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9: Writing Persuasive Messages
9-1
CHAPTER 9: WRITING PERSUASIVE MESSAGES
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Chapter 9 focuses on writing effective persuasive messages by applying the three-step writing
process introduced in earlier chapters. The messages addressed in this chapter are often more
suitable for the indirect approach, but most persuasive messages go beyond the indirect approach
used for negative messages. This chapter introduces the AIDA model, a more intense plan for
persuasive messages in which a writer grabs the audience’s attention and proceeds to develop
interest and desire before the close motivates the audience to take action. Readers also learn how
to distinguish between emotional and logical appeals and how to balance them in their writing.
Four common mistakes in persuasive writing are also discussed. Whether the employee needs to
write a persuasive request for action or a persuasive claim for adjustment, this chapter provides
creating effective persuasive messages.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Using the Three-Step Writing Process for Persuasive Messages
Step 1: Planning Persuasive Messages
Analyzing the Situation
Gathering Information
Organizing Your Information
Step 2: Writing Persuasive Messages
Step 3: Completing Persuasive Messages
Developing Persuasive Business Messages
Framing Your Arguments
Balancing Emotional and Logical Appeals
Reinforcing Your Position
Anticipating Objections
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TEACHING NOTES
Because persuasive messages ask audiences to give something of value (money in exchange for a
product, for example) or take substantial action (such as changing a corporate policy), they are
more challenging to write than routine messages.
four tasks in the planning step:
1. Analyzing the Situation
The best persuasive messages are closely connected to your audience’s desires and
Who is my audience?
What are my audience members’ needs?
To understand and categorize audience needs, you can refer to specific information, such
audience’s cultural expectations and practices.
If you aim to change someone’s attitudes, beliefs, or actions, it is vital to understand his
2. Gathering Information
message (Chapter 10 instructs you how to find this information).
3. Selecting the Right Combination of Medium and Channel
Media choices are always important, of course, but these decisions are particularly
unwelcome.
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audience.
4. Organizing Your Information
Most persuasive messages use an indirect approach. Explain your reasons and build
When writing your message you should:
Use positive and polite language.
Understand and respect cultural differences.
Persuasive messages are often unexpected or even unwelcome, so the “you” attitude is crucial.
Some of the best ways to gain credibility include:
Using simple language
Providing objective evidence for the claims and promises you make
Identifying your sources
When completing persuasive messages, you must make sure that you:
Judge your argument objectively and try not to overestimate your credibility.
Carefully match the purpose and organization to audience needs.
Developing Persuasive Business Messages
One’s success in business is related to an ability to convince others to accept new ideas, change
old habits, or act on your recommendations.
Persuasive business messages are designed to elicit a preferred response in a nonsales situation.
Effective persuasion involves four strategies:
Framing your arguments
Balancing emotional and logical appeals
Reinforcing your position
Anticipating objections
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When framing a persuasive argument, effective businesspeople use the AIDA model:
Attention. Your first objective is to encourage your audience to want to hear about your
problem, idea, or new product—whatever your main idea is. Be sure to find some
When using the AIDA model, you can:
There are two limitations to the AIDA model:
First, AIDA is a unidirectional method that essentially talks at audiences, not with them.
An emotional appeal calls on feelings or audience sympathies.
Remember that people need to find rational support for an attitude they’ve already embraced
A logical appeal uses one of three types of reasoning:
Analogy: reasoning from specific evidence to specific evidence
Be sure to avoid faulty logic, especially the following:
Hasty generalizations: have plenty of evidence before drawing conclusions
Circular reasoning: supporting claims by restating them using different words
Attacking opponents: focus on the argument, not the person
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After the basic elements are complete, consider how you can reinforce your position. If you
Writers of powerful persuasive messages have anticipated many objections and addressed them
If you’re addressing a hostile audience, be sure to present all sides of the situation and present
When developing your persuasive message, avoid these common mistakes:
Using a hard sell
Resisting compromise
Relying solely on great arguments
Assuming that persuasion is a one-shot effort
Common Examples of Persuasive Business Messages
When writing persuasive requests for action, you want to:
Begin with an attention-getting device (showing readers you know something of their
concerns).
When writing persuasive requests for action, your goals are to gain credibility (for yourself and
your request) and make your readers believe that helping you will indeed help solve a significant
problem.
To craft persuasive requests for action, you’ll want to:
Use the interest and desire sections of your message to demonstrate that you have good
Close with a request for some specific action, once you’ve demonstrated that your
Some persuasive messages aren’t action-oriented; you might need to change attitudes or beliefs
about particular topics. At times, you may need to be persuasive in presenting your ideas to get
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When writing persuasive claims and requests for adjustment, you want to:
Begin by stating the basic problem.
Developing Marketing and Sales Messages
Marketing messages usher potential buyers through the purchasing process without asking them
Marketing messages focus on:
Introducing new brands to the public
Sales messages make a specific request for people to place an order for a particular product or
service.
Basic strategies to consider when planning marketing and sales messages:
Assessing audience needs
As with every other business message, successful marketing and sales messages start with an
understanding of audience needs.
When writing conventional marketing and sales messages, the AIDA model (or some variation
Writing Promotional Messages for Social Media
Conversation marketing occurs when companies initiate and facilitate conversations in a
networked community of customers, journalists, bloggers, and other interested parties.
To write persuasive messages for social media, follow these guidelines:
Facilitate community building.
Listen at least as much as you talk.
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Creating Promotional Messages for Mobile Devices
Companies today are emphasizing mobile marketing because mobile devices play such a large
role in consumer buying behavior. Smartphone owners use their devices to search for product
Maintaining High Ethical and Legal Standards
Because the concept of persuasion is often associated with dishonesty and unethical practices,
you must strive for high ethical standards to overcome this stigma.
The best businesspeople make persuasion a positive activity, influencing the members of their
audience by:
Providing information and aiding understanding
Allowing the audience the freedom to choose
Pay close attention to the following legal aspects of marketing and sales communication:
Marketing and sales messages must be truthful and nondeceptive.
You must back up your claims with evidence.
Before launching a marketing or sales campaign, make sure you are up to date on the latest
regulations on spam (unsolicited bulk mail), customer privacy, and data security.
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OVERCOMING DIFFICULTIES STUDENTS OFTEN FACE
The limited business experience of many students will increase the challenge of writing effective
persuasive messages. Conducting a careful audience analysis will be essential as students prepare
Engage students in a discussion of using the direct or the indirect approach for persuasive letters.
Gauging audience needs must go beyond what the students themselves assess as important. Some
students may approach sales letters by writing about what would “sell” them on a product or
The messages students have previously written for this class did not necessarily require that they
Most students will have experience with persuasive arguments that focus almost entirely on
When challenged to appeal to an audience’s logic, using analogy, induction, and deduction will
Students often face challenges when applying the AIDA model. For some, composing an
effective attention-getting opening will be as challenging as writing an effective buffer. Some
students also have difficulty providing sufficient, well-organized information to build interest
Assist students in differentiating between selling points (e.g., product or service features) and
Students will often question how persuasive claims and requests for adjustment differ from the
Legality and ethics issues always present challenges in the study of persuasive writing. Involve
students in a discussion of how consumers can be deceived and what legal and ethical
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SUGGESTED CLASSROOM EXERCISES
1. Examining persuasive sales messages. A week before you present this chapter, ask students
effective way to examine both the similarities in various persuasive documents and the
2. Learning how business writers prepare successful persuasive messages. Invite someone from
considered.
3. Writing an ineffective persuasive message. Invite students to come up with a product or
practices, you will help them increase their mastery of the good ones presented in the
chapter.
4. Critiquing persuasive requests for action and persuasive claims. Provide students with
the Activities section at the end of the chapter.
5. Writing effective message components. Students often benefit from exercises requiring them
portion of the message that deals with the price of a product or service, or just the action
section.
6. Writing persuasive messages. Assign students to write persuasive requests, persuasive
claims, and sales letters. Provide your own scenarios or select from the cases at the end of the
legal and ethical issues, and so forth. Project both below-average and above-average
solutions for each case you assign as in-class writing. Involve students in the critiquing to
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7. Some quick research on spam. Ask students to check the laws in the state they reside in
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
9-1. To gauge the audience’s needs when planning a persuasive message, ask questions such as:
9.1; AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
9-2. Emotional appeals address human feelings by basing the argument on audience needs or
sympathies. Logical appeals address human reason and are supported by reasons or
9-3. Three types of reasoning that work in logical appeals are analogy (reasoning from specific
evidence to specific evidence), induction (reasoning from specific evidence to general
with them; and (2) it’s built around a single event, such as asking an audience for a
decision, rather than on building a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship. (LO 9.2;
AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE
9-6. Persuasive messages are sent to people who are displeased, uninterested, unwilling, and
even hostile; therefore, identifying audience needs and having a specific purpose are
9-7. A “hard sell” approach is unethical if it ignores the best interests of the audience.
Successful professionals understand that persuasion is not about trickery or getting people
