"Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you’ve told them", which my Google AI attributes to Aristotle. True or not, it was always taught to journalists. They have to write faster than copywriters and this simple format made it easier to get their story across. And they also have the benefit of sub-editors (and maybe even AI) to make sure that opening paragraph was a concise summary of the story.
Here, for example, is a story picked at random from The Guardian:
The decision to quit the EU bolstered support for Scottish independence, which a decade after the Brexit referendum is at near record levels, according to Scottish Labour’s former leader Kezia Dugdale.
Dugdale said the Brexit vote “creates a frame around fairness” for many in Scotland because, unlike England, Scottish voters comprehensively backed remain in 2016, by 62% to 38%, yet found their country taken out of Europe.
She also believed the UK government’s embrace of a “hard Brexit” swayed many Scots who had been undecided about Scottish independence when a referendum was held on the issue in 2014.
Support for independence currentlystands at about 50%, reaching 55% in some polls.
See how it works? The first para tells you what you’re going to tell them, and the story itself follows. Watch out for this next time you read a newspaper or website and you’ll see how effective this is.
So as far as writing copy is concerned, the same technique works just as well. In fact, it works even better. I’ve rambled on in other blogs about talking only to the ‘most likely’ to respond. This means you need to focus ruthlessly on the ask, right from the first line. With this format, your opening will have made it clear that this is not just a nice story, but about doing something. It creates an urgency that makes all the difference to the response rate.
It also disciplines the writer into getting to the heart of the story and not being terribly British and polite and letting the immortal phrase I hope you’ll forgive me writing to you like this ever seeing the light of day.
And then you can tell the whole story. All of it. Which takes us to the long v short copy argument which I will delve into another of these blogs. So if you’ve got this far, stick around.