WRITING PERSUASIVE

MESSAGES
Adapt your persuasive message to your
audience
• Consider these questions that your receiver will probably be asking
him/herself as he/she goes through your message:
– Why should I?
– What’s in it for me?
– What’s in it for you?
– Who cares?
• People are more likely to grant requests if they see direct or indirect benefits
to themselves.
Adapt your persuasive message to your
purpose
• Your purpose is to change your receiver’s point of view or to motivate action.
• Knowing your desired response can help you decide what persuasive
strategies to employ.
• This helps keep your persuasive messages focused; otherwise you may
ramble to the end of your message and then ask yourself what your desired
solution is, find that it is not aligned with your current draft, and be forced to go
right back to square one.
• A successful persuasive message will typically take more space than a direct
message because your purpose is to prove a case, which requires evidence.
Organization of persuasive messages

Reduce
Grab attention Build interest Motivate action
resistance
 Grab attention
This part of your message should be brief, targeted and interesting. You may use:
• Quotation/proverb e.g. Need is the mother of invention
• Compliment e.g. Because our members admire your success and value your managerial
skills, they want you to be our guest speaker at…
• Fact e.g. Last month, our legal advisors were forced to work 120 overtime hours, costing
us Rs. 60,000 and causing considerable employee unhappiness.
• Unexpected statement e.g. Men and women draw the line at decidedly different places in
identifying what behavior constitutes sexual harassment.
• Personalized action setting e.g. It’s 04:30 PM and you have got to make a decision. You
need everybody’s opinion, no matter where they are. Before you pick up your phone and
call them one at a time, try WebEx web conferencing.
• Interesting question e.g. What do golden beetles, chameleons, Arctic foxes, squids and
bark spiders have in common?
• Relevant current event e.g.
• Relevant anecdote i.e. a relevant personal incident
Build interest
 Reduce resistance
• Anticipate questions and/or objections and arguments the receiver may have.
• Try to provide suggestions/counterarguments to overcome them.
• Draw on your credibility e.g. by mentioning an award your company won or referring
to your personal credentials.
• If that is not possible, put the bad news in a less noticeable place in your message,
such as in the middle of a long paragraph or in the dependent clause of a sentence
e.g. imagine an employee trying to convince his employer to replace paper plates in
the company cafeteria with ceramic plates: Ceramic dishes may require a little
more effort in cleaning but they bring warmth and graciousness to meals.
Most important, they help save the environment by requiring fewer resources
and eliminating waste.
• Show the value of your proposal
• In a sales message, you can provide testimonials from satisfied clients or provide
free samples for trial
 Motivate action
• Repeat main benefit
• Sound confident
• To make it easy for readers to act, you can
– provide a reply card,
– a stamped and preaddressed envelope,
– a toll-free telephone number,
– an easy Web site,
– or a promise of a follow-up call.
• If appropriate, give an extra “push” by:
– promising an incentive
– setting a deadline
 Which of the following closings motivates action most
effectively? What is wrong with the other closings?

Quality Statement
• We are certain we can develop a series of training sessions
Too timid that will improve the communication skills of your
employees.
• Because we are convinced that you will want to begin
Too general improving the skills of your employees immediately, we have
scheduled your series to begin in June.
Too pushy • You will see decided improvement in the communication
skills of your employees. Please call me at 439-2201 by May
1 to give your approval so that training sessions may start in
June, as we discussed.
Effective
• If you agree that our training proposal has merit, perhaps we
could begin the series in June.
Why should you write persuasive messages?
1. To ask your employees to do something
2. To ask your employer to do something
3. To request a favour
4. To make a claim/complaint to a company about its product(s)/service(s)
5. To sell your own products/services
Convincing your employee(s)
• Instructions or directives moving downward from superiors to subordinates
usually require little persuasion. Employees expect to be directed in how to
perform their jobs.
• These messages (such as information about procedures, equipment, or
customer service) use the direct strategy, with the purpose immediately
stated.
• However, employees are sometimes asked to volunteer for projects. For
example, some organizations encourage employees to join programs to stop
smoking, lose weight, or start exercising. Organizations may ask employees
to participate in capacities outside their work roles—such as spending their
free time volunteering for charity projects.
• In such cases, the four-part indirect strategy provides a helpful structure.
Convincing your employer
• Use words such as suggest and recommend
• Begin sentences with these words:
-It might be a good idea if . . .
-. . .That lets you
• offer suggestions without threatening the person’s authority.
• When selling an idea to management, writers often are successful if they
make a strong case for saving or earning money.
• “The key to making a request of a superior,” advises communication
consultant Patricia Buhler, “is to know your needs and have documentation
[facts, figures, evidence].”
Before – Sample persuasive memo to upper
management
After – Sample persuasive message
to upper management
Before: Sample letter of request for favour
Analyzing a persuasive message
As you read the following improved request for favour, try to answer the
following questions:
• What techniques capture the reader’s attention?
• Is the opening effective? Explain.
• Does the letter use rational, emotional, or a combination of appeals? Explain.
• What reader benefits are suggested?
• How does the letter anticipate reader resistance and offer counterarguments?
• What action is the reader to take? How is the action made easy?
• What motivates the reader to act quickly?
After – Sample letter of request for favour
 Practice: Write an e-mail asking for a favour
• You need a letter of recommendation to find a job or to apply for a scholarship, etc.
• Ask an instructor who has had the opportunity to observe your performance and
who may still remember you fondly. Two to five years after you attended a course
of 20 to 40 students, your teachers may not recall you at all. Second, contact only
professors who can sing your praises. If your grades were poor, don’t expect a
glowing letter. Last, make it easy for them to agree to your request and to write a
solid letter promptly by following these guidelines:
• Introduce yourself by name and try to point out something memorable you have
done to help your professor recall your performance. Have a copy of the job
description or scholarship information. Attach a copy of a recent polished résumé.
Add any other information that will help your recommender recall you in a
professional setting and understand the nature of the application process. Set a
firm yet reasonable deadline by which the letter must be received. Don’t expect to
get a letter if you ask at the last minute.
• Your Task: Write a persuasive request by e-mail asking your teacher to write
you a letter of recommendation for a job application or scholarship. Provide
all relevant information to make it easy for your reader to write a terrific
letter. Explain any potential attachments.
Selling your products/services
• Keep the message short, conversational and focused.
• Use testimonials
• Offer money-back guarantee
• Provide a warranty
• Provide a limited time incentive
• When price is an obstacle, consider these suggestions:
- Delay mentioning price until after you have created a desire for the product.
- Show the price in small units, such as the price per issue of a magazine.
- Demonstrate how the reader saves money—for instance, by subscribing for two or three years.
- Compare your prices to those of a competitor.
Complaining about a product/service
Some complaint letters just vent
anger. The writers are mad and
they want to tell someone about
it. If, however, the goal is to
change something, then
persuasion is necessary.
Effective complaints are
reasonable, logical and have a
moderate tone. Most of the
time, anger is not an effective
persuader.
 Practice: Write an e-mail to complain
• As regional manager for your company, you and two other employees attended a conference in
Malaysia on May 4 and 5. You stayed at the Country Inn because your company recommended it.
Generally, your employees have liked their accommodations, and the rates have been within your
company’s budget. Now, however, you are unhappy with the charges you see on your company’s
credit statement from Country Inn. When your secretary made the reservations, she was assured
that you would receive the weekend rates and that a hot breakfast—in the hotel restaurant, the
Atrium—would be included in the rate. So you and the other two employees went to the restaurant
and ordered a hot meal from the menu. When you received the credit statement, though, you see
a charge for Ringgit 150 for three champagne buffet breakfasts in the Atrium on May 5. You are so
angry! For one thing, you did not have a buffet breakfast and certainly no champagne. The three of
you got there so early that no buffet had been set up. You ordered pancakes and sausage and for
this you were billed Ringgit 50 each. You are outraged! What’s worse, your company may charge
you personally for exceeding the expected rates. In looking back at this event, you remembered
that other guests on your floor were having a “continental” breakfast in a lounge on your floor.
Perhaps that’s where the hotel expected all guests on the weekend rate to eat. However, your
secretary had specifically asked about this matter when she made the reservations, and she was
told that you could order breakfast from the menu at the hotel’s restaurant.
• Your task: You want to straighten out this matter, and you can’t do it by telephone because
you suspect that you will need a written record of this entire mess. E-mail a claim request to
Customer Service, Country Inn, Inc. Should you include a copy of the credit statement
showing the charge?