo.) But it remains tight, easy to read, and only 86 words.

Here’s another example, this one from a Guns & Ammo web story headlined, “How to pick the best zombie pistol.”

• The WHO are all gun owners.
• The WHAT is choosing the right weapon.
• The WHEN AND WHERE is a future, post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested Earth. This news peg comes from popular culture, especially among millennials who fully expect a zombie invasion in their lifetimes. (They aren’t kidding.)

Here’s the Nut Graf:

“While there can be no denying that rifles and shotguns have distinct advantages in both power and reach, it is the handiness and convenience that makes the handgun indispensable when the excrement hits the wind generator and the dead start walking the earth.”

Again, this one is tight and direct, a little fun and creative, and still only 43 words.

There’s a reason Mark Ragan calls these stories “refrigerator journalism.” You’ve likely clipped out or printed out stories just like these and keep them for later use. You’ve probably shared them with friends and peers. They work.

Learning to identify Nut Grafs in the wild

 Go to your local newsstand and buy a handful of magazines that specialize in “refrigerator journalism.” There are scores of them. You may even subscribe to a few.  If in doubt, check the magazine covers for headlines with phrases like “How to ..,” “Top 10 ways to …” or “Our guide to …”.

Read the stories inside those publications and try to identify the Nut Graf. Break the Nut Grafs down into the Who, the What, the When and the Where.

Some Nut Grafs are obvious. Others aren’t. But every refrigerator story is going to tell you within the first five paragraphs who the story is designed for, what problem it solves, and when and where the information is relevant.

The more of these stories you study, the easier it will get when it comes to writing your own Nut Grafs.

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Here are the presentation slides that go with this text.

How to make your copy more efficient to write, edit, read and optimize from Rusty Cawley

Repacking the 'suitcase' sentence … or:How to convey a lot of information in a single sentence, without frustrating your readers, or causing their eyes to pop out of their heads and wave madly on their stalks

Roy Peter Clark, the highly regarded writing coach at the Poynter Institute, criticized the New York Times for the lead paragraph of a controversial news story published Feb. 3 on the Times’ blog. And rightfully so. It’s a dreadful sentence, even for the Times.

Here it is, and this was the Times’ second version of the lead:

The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge in the scandal now swirling around Gov. Christie of New Jersey said on Friday that “evidence exists” the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening.

This is an example of what’s known in the news biz as a “suitcase lead.” Clark describes it better than I can:

If all the news doesn’t quite fit, you just sit on it until it closes.

To demonstrate that it is possible to include a lot of information in a lead while also crafting a clear sentence, Clark proposed reframing the Times lead as a question/answer lead:

When did N.J. Gov. Chris Christie learn about the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge that created traffic chaos and a swirling political scandal? In a new development, the official who oversaw those closures says that the governor knew about them as they were happening. He says that “evidence exists” that this is true.

Not bad, and certainly a major improvement. But let me propose another solution: a cumulative sentence. That is, a sentence that makes a clear initial statement, then adds additional information in easy-to-read clauses governed by commas.

Like this:

Evidence exists that Gov. Christie knew about lane closings on the George Washington Bridge as they happened, says the former Port Authority official who oversaw the closings, which sparked a scandal that could derail the New Jersey governor’s anticipated candidacy for the White House.

Or maybe:

The Port Authority official responsible for closing two toll lanes on the George Washington Bridge said Friday “evidence exists” New Jersey Gov. Christie knew about the closures as they triggered a morning rush-hour traffic jam near Fort Lee, leading to a political scandal that could derail the GOP front-runner’s potential bid for the White House.

Perfect? Probably not. But at least each sentence flows in one direction, guiding readers from one point to the next in a logical sequence, rather than forcing readers to retrace their steps to figure out what the hell they just read.

Each of my examples recasts the original Times lead as a cumulative sentence, the type advocated by Iowa State scholar Brooks Landon in his book, “Building Great Sentences: How to Write the Kind of Sentences You Love to Read,” which you really should read if you haven’t already, and, if you have read it, you should read it again.

Great sentences are usually long sentences, Landon says, in that they provide more information than do short sentences, and do so elegantly and efficiently, if properly crafted and controlled. There’s no better way to accomplish this than with a cumulative sentence.

I think of these sentences as “cascading sentences,” because they give the reader a sense of kayaking along the rapids of a river, easily stepping down from one level, to the next, to the next, for as long as the writer wants to sustain the sentence.

Short leads aren’t necessarily better leads. The ideal lead summarizes the story in a way that informs the reader, and coddles the reader, and encourages the reader to continue.

A cumulative sentence can handle each task well. And it is fairly easy to build.

You start with a simple declarative sentence. Then you add information with commas and clauses. You really do build the sentence from the ground up.

Hemingway is often praised or criticized for writing short, terse, tough-guy sentences. But the truth is that he used cumulative sentences about as often as short ones. Here’s one from a Nick Adams short story, “Cross Country Snow”:

George was coming down in the telemark position, kneeling, one leg forward and bent, the other trailing, his sticks hanging like some insect’s thin legs, kicking up puffs of snow, and finally the whole kneeling, trailing figure coming around in a beautiful right curve, crouching, the legs shot forward and back, the body leaning out against the swing, the sticks accenting the curve like points of light all in a cloud of snow.

Faulkner frequently used the cumulative sentence as well, as in this example from “As I Lay Dying”:

I would think how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it, so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other; and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words.

And James Joyce, from “Finnegan’s Wake”:

 Here, and it goes on to appear now, she comes, a peacefugle, a parody's bird, a peri potmother, a pringlpik in the ilandiskippy, with peewee and powwows in beggybaggy on her bickybacky and a flick flask fleckflinging its pixylighting pacts' huemeramybows, picking here, pecking there, pussypussy plunderpussy.

And Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”:

One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself, and whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.

And Kurt Vonnegut, in his essay “I Love You, Madame Librarian”:

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

And Ernie Pyle, in a 1943 news story from the frontlines of World War II in Northern Tunesia:

In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.

Here's one from a true master of the cumulative sentence, gonzo journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, in his factual novel, “Hell’s Angels”:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!

OK, you get the idea. Start with a simple, declarative sentence, and then build upon it with modifying clauses, refining the original image until you nail it.

Hey, it works, especially when you are forced to convey a lot of information quickly and efficiently, and you want to make life easier for your readers, or at least keep them from giving up and turning the page.

How to make your copy more efficient to write, edit, read and optimize

How to make your copy to write, edit, read and optimize from Rusty Cawley

Why longer articles will rank better on Google than short articles in 2014

From Jayson DeMers at the Search Engine Journal:

Not long ago, you could publish a couple 500-word blog posts per week and gain measurable traffic and authority with Google. While short articles do still have value, there’s definitely a trend within Google toward favoring longer content. 

In the future, I expect that articles will need to be a minimum of 1,000 words in length to rank well in Google, and better yet if they’re over 2,000 words. Google’s new in-depth article section is a good indicator of where things are going. According to Google, “Users often turn to Google to answer a quick question, but research suggests that up to 10% of users’ daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic.”

The only 7 ways to coin a brand name

According to Christopher Johnson, Ph.D., linguist at the University of California at Berkeley, a consultant with Lexicon Branding, and the author of “Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little,” they are:

1. Reapply an existing word or phrase (Apple, Yahoo, Amazon, Greyhound, BlackBerry, Constant Contact, 3 Musketeers, Back to Basics, Flikr, Tumblr, CoolPix).
2. Combine two words (YouTube, WordPress, Juicy Fruit).
3. Blend part of one word with another (Pinterest, Febreeze, Nescafe, Pennzoil, Technorati, Rubbermaid, Travelocity).
4. Add a prefix or a suffix to an existing word (Slurpee, iTunes, Friendster, Q-tips).
5. Create a word from arbitrary syllables (Xerox, Advil, Exxon, LEGO).
6. Make a play on words (Hobby Lobby, Toys ‘R’ Us, Bubble Yum, Head & Shoulders, Lean Cuisine).
7. Invent an acronym (IBM, CBS, Alcoa, Geico).

10 keywords that readers avoid

From the Marketing Words Copywriting Blog: Here are 10 words often used in email subject lines that, according to research, are more likely to influence readers to delete your message than to open it.

• Only
• Learn
• Report
• Today
• Webinar
• Get
• Register
• Don’t Miss
• Re:
• Fw:

How to work with a copywriter: 3 tactics for marketers

From Ritka Puri at The Content Strategist: 

With the rise of branded content, many marketers find that they have a new management challenge — working with writers. After all, it’s a unique breed. Decent writers know the rules, but great writers are willing to bend them a bit. They’re idea machines who bring a breath of fresh air to brand content that no press release could ever come close to matching. 

But content marketers and brand strategists often aren’t used to working with writers — and many writers are wholly unfamiliar with a corporate environment. Here are a few guidelines for efficiently managing the marketer-writer relationship so that everyone’s better-served and more productive.

How to proofread your copy effectively and efficiently

From Mark Nichol at Ragan's:

Proofreading is the last line of defense for quality control in print and online publishing. Be sure to conduct a thorough proofread of all documents before they are printed for distribution and of all Web pages before they go live, using these guidelines.

Yes, proofreading is boring.  It's also professional. And that's what count.

Why your content should always include a call to action

From Sonia Simone at Copyblogger: 

This is the one that will make you feel like you’re an infomercial when you’re doing it, but to your audience it will seem entirely natural and normal. 

When you want your audience to take a particular action (like calling you, signing up for your list, or clicking the Add to Cart button), tell them exactly what to do. 

It’s worth paying attention to how infomercials handle this. Normally the message is “Call 1-800-CHEESE-ME” which is emphasized with repetition (see above). You’ll often find that at the end of the infomercial, you can repeat the phone number yourself by heart, it’s been so clearly and frequently re-stated. 

Subtlety is a lousy quality in a call to action. Make it unmistakably clear, make it prominent, and don’t be scared to repeat it.

How empathy can improve your storytelling skills

From Anna Li at Poynter.:

“Journalists naturally need to be empathetic,” Leticia Britos Cavagnaro told Poynter via Skype. Britos Cavagnaro, adjunct faculty at Stanford School of Engineering’s Technology Ventures Program and associate director of National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), co-teaches the d.school’s creativity and innovation class with Tina Seelig. Most people come to a “story with an idea, a perspective or a hypothesis,” she said; being empathetic means having the “ability to talk to someone and really let go of those preconceptions.” 

The goal of empathy is to gain insight or “put myself in the shoes of the other person or the many different stakeholders,” Britos Cavagnaro said. Use empathy by asking open-ended questions and actively listening to uncover people’s needs and motivations. Asking “Why?” often is effective. 

Northwestern University Knight Lab’s Miranda Mulligan said in an in-person interview that it’s important to challenge your assumptions and test whether they’re valid. 

Ask yourself: What would my audience like to know?

3 reasons why good writing is important to your social media success

From Lauren Mikove at Social Media Today:

1. Passive verbs and sentence structures add unnecessary words to your posts and make them longer. Statistically, shorter posts generate higher engagement. If you don't mind a longer post, tidying up your tenses makes room for additional information.
2. Active verbs make your writing more direct and exciting, and your calls to action clearer.
3. Subject agreement eliminates confusion. Yes, we may know what you intended to say, but subject confusion will make many fans re-read a post. Confusion drives down engagement in the form of retweets, favorites, likes and shares. (Although it might earn a comment or two from grammar-conscious folks.)

5 reasons why a story is better than a list

Andy Crestodina makes his case at Copyblogger:

Our minds are wired for stories. They are fundamental to human experience and understanding. When’s the last time you read a list that made you laugh or cry?

1. Stories create a feeling of discovery. They can surprise and delight readers. Andrew Stanton of Pixar tells us in his TED Talk to “Make the audience put things together. Don’t give them four. Give them 2+2.
2. Stories have conflict and resolution. This structure creates suspense and holds readers’ attention.
3. Stories have characters. This humanizes the topic through voice and personality.
4. Stories make people care. By answering the all-important why questions, stories have the power to inspire readers. Why do you do what you do? Why do you love it?
5. Stories allow the reader to empathize. This creates a connection between the audience and the content that is otherwise impossible.

My take: Surprising and delighting audiences is all well and good. You can make them laugh. You can make them cry. But if your stories fail to contribute to selling them something, then you are going to have a very short life as a copywriter for paying clients. Lists sell better than stories. The exception is the case study, which can (when properly designed) convert prospects into customers.

Stop writing for Google and start writing for people

Arnie Kuenn at the Content Marketing Institute blogs:

First and foremost, your website content should always be written to provide value for your audience. If you’re still writing for search engines, you may be making the following errors:

• Focusing on high-volume keywords: If you’re a little fish in the sea of your industry, it doesn’t make sense to compete against the big sharks. Small businesses have a much harder time gaining traction with high-volume keywords, as the competition is so fierce. To overcome this, focus on long-tail keywords (keyword phrases with three or more words) that still have a respectable search volume.

• Elevating your keyword density: When it comes to keywords, less can be more. Stuffing keywords into every other sentence may have worked in the past, but now, it’s definitely frowned upon. Add keywords where it makes sense, but don’t focus on achieving a certain density percentage.

• Creating content in “production mode:” Many businesses say that producing enough content is one of their top challenges but, again, “less” can sometimes offer more when it comes to creating content. Churning out content left and right isn’t sustainable and will most likely result in mediocre content, at best. Instead, focus on creating fewer content pieces that are of higher quality, and build that evergreen content for more durable reach and engagement.

How to write a headline that demands attention ... in two steps

Let’s start with Rule No. 1: Make your copy looks like news, and not like traditional advertising.

People are conditioned to seek out news.  If your copy looks like advertising, they are more likely to ignore it.

The research bears this out. “If you make them look like editorial pages,” advertising icon David Ogilvy said, “you will attract about 50 per cent more readers.”

How do readers tell the difference between news and advertising? The layout says a lot. So does the choice of photos, graphics and other images.

But the most important element is the headline. Write a great news headline and you will capture your audience. Write a bad one and you will never recover.

So how do we write a great news headline?

As the creative director for Reader’s Digest, Tony Antin studied the art of headline writing for 30 years. He broke the process down into two steps.

1. What you will say.
2. How you will say it.

What you will say

• Imagine the ideal customers you want to reach. The more specific, the better.
• Now imagine that two or three of these ideal customers are discussing the problem you want to address. How can you enter that conversation? What can you show them that solves their problem? Are they likely to agree with you? Are they likely to believe you? Will they view what you offer as something they want right now?
• Focus on what is immediately meaningful to those customers. What are the specific benefits of your product that solves their problems?
• Based on all of this, write down a generic headline that will likely interest those ideal customers. If you get stuck, try using these headline templates:
  • How you can  …
  • Seven ways you can … (Try to keep your list to no more than 10 and no fewer than three.)
  • The best way for you to …
  • Everything you should know about …
  • The secret you should know about …
  • Little known ways for you to …
• The headline should make a promise that resonates with your target audience: “Read this and you will learn how to cure this particular problem that is driving you nuts.”
• Keep it simple. Just say it. Don't get fancy.
• Remember: Marketing is a triage. You can't sell everyone with one piece of copywriting. So identify the folks who are most likely to embrace your product as a solution to their problem – and sell them first.

How you will say it

• Clarity is far more important than cleverness. Focus on saying what you have to say as clearly as possible.
• Try to use no more than 16 words. Be ruthless. If you don’t need a word, cut it.
• Make one of those words a verb. A headline is a sentence, not a label.
• Work in “you” or “your.” This makes it clear that the copy is about the reader, and not the company.

If you want to know more, Copyblogger offers a great (and free) short course on writing headlines.

'Why' is becoming as important as 'when'

From Jonathan Stray at Nieman Journalism Lab:

Interpretation: analysis, explanation, context, or “in-depth” reporting. Journalists are increasingly in the business of supplying meaning and narrative. It no longer makes sense to say that the press only publishes facts. 

New research shows this change very clearly. In 1955, stories about events outnumbered other types of front page stories nearly 9 to 1. Now, about half of all stories are something else: a report that tries to explain why, not just what.

This is an interesting development for both the brand journalist and the traditional publicist. It means reporters are no longer as "event driven" as in the past. The why in the 5Ws and the H is becoming as important as the when.

For brand journalists, this means there is a growing audience for explaining the more detailed, more nuanced, more analytical story that explains the why.

For publicists, if offers more opportunity to break into the mainstream media with stories that offer analysis and with third-party experts who can answer the why.

How to (brilliantly) employ an infographic to tell a how-to story that makes a hero of your client's product

Here's a example of "news you can use" that presents the story as an infographic.

The subject is "how to slim your wallet." It offers practical advice to men for getting rid of that ridiculous bulge in our back pockets.  And it packages this information in a four-beat story line.

But the star of the show is the company's product: a slimmer wallet with a better design for access.

Take a look.

How to speed up the approval process to post copy in real time

Shankar Gupta says on the Fast Company blog: 

Real-time can’t be run by a committee. When looking to take advantage of a major media event, identify someone on your team to make the call on whether the risk is worth the potential reward. This will help expedite the approval process without having to enter multiple rounds. That person needs to be immediately accessible and empowered to make decisions, so that content can go live--and as quickly as possible. 

Using the same approval that you use to approve traditional ads simply won’t work for real-time content creation. By establishing a faster pathway for time-sensitive content, you can help your brand build that relevance.

How to make your writing easy to read

How to write for easier reading from Rusty Cawley

OK, so not everyone can write as well as Hemingway. But if you can converse in English, you can learn to write to the level of an above-average U.S. newspaper reporter. It’s a matter of discipline. If you follow a handful of principles set down by readability expert Robert Gunning in the 1950s, you can master the craft of writing clearly.

Infodeck: The only goal of your lead paragraph

Copy Makeover No. 2: Restaurants.com from Rusty Cawley

Here's a news release with a story that might actually attract attention from a TV crew or a feature writer or even a news photographer. But the C-Suites insisted on putting their fingerprints all over this one. Typically, they have buried the interesting parts of the story under a ton of useless corporate debris. Today, this poor abused release gets a makeover.