Writing Persuasive Messages

Successful businesses rely on persuasive messages in both internal and external communication.
Whether youre trying to convinve your boss to open anew office in Europe or encourage your
potential customers to try your products, you need to call on your abilities of persuasion the
attempt to change your an audiences attitudes, beliefs, or actions.
Successful professionals understand that persuasion is not about trickery or getting people to
make choices that arent in their best interests; rather, persuasion lets your audience members
know they have a choice and helps them choose to agree with you.
The best persuasive messages are closely

connected to audience members desires and interests.

consider their needs and motivstions(the reasons they might reaspond favorably to your
message.
their concerns and objections (the reasons they might not respond favorably.

With these insights as giudes, you can work to find common ground with your audience while
emphasizing positive points and minimizing negative ones.
To understand and categorize audience needs, you can refer to specific inofrmation such as:

demographics( the age, gender, occupation, income, education and other quantifiable
characteristics of the people yourre trying to persuade).
psychographics (personality, attitudes, lifestyle and psychological characteristics.
consider cultural expectations- so that you dont undermine your persuasive message by
using an an inappropriate appeal or by organizing your message in a way that seems
unfamiliar or uncomfortable to your audience.

Developing Persuasive Messages

A. Get your readers attention
Open with an audience benefit, a stimulating question, a problem, or an unexpected
statement.
Establish common gorund by mentioning a point on which you and your audience agree.
Show that you understand your audiences concern.
B. Build your readers interest
Expand and support your opening claim or promise
Emphasize the relevance of your message to your audience

C. Increase your readers desire

Make audience members want to change by explaining how the change will benefit them.
Back up your claims with relevant evidence.
D. Motivate your reader to take action
Suggest the action you want readers to take
Stress the positive results of the action
Make the desired action clear and easy
E. Balance emotional and logical appeals
Use emotional appeals to help the audience accept your message
Use logical appeals when presenting facts and evidence for complex ideas or
recommendations
Avoid faulty logic
Generally, persuasive messages rely more on logical appeals than on emotional appeals
E. Reinforce your position
Provide additional evidence of the benefits of your proposal and your own credibility in
offering it.
Use abstractions, metaphors and other figures of speech to bring facts and figures to life.
G. Anticipate objections
Anticipate and answer potential objections
Present the pros and cons of all options if you anticipate a hostile reaction
Example : Proposal Using the Direct Approach
To: housel@ath.auburn.edu.
Cc:
Subject: Proposal to Save on Toll-Free Number. (Uses the subject line to announce the nature of
the message (proposal) and a compelling benefit to the reader (saving money)
Dear David,
I have learned that we can save money,time,a nd frustration with a simple modification to our
toll-free message system. Currently, the bill for our toll-free number at the ticket office runs at
least $3,000 for August (compared with $439 on average for the other 11 months). Plus, were so
busy fielding calls during August that our other work piles up. In addition, Tiger fans who call in
August are frustrated by having to wait on hold at least five minutes and often longer. (Follows
the opening statement with a summary of the problem she proposes to solve.)

By providing callers with an additional option, we can relive a lot of pressure. Under the new
system, callers will hear all the same messages and have all the same options as before. But if no
operator is available when a caller presses 0 for ticket information, a new message will request
the callers name and and phone number so that we can return the call within the next two
business days. (Describes the solution in enough detail to help the reade to imagine how it will
work)
This new message system will help us in multiple ways:
Save money on our toll-free line
Manage our time and stress levels
Provide better customer service
(Buils interest in the solution by highlighting key
key benefits in a bulleted list and then provides
additional detail)
Reducing the on-hold time should eliminate at least $2,000 from our August bill (according to a
conversation with Tandy Robertson, our AT&T representative). Adding a new message option
costs nothing, and we can implement the plan immediately. We will be able to manage our work
more effectively by returning phone calls during quiet times of the day. And, not least important,
Tiger fans can avoid the frustration of waiting on hold.
Our staff is enthusiastic about trying this new plan. If we implement it this August, then after
football season we could call a random selection of customers to see how they liked the new
sysytem. (Motivates the reader with implied endorsement from other people and them asks for
an answer by a specific time).
Ive attached a draft of the possible wording for the new message. Please let me know by the end
of the month whether youd like to give this a try.
Thank you.
regards
Bette