COM 295T Wk 2 – Practice: Planning a Persuasive Message 

Planning a Persuasive Message

Gaining attention. The first task of most persuasive messages is to gain the attention of your readers. You can do this in a variety of ways, including asking a rhetorical question, providing a compelling or interesting fact, providing a compelling statistic, issuing a challenge, or posting a testimonial. For internal persuasive messages, the primary means of gaining attention is demonstrating a business need—a gap between what is and what could be.

Describing a need, giving a solution, and providing a rationale. Once you’ve stated the need, you may describe your solution, which is a recommended product, service, or idea. Many readers will remain skeptical unless you provide convincing support. So, you will need to provide a strong rationale, meaning solid reasons why your product, service, or idea really benefits them.

Show appreciation for other views. At some point in the body of the message, you should validate your readers by showing appreciation for their views and preferences. Validation implies that you recognize and appreciate others’ needs, wants, ideas, and preferences as legitimate and reasonable.

Give counterpoints. Traditionally, communicators overcame the objections of their audiences by providing counterpoints to any of the audience members’ objections. Overcoming objections with counterpoints, however, is risky in the post-trust era. This approach may unnecessarily carry a me-versus-you tone and delegitimize the readers’ concerns. Consider whether providing counterpoints provides more benefits than costs.

Provide a call to action. You conclude persuasive messages with a call to action, which asks your readers to take a specific step toward the purchase of a product or service or acceptance of an idea. However, a call to action should not be a hard sell; pressuring others is increasingly ineffective in the post-trust era.

Tone is particularly important for persuasive messages. Since your audience holds resistance to you or your message, any indication that your message is self-serving or manipulative will increase that resistance. You should aim for a positive, confident, and other-oriented tone. To do this, you can apply the following strategies: apply the personal touch, use action-oriented and lively language, write with confidence, offer choice, and be positive.

Apply the personal touch. You can apply a personal touch in several ways by personalizing the message and using you-voice. You can also do so by making statements tangible. By definition, tangible means that something can be touched; it is material or substantial. In a business communications context, making the statement tangible implies that the readers can discern something in terms that are meaningful to them. This allows the reader to sense the impact on a personal level. Often, you can achieve a tangible feel by combining you-voice with specificity.

Use action-oriented and lively language. In persuasive messages, you have somewhat more license to write creatively. Focus on using action-oriented and lively words to achieve a sense of excitement, optimism, or other positive emotions. Use strong nouns and verbs to add to the excitement of the message. Some sales messages sound dull because of overuse and reliance on words such as "provide" and "offer." Across the entire message or thought, the action-oriented and lively language should emphasize a central theme.

Write with confidence. As you display more confidence in your idea, your product, or your service, you can more effectively influence your audience. Effective persuaders provide compelling and simple reasons for action.

Offer choice. In the post-trust era (PTE), customers and clients consider choice an indicator of credibility. They view simple language (not implying lack of sophisticated knowledge) as a display of transparency and respect. In contrast, they view overly complex language as potentially deceptive. Similarly, effective persuasive messages avoid statements that may be perceived as pressure tactics. Hard sells are increasingly ineffective in a PTE, especially in written format.

Be positive. Positivity in persuasive messages helps your audience focus on the benefits rather than the drawbacks of what you are trying to promote.

Read the case below and answer the questions that follow.

Assume that you work in a human resources department. Recently, a small earthquake struck near the headquarters of your company. Although there were no injuries and little damage, your company president thinks that all employees should be more prepared for a major earthquake. In her words, “you never know when we’ll get the big one.” She has asked you to promote some earthquake preparedness workshops.

So far, you’ve drafted the following message:

SUBJECT: Prepare Now!

Dear employees:

As you know, this area is prone to earthquakes. We often get complacent. But, that’s the wrong attitude because being unprepared can actually get people killed. In the last big earthquake 20 years ago, at least 15 deaths were due to poor preparation.

In order to better prepare for the “big one,” I invite you to attend one of the two-hour workshops we’ve set up. Our company president has generously scheduled these workshops to include meals (breakfast or lunch). In addition, she has decided that she will donate $100 to the Red Cross for each employee who attends the workshops. So, do you want to hold the company back from donating $100 for a good cause?

The two-hour workshops will include a lot of helpful information. These workshops will be fun and engaging.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.