Persuasive Messages
Learning Objectives
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
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- organize and write persuasive messages
- outline the structure of a persuasive message
- explain the importance of persuasion in professional contexts
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Introduction
Persuasion involves moving or motivating your audience by presenting arguments that convince them to adopt your view or do as you want. You’ve been doing this ever since you learned to speak. From convincing your parents to give you a treat to persuading them to lend you the car keys, you’ve developed more sophisticated means of persuasion over the years simply because of the rewards that come with their success. Now that you’ve entered (or will soon enter) the professional world, honing persuasive strategies for the workplace is vital to your livelihood when the reward is a sale, a promotion, or merely a regular paycheck.
Persuasion begins with motivation. If persuasion is a process and your audience’s action (e.g., buying a product or service) is the goal, then motivating them to accept an argument or a series of positions leading to the decision that you want them to adopt helps achieve that goal. If your goal is to convince a pet owner to spay or neuter their pet, for instance, you would use a few convincing arguments compelling them to accept that spaying or neutering is the right thing to do. With all businesses involved in some sort of persuasion, how do you stand out? The video below explains a few effective persuasive techniques.
The Rhetorical Triangle
Use the rhetorical triangle by combining logic, emotional appeal, and authority (a.k.a. logos, pathos, and ethos in classical Aristotelian rhetoric) to cater your message to your audience. You could appeal to their sense of reason by explaining the logical consequences of not spaying or neutering their pet: increasing the local cat or dog population or even producing a litter that you yourself have to deal with, including all the care and expenses related to it. You might appeal to their emotions by saying that the litters resulting from your pet’s mating with strays will suffer starvation and disease in their short lives. You could establish your credibility by explaining that you’ve earned a diploma in the Vet Tech program at Algonquin College and have eight years of experience seeing the positive results that spaying or neutering has on local dog or cat populations, making you a trustworthy authority on the topic. All of these moves help overcome your audience’s resistance and convince them to follow your advice (Business Communication for Success, 2015). These three appeals can also complement other effective techniques in persuading an audience as we shall see throughout this section.
Principles of Persuasion
What’s the best way to succeed in persuading people to buy what you’re selling? Though there may sometimes be a single magic bullet, a combination of strategies has been found to be most effective. Social psychologist Robert