On K.I.S.S.ING – Keeping it simple, stupid!

Time to read: 2 minutes

We keep it brief.

We saw this tweet from Tom Knowles a few weeks ago, and it stayed with us. This type of thing, we see all the time. Paragraphs beyond paragraphs of long, clunky words with no clear explanation as to what they are trying to say. You can spend an age reading a company description that goes around the various powers that be of a company. We know this as we’ve worked in-house, too. Everyone wants to add own perspective to feel like they played a part in creating the copy. But in doing so, adding a long word here and a bit of jargon there, we can lose all sense of what we’re trying to say.

When you work for a company, you can get so immersed in it and its technicalities that coming up with a simple sentence to describe exactly what it does can be hard. We see this a lot in PR, too. When we ask a company for an 800-1000 word article on a chosen subject, it’s easy. It seems to take all day when we ask for a two-sentence reactive comment. And it’s the same for us. For some reason, writing less always takes more.

The Tom Knowles example

Tom is a property reporter at The Times, so we can assume that this is a property company (if the PR has got the pitch right!). But what they actually do is anyone’s guess.

Tom’s a busy man. He needs to sift through hundreds if not thousands of emails daily, looking for the best news stories. All while writing insightful copy under tight deadlines for tomorrow’s paper. He doesn’t have time to read 800-word emails. Tom needs to understand clearly from the outset why this company is great and unique and why he should speak to them.

Think about how you read a news article or blog. If you read the first 100 words and you’re either not interested or can’t see where it’s going, you will switch off and move on to something else. It’s the same with PR pitches. You’ve got to be succinct from the start and clarify why your client is so interesting.

We’ve often questioned if our pitches to journalists can sometimes be too simplistic. So, we go back through them, trying to add fancy adjectives and make things sound more revolutionary than they are. Our clients are paying us to ensure the journalist understands why they are so great and why we think it will make a good story. Translating this 800-word description into two or three easily digestible sentences interests the journalist and makes them want to learn more.

Next time you think about your ‘story’, find the three things that make it unique and interesting and put these points high in your pitch. If you can capture the journalist’s attention in the first two sentences, that’s half the battle won. But, if you’re not entirely sure what these key messages are, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board and start the process again.

You don’t need to give the journalist a life story

Even if it’s about the company or the 30-year career of the chairman.

Should the journalist be interested in the story you’re pitching, they will respond with questions. Keep it clear and to the point, and highlight why it’s interesting in a couple of short sentences. Keep it brief, keep it simple.