Let customers, clients, kids & more make your point for you
When Allstate Foundation launched a teen-driving summit to help reduce the number of teenagers killed in car crashes, the company’s PR pros started the press release like this:
Mourning the loss of loved ones isn’t the only thing these teens have in common. They’re on a mission, along with 44 other teen leaders from across the country, to take on the No. 1 killer of teens — car crashes — through a teen movement they’re leading called “Keep the Drive”’ funded by The Allstate Foundation.
Nearly 6,000 teens die each year in car crashes, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Crashes cause more teen deaths each year than drugs, violence or suicide. Other than the summer (May through August), October is the deadliest month for teen drivers.
To reduce the statistics, the national teen leaders are participating in “Keep the Drive U.S.A.”…,
Show me one.
Need to call attention to a problem or issue? Don’t lead with the numbers. Find a “poster person” — a single human being who can stand for your point.
Writing a good human-interest story focused on an individual or group of people can raise awareness about your product, service, program or idea. No wonder news reporters use this technique when writing news stories about natural disasters and other issues.
Whether you’re writing a social media post or a piece for another channel, human-interest feature stories can make your point. That’s what Allstate and other Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil winners did in these award-winning campaigns.
Let Grammy sell knee replacements.
To introduce the first replacement knee for women, Zimmer Inc. ran a campaign that included a series of patient stories like “‘Grammy’ Back to Babysitting Now that Knee Pain Is Gone.” It started like this:
It was all that much sweeter because Eileen couldn’t have zipped up those stairs a few months earlier. Eileen, 68, had such pain in her right knee that the things she loved most, including babysitting for her grandchildren, going to the theater and dinner with friends, and even walks in the park had become impossible. …
Let patients sell VA centers.
When the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center needed to improve its image among community members and employees, communicators developed a campaign that included a series of patient profiles. One included this passage:
“The next thing I know,” says the Phoenix resident, “I’m waking up with the medic pressing a bandage to my head.”
Hilliard is lucky to be alive. …
Let people stand for policies.
When Barb Farson, corporate communications manager for Ball Corporation, needed to communicate a change in the organization’s volunteer policy, she could have boiled the life out of the story with a hierarchical blurtation of facts.
Instead, she brought the story to life with one employee:
Smith volunteers more than 250 hours a year with Second Harvest — hours of his free time, off the clock, donated to the cause.
Until now.
Through the Ball Community Ambassador program, Smith now earns $20 per hour for his volunteer hours, which he, in turn, donates back to the soup kitchen. Last year, Ball employees logged more than 18,000 volunteer hours to support causes of their choice. At $20 per hour or $36,000, that’s enough for one food bank to purchase 500,000 meals for hungry families in the 40 communities where Ball operates.
Let people stand for products.
When Gary Burris, national sales manager, Tec Laboratories, needed to promote a new product, he could have lead with the lame “Tec Labs recently announced the launch of its new blah blah blah.” He could have smothered the human interest story in a phrase like “a nightmare ordeal with head lice.”
Instead, he drew readers in with the story of the creator’s moment of inception:
Wendy Langley sat at the dinner table and caressed her daughter’s head and tried desperately to calm her. But there was no calm, only chaos.
Moments earlier, Langley, a confident, single mom, followed the directions on a popular everyday product from the drug store and poured a watery substance that smelled like bug spray onto her child’s tender scalp. Even with tiny Amanda holding a large folded towel to her forehead, some of the burning liquid seeped into her eyes.
That nightmare prompted the young mother to set a course that would eventually flip the lice industry on its head.
“All I could think about was the number of parents out there who were facing the same horrible ordeal that I did,” said Langley.
She became empowered by the desire to help her daughter, and the millions of parents looking for a non-toxic and safe alternative to killing head lice.
Find a poster person.
It’s The Writing Rule of One: Your readers care more about one person they know something about than dozens or hundreds of nameless, faceless souls.
So find a person to stand for your point.
Whether you’re writing to clients and customers, employees, the community or members, how can you find a poster person to put a face on your position?
How can you tell better business stories?
Stories are so effective that Og Mandino, the late author of the bestselling The Greatest Salesman in the World, says, “If you have a point, find a story.”
Learn to find, develop and write stories that engage readers’ hearts and minds at Master the Art of Storytelling, our content-writing training workshop.
There, you’ll learn how to find the aha! moment that’s the gateway to every anecdote. How to start an anecdote with a bang — instead of a whimper. And how to use “the most powerful form of human communication” to grab attention, boost credibility, make messages more memorable and communicate better.
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