Persuasion

SMU Classification: Restricted
Persuasive Messages
Getting audience/reader to say YES to belief/action
1. Structure
2. Content
Message
STRUCTURE
Audience-oriented
Audience Reaction, Message Type & Structure
• Main idea  Explanation

If audience is • Routine Messages: request for
neutral/willing, information, giving information;
content is related to daily
use DIRECT operations of business
• Neutral tone
• Explanation Main idea

If audience is not
interested or has • Asking audience to say yes to
make a change, take action,
points of resistance, • Persuasive tone
use INDIRECT
Logos – using a logical structure
Opening
PROBLEM
To motivate audience
SOLUTION State BENEFITS &
address potential
objections.
Closing
1. Attention Getter: Types

Criteria: Relevant and effective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8GvTgWtR7o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_VvIr1KkLo
2. INTEREST
• Problem
• Negative effects
• Root cause 3. DESIRE
• Solution
• Benefits
• Limitation/address
potential objection/
point of resistance
3. DESIRE segment
Reader Benefit
Potential objection
Reader Benefits
Advantages your audience will get by
• using your service
• purchasing your product,
• following a policy, or
• adopting your/a particular idea.
Go to http://ravishingink.blogspot.sg/2011/03/reader-benefits.html
• Reader benefit vs feature

• Reader benefit & different audiences
• Intrinsic and extrinsic benefits
What are you selling?

Feature OR Benefit?
www.bevoz.com
Physical Traits Advantages
Source: E copy desk

Enhancing PATHOS/knowing AUDIENCE’s needs
Motivation & Maslow’s hierarchy of

needs http://www.simplypsychology.org/
maslow.html
• First, adapt the benefits to the audience.
• When you write to different audiences, you will need to

stress different benefits.
If you are the manufacturer, how would you persuade...
• Retailer’s concerns: quick turnover, high profit margin, and a national

advertising campaign
• Customer’s concerns: convenience, durability & price

Second, stress the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits.

Extrinsic benefits: physical (status & power,
pay, bonus, profit-sharing, promotion, benefits,
working conditions )
• Do not come from the service or product; somebody decides
to add them to the service or product.
• Awards that are tangible or physically given to you for
accomplishing something.
Intrinsic benefits : non-physical (achievement,

recognition, pride, freedom, contentment,
professional growth, sense of pleasure)
• Come directly from using the service or product
Third, regard each benefit as a claim that needs

reasons/evidence to convince the reader/audience.
• Provide enough evidence/reasons
to prove that your idea, service, product,
or policy will benefit the reader.
• Give enough details to be concrete.
• Give more details when
• reader may not have thought about the benefit
before,
• there is a difference between a long-term and a
short-term advantage
• it will be difficult to persuade the reader.
Fourth, create reader benefits with a you-attitude:

regards things from the reader's point of view—
• Emphasize what the reader wants to know.
• Respect the reader's intelligence and protect the
reader's ego.
• Use you in positive and neutral messages, but avoid
you in negative messages.
(In negative messages you may seem like a verbal attack.)
See tips on creating benefits:

http://ravishingink.blogspot.sg/2011/03/reader-bene
fits.html
Potential Objections
Examples
• Donation: Who will benefit? How much? How will
the money be spent? What is in store for my
company? Will it enhance my branding? How will it
affect the image of my company?
• Service: What are your credentials?
• Goods: Quality? Sustained supply? Sustained prices?
• Facilities: Who will be responsible? How can I trust
this person? Use of space for what purpose? How
long?
• Solution: Timeline? Costs? Expertise? Compensation?
4. Call for ACTION
Make an explicit appeal to your audience to take

a specific action after your speech.
• “If you have been persuasive and your audience is
emotionally invested, the best time for action is now.”
Call on your audience to…
• train for a • read to their children
marathon • donate blood
• adopt a new • travel to North Pole
business process • buy a fire extinguisher
• sponsor an event • eat more vegetables
• attend an event • join a club
• fund a research
initiative
http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-call-to-action/
Make it EASY for reader to respond

• Do they need to sign up?
Bring forms and pens and pass them out.
• Do they need to read additional information?
Bring handouts, or copies of books, or website references.
• Do they need approval before they can act?
Make the first call-to-action to organize the meeting with
stakeholders.
• Do they need to pay?
Accept as many forms of payment as possible.
• Is the suggested action is too big or too risky?
Divide the call-to-action into several small (less risky)
actions. E.g. Instead of running a marathon, suggest 5 km
race.
http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-call-to-action/
Re-state key reader benefit
Instead of :
• My foundation has set a target of X that we can
reach with your help… (Your audience is not very
keen to make you happy.)
Say this (show goodwill/you-attitude):
• Build your savings by…
• Make your community a safer place to live for yourself
and your children by…
• When you volunteer, you build your skills and gain
valuable experience…
Tip:
Surround the call-to-action with a description of how their
lives will be improved when they act. Paint a prosperous
vision. Close with forward-looking statement
Message
CONTENT
Audience-oriented
Persuasion (Content)
Right brain Left
Emotion brain
(Motivate) Reason
(Inform)
Heart
Trust/Credibility
(Inspire/Transform)
Persuasion Model:
Aristotle’s Rhetorical Appeals
Enhancing ETHOS (communicator’s credibility)

Simple language Good intention
Common ground Objectivity and fairness
Relevant claims High standard of ethics, legal

compliance, and etiquette
Supporting evidence Documenting sources of
information
Expertise, Authority Good understanding of audience’s
needs. Do not tell your audience
what they already know.
Compare
• Pathos: Smoking should be illegal because smokers

not only pollute the air others must breathe with
noxious fumes and rotten breath, but also because
they create mountains of disgusting litter by dropping
their cigarette trash everywhere they go.
• Logos: According to famous Dr XYZ, second-hand

smoke contains thousands of toxins. Ninety percent of
patients suffer ….Smoking in public should be illegal
because nonsmokers are exposed to the unwanted
effects of second-hand smoke.
Logos
• "However, although private final demand, output, and employment have indeed
been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently appears
somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing in mid-2009,
real household spending in the United States has grown in the range of 1 to 2
percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households' caution is
understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the labor market has
restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about job security and
prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer credit shows some
signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank
Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to households generally remain
tight."
• The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy by Ben Bernanke. August 27th, 2010.
Logos
• "However, although private final demand, output, and employment have indeed
been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently appears
somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing in mid-2009,
real household spending in the United States has grown in the range of 1 to 2
percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households' caution is
understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the labor market has
restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about job security and
prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer credit shows some
signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank
Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to households generally remain
tight."
• The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy by Ben Bernanke. August 27th, 2010.
Pathos
• "I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great
trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail
cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest
for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and
staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans
of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned
suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go
back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go
back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that
somehow this situation can and will be changed."
• I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. August 28th, 1963.
Pathos
• "I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great
trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail
cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest
for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and
staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans
of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned
suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go
back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go
back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that
somehow this situation can and will be changed."
--- I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. August 28th, 1963.
Ethos
• "I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al
Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts.
• But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran
from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression.
• I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century:
terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate
change and disease.
• And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that
last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long
for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future."
- Democratic Presidential Candidate Acceptance Speech
by Barack Obama. 28 August 2008.
https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/analyze-famous-speeches-rhetorical-structures-and-devices-english-i-reading

Persuasion

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Persuasion

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SMU Classification: Restricted

Audience Reaction, Message Type & Structure

• Main idea  Explanation

• Explanation Main idea

Logos – using a logical structure

1. Attention Getter: Types

• Reader benefit vs feature

What are you selling?

Physical Traits Advantages

Source: E copy desk

Motivation & Maslow’s hierarchy of

• First, adapt the benefits to the audience.

• When you write to different audiences, you will need to

If you are the manufacturer, how would you persuade...

• Retailer’s concerns: quick turnover, high profit margin, and a national

• Customer’s concerns: convenience, durability & price

Second, stress the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits.

Intrinsic benefits : non-physical (achievement,

Third, regard each benefit as a claim that needs

Fourth, create reader benefits with a you-attitude:

See tips on creating benefits:

4. Call for ACTION

Make an explicit appeal to your audience to take

Make it EASY for reader to respond

Enhancing ETHOS (communicator’s credibility)

Relevant claims High standard of ethics, legal

• Pathos: Smoking should be illegal because smokers

• Logos: According to famous Dr XYZ, second-hand

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