2

MODUL PERKULIAHAN

Business
Communication

Writing Persuasive Message

Abstract Competence

This module describes components of Students are able to write persuasive

messages, AIDA organizational plan, messages to strengthen the message.
some tools to amplify messages, .
identify some of the keys to writing good
persuasive messages

Fakultas Program Studi Tatap Muka Kode MK Disusun Oleh

07
Ekonomi dan Bisnis Manajemen F032100011 Fadhila Dhia Malihah, B.Com, MIB
Organizing Bad news Messages
strategies
In responding to customer complaints, communicating problems about orders, or notifying
changes in company policies that can negatively affect the organization's image. There are
three aspects to consider, which include: delivering bad news, receiving the message, and
maintaining the best possible goodwill with the audience.

Creates an Audience-centered tone

Your tone or intonation in conveying bad news can make an important contribution to the
effectiveness of delivering business messages. It has three specific goals:

 Help your audience understand that bad news represents a firm decision.
 Help your audience understand that your decisions are fair.
 Helping the audience to continue to provide goodwill for the company.

Organizational Planning

As explained in previous chapters, there are two organizational plans that can be applied in
conveying messages that are less pleasing to the audience (bad news), which include the
indirect approach and the direct approach. The two organizational plans are described in
more detail below:

a. The indirect approach is the most familiar or commonly used approach in writing
messages that have an unpleasant messages (bad news). In the indirect approach
there are 4 important parts, that need to considered: opening, supporting reasons for
negative decisions, bad news statements and positive-friendly closings.
i. The first step in using the indirect approach is to put your audience in
a neutral situation by making a no-load statement for your audience.
In writing the opening paragraph, there are several things that need to
be avoided, including: stating "no", the use of irrelevant phrases,
apologies and writing buffers that are too long.
ii. Bad news after you give the reason "why" a decision must be taken, at
this stage you can directly state what decision was taken, such as the
decision to refuse a job application
iii. Closing After you convey unpleasant messages, the next step is to
provide positive, warm, friendly and more pleasant closing words.
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 b. Direct approach to an unpleasant message will begin with a statement of bad news,
followed by various reasons that support it, and end with a friendly closing.
Direct approach can be applied if:
 Message recipients prefer direct messages to the intended point.
 The message has little effect on the recipient of the message.
 Messages conveyed empathy.

Communicating Negative Information and

Answers
In such a situation, the communication skills of a communicator are tested for their ability to
say “no” while maintaining good relations with various parties in the future.

Bad news about the product

In delivering bad news about products to customers (for example, product price increases or
product recalls), it is better to use an indirect approach that begins with a neutral statement,
supported by logical reasons, then conveys a bad news message and ends with a neutral
statement supported by logical reasons.

Refusal of Cooperation

If someone requests information or participation in a particular activity, while you are unable
to fulfill the request, you can use a direct or indirect approach.

In the business world, collaborating with other business people is something that should be
done to further strengthen a company's marketing network. However, in practice there may
be a refusal of cooperation if the form of cooperation is detrimental to the other party.

Invitation Rejection

If you have to say "no" to an invitation from a business friend, you can use a direct approach
and an indirect approach. The use of both approaches largely depends on how close your
relationship with the other party. For example, a Marketing Association Agency wants to use
a meeting warehouse in your company, while at the same time your company will also hold
regular internal meetings to evaluate the performance of the marketing department in the
same building.

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Delivering Bad News to Customers
When you want to express bad news messages to your customers or potential customers, it
is important to pay attention on how to keep your readers feeling good and be able to
continue business relationships in the future. Therefore, there are three things that need
attention, as follows:

 Keep working as best you can towards the realization of a resale

 Keep instructions or additional information as clear as possible
 Stay optimistic, confident so your readers don't lose interest

Rejection of Complaints

In general, to respond to a rejection letter of complaint, you can use a message

organizational plan with an indirect approach, stating the objection in the middle of the letter.
For example, a customer wants to return a product that has been purchased to your
company.

In this regard, at the beginning you can state something neutral. Furthermore, in the next
section it is necessary to explain the reasons for a decision and be followed by an explicit
statement of refusal. At the end of the letter need a friendly closing and offer information that
the customer is interested in, such as a new product offering.

Changing Products

A customer may request or formulate a product that has just been sold out or a product that
is no longer produced. If you are sure that the customer can agree to a replacement product,
you can send the replacement product to the customer.

If in doubt, you can send a letter to the customer along with how to place an order. The
approach that can be used in relation to product replacement is to use an indirect approach.

Not Fulfilling Order

Sometimes you are unable to fulfill orders either partially or with unbillable orders. If this is
the case, your job is to expressly state that you are not fulfilling an order from your customer.

Bad News about People

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On the other hand, letters to job applicants are often written with an indirect approach
because the reader will be emotionally affected.

Refusal to Write a Letter of Recommendation

In principle, writing a letter of rejection of a letter of recommendation can be done with a

direct or indirect approach. The things that need to be considered in writing a rejection letter
of recommendation are to state the reasons for the refusal, and state it briefly and clearly.

Job Application Rejection

In the business world, filling vacancies is common. In general, the number of job seekers is
greater than the number of available job vacancies. To be able to fill job vacancies, job
seekers must write an application letters that meet the specified requirements, a direct
approach can be used.

Planning Persuasive Messages

Persuasion is an attempt to change the attitudes, beliefs or actions of the audience to
achieve a goal. In simple terms, effective persuasion is the ability to convey a message in a
way that makes the audience (reader or listener) feel they have a choice and makes them
agree.

Most business messages are routine, in some situations a message is needed that is
designed to motivate or persuade others. Within an organization, persuasive messages are
intended to sell ideas to others, to suggest more efficient operational procedures, to gather
support for a particular activity and to request funding for a particular project.

Like routine messages, persuasive messages start by analyzing your audience, taking
cultural differences into account, and choosing a direct or indirect approach. However,
before you start communicating your ideas and reasons for doing something, you must
establish credibility, frame your argument, and strengthen your position when developing
your message.

Audience Analysis

Preparing to write for persuasion may take a long time, not just weeks or even months.
Why? Because everyone has different needs and everyone will respond to each message
conveyed differently.
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Consideration of Cultural Differences

Your understanding of cultural differences will not only help you in deciding the needs of
your audience, but will also help how they perceive you

Choosing an Organizational Approach

As with the delivery of routine messages and bad news, you need to choose the right
approach based on the likely reaction of the audience to your message. The essence of
persuasion is to convince your audience or change their attitudes, beliefs or actions.

Developing persuasive messages

Whether you're going to use a direct or an indirect approach, what's important is that you
have to be able to convince your audience that the idea is justifiable and well-founded.

Establish Credibility

Your credibility is determined by your level of trust and reliability. If your credibility in front of
the audience is in doubt, they will tend to be skeptical and will not take everything you say
for granted. Therefore, you must overcome this skeptical audience, your credibility is your
capability to be trusted by others.

One way to grow someone's credibility is through facts, all forms of documents, statistics,
guarantees and research results are objective evidence that can support your credibility.

Other ways to increase credibility include being an expert in a particular field: enthusiasm for
the material presented, being objective in assessing something, being respectful can help
focus the audience's needs, honesty can grow audience respect, good intensity will help with
audience interests, and background experience, both attitudes and previous beliefs that can
help identify your audience.

Argument Framework

Most persuasive messages follow AIDA's organizational plan (Attention, Interest, Desire,
and Action).

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 a) Attention (attention), you must be able to convince the audience immediately at the
beginning that you have something useful to say.
b) Interest (interest), you explain the relevance of your messages to the audience.
Develop the statement that was presented in the first phase in some detail, your goal
is how your audience is able to think
c) Desire, you get the audience to change their desires by explaining how the changes
made can provide better benefits for the audience.
d) Action, you suggest the audience action you want your audience to take.

Choosing the right words (Being polite)

The balance between the two depends on four important factors, namely the action you
should expect, the expectations of your audience, the level of resistance you must
overcome, and how far you can sell your idea or ideas to the audience, as follows:

 Emotional charms, to persuade the audience, you can take advantage of emotions
that are based on an argument or in the form of sympathy for the audience as long
as the emotional appeals are very strong.
 Logic bait, you can use it to persuade the audience, such as making a claim and then
providing support for the complaint by providing reasons and evidence.
When you appeal to audience logic, use one of the following three types of excuses:
a) Analogy is using a reason from specific evidence to specific evidence.
b) Induction is giving reasons from specific evidence to general conclusions.
c) Deduction is giving reasons from general to specific conclusions.
 Ethical considerations are used to influence audiences by providing information and
increasing their understanding in various ways.

Writing Persuasive Request

The direct benefits of persuasive requests include: reducing the workload of a supervisor or
giving a premium to someone who responds to a survey. The indirect benefits of persuasive
requests include increasing or improving employee morale and increasing prestige or
challenges to make a meaningful contribution to the company.

Persuasive Requests for Action

Are you submitting a budget increase request letter or something fun, we recommend using
AIDA organizational planning to plan your writing of persuasive messages. In the opening

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sentence, start with a sentence that is able to attract the reader's attention that shows that
you know something that the reader really expects. Even persuasive messages that are
praising or flattering about the reader can also be justified.

Persuasive requests and complaints for adjustments

Although persuasive complaint letters and adjustment requests are sometimes referred to as
complaint letters, your goal is to persuade the other person to make the necessary
adjustments. To achieve your goal, it is necessary to show the difference between what you
really hoped for and what you actually received.

Writing sales messages and requests for funds

There are two types of persuasive messages, which are sales letters and fundraising letters.
These messages include brochures, response forms, or other special letters.

How are sales messages different from fundraising requests? Sales messages are usually
sent by profit-oriented organizations to persuade readers to spend some money on their own
products. On the other hand, messages requesting funding are usually sent by non-profit
organizations to persuade readers to provide other financial assistance to other parties.

Sales message planning

Various questions that often arise related to other products include: what type of product,
how is the quality of the product, how does the product work and benefits, what is the cost of
the product, how much is the product discount, how is the product delivered, how is the
product packaged, and various other product attributes.

By using the product data that you have collected, you can form an image of the product you
want to sell. Next try to check on various questions such as: who is your audience, what
benefits they can get, how is the quality of the product produced, how to choose product
promotion tools and how to determine the cost of goods.

Organizing and Composition

You start by grabbing the audience's attention, cultivating the audience's interest, fueling the
audience's passion by conveying what is best for the audience, and ending with a
suggestion of action needed for the audience:

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 a. Attracting attention with writing sales letters generally starts with how to get
the audience's attention.
b. Building interest: you need to emphasize the selling point of the product to the
audience, for example by saying that your product is relatively cheap, durable
or weather resistant and the like.
c. Increasing passion To further increase audience desire, you can express the
main benefit to your readers in more interesting words or pictures, graphics or
charts.
d. Motivating action can generate interest and passion for readers, the next step
is how you can motivate action for readers.

Planning Fund application messages

One thing that should not be forgotten is that you need to convince the reader how important
and noble it is to provide financial assistance (donations) to others who are in dire need.

There are four things that need to be considered in writing a letter of request for funding
assistance, as follows:

 You must be able to describe specific needs.

 Show readers how important your donation is donate to others.
 State clearly how much donation is required.
 Explain the benefits or uses of donations that have been given by readers.

Plan to arrive at the meeting location early to ensure that everything is set as expected.
Prepare charts and various visual aids, and pay attention to details. Meet and greet people
as they arrive. Take a few minutes to chat with the participants and ask some questions or
concerns before the meeting begins. By adding time preparation will help us feel more
relaxed, and create a positive and productive atmosphere for the meeting, and increase our
overall effectiveness.

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References
Bovee Courtlan L – Thill John V. (2010) : Business Communication,Six Edition, Pearson
Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall International Inc..

Bovee Courtland L, Thill Jhon V, (2008) : Komunikasi Bisnis, Edisi Kedelapan, PT. Indeks,
Jakarta.

Guffey, Mary Ellen, (2006) : Business Communication, Edisi 4, Salemba Empat, Jakarta.

Joko Purwanto (2010) : Komunikasi Bisnis, Edisi .Erlangga, Jakarta

Lehman and Du Frene (2012) : Business Communications 3E, 3rd Edition, Cangage
Learning.

Mary Ellen Guffey (2006) : Komunikasi Bisnis (Proses dan Produk), Salemba Empat, Jakarta

Purwanto Djoko, (2006) : Komunikasi Bisnis, Edisi Ketiga, Erlangga Jakarta.

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