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Business and Technical English Writing

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Lesson#18

Writing Persuasive Messages

Motivating with persuasive messages:

•The business meaning of persuasion is the influencing an audience by information them

aiding their understanding – the audience is free to chose.

•Ethical business people inform customers of the benefits of a product or an action so that

customers can recognize how well that product or action will fill a need they truly have.

•Persuasive messages aim to influence audiences who are inclined to resist, so they

depend heavily on strategic planning.

•Before you begin to write a persuasive message, ask yourself what you’re writing about,

who you’re writing to, and what you want to happen as a result.

•When writing persuasive messages, four things to keep in mind about your audience are:

–Needs and appeals

–Emotion and logic

–Credibility

–Semantics

Needs and Appeals:

•Not everyone is interested in economy, for instance, or fair play.

•Some people’s innermost needs make appeals to status and greed much more effective.

•To accommodate these individual differences, analyze the members of your audience and

then construct a message that appeals to their needs.

Emotion and Logic:

•Although emotional issues can be a pitfall for persuasive messages, you can actually call

on human emotion, as long as your emotional appeal is subtle.

•You can make use of the emotion surrounding certain words, for instance, freedom brings

forth strong feelings, as do words such as success, prestige, credit record, etc.

Credibility:

• ways of gaining credibility are:

Being enthusiastic: Your excitement about the subject of your message can infect your

audience.

Being sincere. Your honest, genuineness, good faith, and truthfulness helps you focus on

your audience’s needs.

Being an expert. Your knowledge of your message’s subject area (or even of some other

area) helps you give your audience the quality information necessary to make a decision.

Having good intentions. Your willingness to keep your audience’s best interest at heart

helps you create persuasive messages that are ethical.

Being trustworthy. Your honesty and dependability help you earn your audience’s respect.

Establishing common ground. Your beliefs, attitudes, and background experiences that are

like those of your audience help them identify with you.

Semantics:

•The words you choose to state your message say much more than their dictionary

definitions.

•For instance, useful, beneficial, and advantageous may be considered synonyms,

yet these three words are not interchangeable.

Organizing persuasive messages:

•Persuasion requires the indirect approach.

•One specialized version is the AIDA plan, which has four phases

–Attention

–Interest

–Desire

–Action

Writing Persuasive Request for Action:

•In an organization, persuasive techniques are often required to get someone to

change policies or procedures, to spend money on new equipment and service to

promote a person or to protect turf.

•The attention-getting device at the beginning of a persuasive request for action usually

shows the reader that you know something about his or her concerns and that you have

some reason for making such a request.

•In this type of persuasive message, more than in most others, flattering comment about the

reader is acceptable, especially if it is sincere.

Writing Sales Letters:

•Making a false statement in a sales letter is fraud if the recipient can prove

–That your intent was to deceive

–That you made the statement regarding a fact rather than an opinion or a speculation

–That the recipient was justified in relying on the statement

–That the recipient was damaged by it

•Using a person’s name, photograph, or other identity in a sales letter without permission

constitutes invasion of privacy – with some exceptions.

•Using a photo of the members of a local softball team in a chamber of commerce mailer

may be perfectly legal if team members are public figures in the community.

Planning Sales Letters:

•The three steps involved in planning a sales letter are similar to those involved in planning

any other persuasive message

–Determine the main idea (in sales letters, it revolves around a selling point and related

benefits)

–Define the audience

–Choose the approach and format

Determining Selling Points and Benefits:

•Selling points are the most attractive features of a product; consumer benefits

are the particular advantages that buyers will realize from those features.

Defining the Audience:

•Marketers seek to define consumer in terms of

–Demographics: age, gender, occupation, income, and education

–Psychographics: personality, attitudes, and lifestyle

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