Here’s a test we run on every single piece of news before it goes anywhere near a reporter.
Write the headline you’d hope to see. Not the press release headline. The one a reporter would actually put on the story.
The Headline Ceiling is the idea that a story can only go as high as the best headline you can imagine for it. If the best you can come up with is “Company X Launches Product Y,” you’ve hit the ceiling. And right now, that ceiling is a trade announcement.
Why this test works
Reporters think in headlines. When they read your pitch, they’re quietly asking two things: can I see this story on my site, and would my editor say yes to it?
If the headline in their head is boring, the pitch is over. Doesn’t matter how good the rest of the email is.
So we do that step for them, before we ever pitch. If we can’t write a headline we’d click on ourselves, we keep working on the story.
What raising the ceiling looks like
A job search site we work with had proprietary data on high-paying jobs. “Job site releases new job market data” is a headline with a very, very low ceiling.
The same data, read closely, showed remote jobs were getting scarce at the top of the pay scale. Bloomberg ran it as a story telling people earning $200,000 or more to forget about remote work.
Same company. Same data. Totally different ceiling. The second headline tells a specific group of readers something about their own lives.
Four ways to raise yours
- Name the people it affects. “Parents,” “nurses” and “people earning $200,000” beat “users” and “the market” every time.
- Put the number in the headline. A real, specific number does more work than any adjective.
- Find the tension. Two things that shouldn’t both be true, but are, almost always make a better headline.
- Take your company name out. If the headline still works without it, it’s a story. If it falls apart, it’s an announcement.
And no, this doesn’t mean the company disappears from the coverage. The job site was cited throughout. It just showed up as the source of something interesting, which is a much better place to be than the subject of something that isn’t.
For more on what makes a headline land, check out our MINUTES framework.
Want a second set of eyes on your next announcement? Book a call with us. We’ll tell you exactly what we’d dig for.
FAQ
What is the Headline Ceiling?
The Headline Ceiling is Notably’s term for the idea that a story can only go as high as the best headline you can imagine for it. If the best possible headline is “Company X Launches Product Y,” the story is capped at a trade announcement.
How do you write a press release headline reporters want?
Write the headline a reporter would put on the story, not a company announcement. Name the people it affects, include a specific number, look for a tension, and test whether the headline still works with your company name taken out.
Why do reporters ignore press releases?
Often because they can’t picture a headline their readers would click. Reporters decide quickly whether they can see a story on their site and whether their editor would approve it. A release that only supports a product-launch headline rarely clears that bar.
Does taking the company name out of the headline hurt the company?
No. The company still gets cited in the coverage, usually as the source of the data or insight. Being the source of an interesting story gets more attention than being the subject of an uninteresting one.