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You Can Quote Me
Written by: Henry StimpsonArticle Overview: The art of writing convincing quotes for press releases and other matreials
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Free Download - PR Lessons from the Delphic Oracle By Henry Stimpson |
You Can Quote Me
I cringe
90 percent of the time whenever I read the direct quotes in a press
release. They’re usually so obviously
canned. And dull, dull, dull.
The quote
usually starts, “We’re delighted to….” Tell
us something we didn’t know.
The quote
usually goes downhill from there, meandering into a long paragraph of pallid palaver
no human would speak. Like the recipient
of an Academy Award, the speaker goes on to thank everyone from his mom on down,
anyone who could have this “great success” possible.
It’s too
bad most quotes are so silly. A good
quote or two can advance your cause. Here’s
why.
A good
release should read like a news story and avoid commercialism in the main text—rules
that most releases violate, putting off readers who want information, not a
baloney sandwich.
Quotes—along
with the boilerplate at the end—are the only
places where you can sneak in your marketing message. Since it’s a named person who’s speaking in
the quote, not the impersonal third-person voice of the release, it’s okay to
put in some marketing spin in the quote.
(But for heavens sake, don’t overdo it.)
How can you get a good quote?
Start out
by briefly interviewing the people involved—the key executive or expert at your
organization or client, or, if another organization is an important part of the
story, someone there. Real people
usually say much more interesting things than anything you can make up.
If it’s
not feasible to interview the principals, use a little creativity. Imagine what a living breathing person might have
to say about this exciting, interesting piece of news. Tell readers something they can’t get in the
rest of the release.
Keep ‘em
brief and pithy. One or two sentences
per quote—three tops—is/are plenty.
If you
feel that coming up with a good quote is impossible, just skip it. It’s far
better to have no quotes in a release than inflating it with trite gas.
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About the Author: Henry Stimpson RSS for Henry's articles - Visit Henry's website  He founded Stimpson Communications - http://www.stimpsoncommunications.com - in 1984. The firm’s clients have been covered in The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, USA Today and Fortune, leading trades in various industries, television and radio, and the Web. Previously, he was a spokesman, writer and editor with Commercial Union Insurance Companies and an account executive with Schneider Parker Jakuc Public Relations in Boston. He received his master's degree from Simmons College and his bachelor’s degree from Boston University. Henry holds the Public Relations Society of America’s APR designation. He’s ghostwritten hundreds of articles for clients and has also written on PR, investing and marketing for Boston Business Journal, The Boston Globe, The National Underwriter, Insurance Times, Independent Agent, Professional Agent, Human Resource Executive, Mass High Tech, PR Week, Risk & Insurance, Financial Planning, Financial Services Times, Fidelity Focus, Fidelity Stages and others. He can be reached at henry@stimpsoncommunications.com. Click here to visit Henry's website   Only Words Thoughtleading Is PR and PR is Thoughtleading PR Lessons from the Delphic Oracle Getting the Most Bang for Your PR Buck With an Outsourced Pro Unleash AttentionGetting Power in Your Bio |
Related Forum Posts
Re: Global Moderators
- Hi GT,
In my case, I only have the Report Post and the Quote buttons.
Even more profile options
- Thanks for the suggestions guys - I've now added:
- Favorite Business Quote
- What I Do
- Favorite Hobby
Looking forward to seeing your responses!
Alexa
- Quote from my grandmother "A watched pot will never boil"
How true indeed.
Re: Forum Upgrade
- Sometimes I use the "Quote" function when I want to respond to people... othertimes I just want to copy a single sentence of what they've written... but when I try to do that with my mouse - it doesn't let me.... selects the whole page instead.
Am I the only one having problems with that?
New forum ideas
- Hi Barbara / Kevin,
Nothing should have been changed on the forum posting side - just the sidebar. We didn't touch anything to do with the Quote feature or copy and paste.
I appreciate you bringing this up as we'll need to look at what caused it. Are you both using Internet Explorer / Firefox / something else?
As for the top posters being on the homepage - what is different here is that it's an actual link to that person's homepage so both of you now have a direct link to your site from my homepage - there is only room for 5 and it changes as each new post is put up.
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