Persuasive message are written with the intent to change a reader’s attitude, beliefs, or action in your favor. In business, persuasive messages may involve requests regarding products and services (sales situations), or other non-sales situations such as requests for claims and adjustments, requests for change in policy, for change in performance, or requests for personal contribution. This paper explores the similarities in the recommended techniques for writing persuasive business messages, irrespective of the overall discipline for which the messages are written.
Perhaps the most pervasive discipline in business in which persuasion is required is in sales. The bedrock of sales is persuading your audience to purchase your product or service.
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The University of Washington declares that understanding one 's audience is one of the most important elements of effective communication (Audience Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/ezent/aaaa.htm). Ergo, if you misjudge your audience, crafting winning communications and strategies will be rendered quite difficult, if not impossible. The tailoring of the subsequent tactics all flow from the results of your audience …show more content…
They go on to say, “Although the present study has examined the theory of schema correspondence in one particular setting (advertising), this theory is applicable to any type of persuasive context or message.” So, while audience analysis and adaptation do not guarantee absolute success or eliminate the possibility of errors in judgment, it helps to ensure better choices in topic, language, style of presentation, and other aspects of your message. And these choices result in greater persuasiveness in every domain.
Moreover, Wrench, Goding, Johnson & Attias (n.d.) profess that writing persuasively is, by necessity, a shared activity that involves interaction between writer and audience. In the most successful messages, the writer or speaker creates a relationship with their audience. In addition, Sprague, Stuart & Bodary (2010) take it a bit further by declaring, “Speakers do not give speeches to audiences; they jointly create meaning with
...an is capable of persuading his audience into accepting his simplistic views of the world. He makes it easier to rationalize with his stance by his strategic use of sentence structure and word choice. When analyzing a past speech or interpreting a speech as it is given, upmost priority should be given to analytical tools for analyzing persuasive symbols and language. Whether the topic at hand is motivated by great emotions as it is here or not, the audience can easily be swayed in one direction surprisingly based only on universal comprehension.
Authors and speakers alike use some type of persuasion on their intended audience. They often try to make you agree with their argument before considering other factors. Persuasive writing often has a copious amount of logical fallacies, defined by the Perdue Online Writing Lab as “errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic”, despite that they tend to have success with sympathetic audiences. Wendell Berry’s essay “The Whole Horse” is an example. Berry is likely to persuade his conservationist audience because of his use of emotive language.
In this day and age, persuasion can be seen on almost any screen. The average American views thousands of advertisements every week. Most ads are simply pushed out of a person’s mind, but the successful advertisements are the ones that resonate with people. Some forms of ads are very annoying to those who put up with them constantly. Online pop-up ads, for example, are proven to do worse for products and business than no advertising at all! This is because this form of advertising does nothing to convince or persuade the person viewing the ad, and no effort is put into actually put into proving what it’s worth to make a point. Pop-ads make zero use of something known as “rhetorical devices”. In Julius Caesar, Brutus and Mark Antony both try to convey their point of view to a large audience of Roman citizens. One had a better speech than the other since he used “rhetorical devices” more effectively. Logos (logical; what makes sense), Ethos (ethics and morals; portraying similar beliefs and values), and Pathos (emotions; natural feelings that can be counterintuitive to logos) are the rhetorical devices that Aristotle
Kerbel, Matthew R. (1993). An Empirical Test of the Role of Persuasion in the Exercise of
Purpose Statement: Convince my audience to agree with me, and ask them to write to
My portfolio absolutely reflects my understanding of persuasive writing. Persuasive writing focuses on the ability to formulate an essay that takes an argumentative stance, but takes the opposition into consideration as well. My portfolio also represents the goals and objectives of persuasive writing. The essays I have written for this course demonstrate that I have certainly developed my critical thinking skills, and developed, or better yet, mastered my communication and personal responsibility skills; but, because of my occasional lack of analysis and issues with word choice, my writing process is not perfected.
1.) Rank’s easy-to-use, analytical tool is called the intensify/downplay model, and its goal is to help you to become more critical and analytical receivers. It defines and gives examples of four major persuasive strategies and six associated tactics that are often used by persuaders today. (Larson, 2007 page 31) Ranks major strategy is to either intensify certain aspects of the product, cause or candidate. His other strategy is to downplay certain aspects of their brand, cause or candidate. (Larson, 2007 page 31) The intensification and downplay strategies include, to intensify their own good points, intensify the weak points of the opposition, downplay their own weak points, and downplay the good points of the opposition. The tactics that most persuaders use for intensification are repetition, association, and composition to intensify their own good points. Rank’s downplay tactics include omission, diversion and confusion. “Any of these tactics can be used logically or emotionally.” (Larson, 2007 pg. 31) For example commercials today don’t show the hidden meaning and try to persuad...
In this audience analysis, I have addressed a situation in which I am called on to present quarterly sales information at an in-person meeting to a group of stakeholders, including managers, salespeople, and customers. I will explain how I will address the communication to this audience by answering the following questions: (1) What characteristics of the audience must I consider?, (2) What communication channels are appropriate? (3) What are some considerations to keep in mind given the diversity of the audience?, and (4) How would I ensure that my message is effective?
Persuasion is a commonly used communication technique that allows us to socially influence a certain topic positively or negatively. Its purpose is to help affirm or nullify an idea, belief or attitude. Sometimes the exact topic is very detectable in communication such as during debates but other times it displayed a little more subtly. Persuasion is more than just verbally speaking. Non-verbal communication such as body language, tone and pitch of the voice can also add to the affirmation of the topic. The setting and location also help encourage the acceptance of what is being persuaded.
that are pleasing to the senses. The central route is used to reach people who are more motivated and analytical, while people who are less analytical and less involved aremore likely to be influenced by the peripheral route. In advertising a combination of the two is common and effective. Computer ads relyprimarily on the central route, because their target audiences are perceived as highly analytical. Promotion for alcohol and tobacco products employ the peripheral route because they wish to draw attention away from thepossible negative effects that they are, in reality, associated with. To truly understand the effects of persuasion it is necessary to break the actdown to its smaller components. The for elements of persuasion are 1.) The communicator, 2.) The message content, 3.) How it is communicated, and4.) The receiver of the message. The content of the message is important but also whoever gives the message has an effect on people¹s acceptance ofit. The major determinant of the communicator¹s success are his/herperceived credibility and attractiveness. Credibility, or believability
In closing, Persuasion is a powerful tool, both in trying to persuade others and being
Persuasion is an important aspect of communication, certainly a significant business activity. Regardless of whether this comes in the form of a sender influencing a party or the receiver itself is being influenced. Typically, this could come in the form of a salesman or, even a manager communicating with key stakeholders, such as potential investors.
“Modern managers must instead aim to change employee’s attitudes and thus need to be skilled in the art of persuasion” (Kelly & Williams, 2016). Persuasion, is accomplished by simply allowing the source to convenience the target to make attitude changes as to the message by applying certain characteristics. These characteristics are as follows as to the source of persuasion: proficiency, dependability, and appeal. Meaning if the person or individual is the main source of the coaxing they can interbit something in a particular way; or manner. For the technique to be the most effective, the testimonial must be effective in advertising as to corporate responsibility and emotional appeals. These product endorsers are effective when consumers feel than can be trusted as to the product being presented; or when they can adapt to the image to which the consumer is representing. However, People that lack self-esteem, compared to those that display self-esteem; change their attitudes more often than others as to persuasion. Nonetheless, individual with unpredictable attitudes tend to be the hardest individual to pursue; unlike those that have a positive attitude which are the easiest to convince them into persuasion. Unfortunately, this isn’t true about everyone, some people are undoubtedly respond different than other to the art of persuasion. Therefore, manger need to be widely aware that attempts to change where attitudes is a concern is not always an easy task or generally putative. One example, is when trying to put a change of policy into effect, if all the characteristics aren’t display and revealed then the unpopular policy is unsuccessful. But if you mention all the physiognomies of the policy even though it’s not a popular one persuasion will be easy to accomplish as to the new policy at
Persuading helps us everyday. AT&T might persuade you that they are way better than Verizon. A friend might persuade you into thinking Flaming Hot Cheetos are way better than regular Cheetos. You might persuade your teacher that your side of the story is the truth, not the other kid’s. Persuading has a major impact on society.
Someone persuades you over 400 times a day, 2,800 times a week, and 145,600 times a year. You may give in to some attempts and hold back on others. There is, however, an incredible power behind the things that you do give in to. Through history and books like Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Animal Farm by George Orwell we can learn from successful endeavors of persuasion and discover the principles that define the powers that persuasion holds. First, let’s start at the very beginning.