Now THAT’s a headline!

Last week I wrote about crafting a press release that is brief, compelling and spurs the reader on to a desired next step. Today Dassault Systèmes issued a release that isn’t brief but is quite compelling: Entergy Nuclear Expects to Save Up to $1 Million per Day with Dassault Systèmes PLM. Read the release and you’ll discover that Entergy used DS’ products to model a facility before a planned maintenance project. By creating an up-to-date model of the 30 year old facility, maintenance planners were able to scope out every part of the project, which could save Entergy a potential $1 million in replacement power purchases that would be needed if the project ran into unanticipated delays.

It’s like many things related to labor- or cost- or time-saving: how does one quantify something that didn’t happen because of the -saving device? Avoided cost is always hard to measure; as a result, the claims sound forced.

But it’s a perfect headline. DS managed to make the headline about the customer, made a very compelling claim, and provided press contact information. The only thing I would have done differently is provide a better link so that interested buyers would have easy access to follow-on info such as a white paper or information on DS’ nuclear energy-specific offerings. Providing the overall corporate URL and press contacts means that interested parties will have to dig too hard for info and will likely give up.