"89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases"

Lesson #32:  Headline Mistake #4--Jargon, acronyms
                            and abbreviations

Try to guess what the following acronyms stand for:

DMP and PICA

GNI

AA (Hint: It has nothing to do with alcohol)

OSS

Unless you work at the companies that issued these press releases, or unless you work in the industries they're in, you probably wouldn't know. Yet I saw all those abbreviations in press releases that were posted online, and they made my eyes glaze over. I found DMP and PICA in the same headline.

Headline Mistake #4: Acronyms, abbreviations and jargon makes it difficult for readers to understand what the headline is referring to. And confused readers don't bother hanging around. They simply bail out.

Jargon--industry-specific phrases that only people in that industry can understand--is rampant in press releases. If you work in the industrial engineering sector, for example, and you're writing a release that you want people in other industries to read, most of them probably won't know what "interoperability issues," "network protocols" and "control variables" mean. 

Unless you're optimizing a press release for industry-specific phrases like those, avoid industry jargon.

Opportunity #32: A holiday you're declaring

Did you know you can create your own holiday, or your own day, week or month of the year, then piggyback great story ideas off of it? I'll show you how in "Special Report #45: How to Generate National Publicity from Your Own Holiday (or Day, Week or Month of the Year)."      


Tomorrow:  The last mistake you shouldn't make 

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Lesson 31

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