Quick
Learning Guide
Business Communication Essentials, 6th Edition
Chapter 9
Writing Persuasive Messages
SUMMARY
OF LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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Apply the three-step writing process to persuasive messages. To plan persuasive messages, carefully
clarify your purpose to make sure you focus on a single goal. Understand audience needs, which can
involve research to identify relevant demographic and psychographic variables and to assess audience
motivations. Persuasive messages usually ask people to give up time, money, or other resources, so
gathering the right information to convince readers of the benefits of responding is essential.Media
choices need to be considered carefully, particularly with marketing and sales messages in a social media
landscape. For organizing persuasive messages, you will usually want to choose the indirect approach in
order to establish awareness and interest before asking the audience to take action.
When writing persuasive messages, use positive and polite language, understand and respect cultural
differences, be sensitive to organizational cultures when writing persuasive business messages, and take
steps to establish your credibility. Seven common ways to establish credibility in persuasive messages are
using simple language, supporting your claims, identifying your sources, establishing common ground,
being objective, displaying good intentions, and avoiding the hard sell.
The steps for completing persuasive messages are the same as for other types of messages, but
accuracy and completeness are especially important because they send signals about your credibility—a
crucial element in persuasive messages.
Describe an effective strategy for developing persuasive business messages. Within the context of the
three-step process, effective persuasion involves four essential strategies: framing your arguments,
balancing emotional and logical appeals, reinforcing your position, and anticipating objections. One of the
most commonly used methods for framing a persuasive argument is the AIDA model, in which you open
your message by getting the audience’s attention; build interest with facts, details, and additional benefits;
increase desire by providing more evidence and answering possible objections; and motivate a specific
action.
Persuasive business messages combine emotional appeals (which call on feelings and sympathies)
and logical appeals (which call on reason, using analogy, induction, or deduction). To reinforce your
position, look for ways to add convincing evidence, quotations from experts, or other support material.
By identifying potential objections and addressing them as you craft your message, you can help
prevent audience members from gravitating toward negative answers before you have the opportunity to
ask them for a positive response. You can often resolve these issues before the audience has a chance to
go on the defensive.
Identify the three most common categories of persuasive business messages. The most common types
of these messages are (1) persuasive requests for action, in which you ask the recipient to make a decision
or engage in some activity; (2) persuasive presentations of ideas, in which you aren’t necessarily looking
for a decision or action but rather would like the audience to consider a different way of looking at a
particular topic; and (3) persuasive claims and requests for adjustments, in which you believe that you
have not received fair treatment under an organization’s standard policies and would like the recipient to
give your case fresh consideration.
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Describe an effective strategy for developing marketing and sales messages. Marketing and sales
messages use the same basic techniques as other persuasive messages, with the added emphasis of
encouraging someone to participate in a commercial transaction. Marketing messages do this indirectly,
whereas sales messages do it directly. The basic strategy for creating these messages includes assessing
audience needs; analyzing your competition; determining key selling points and benefits; anticipating
purchase objections; applying the AIDA model; adapting your writing to social media, if appropriate; and
maintaining high standards of ethical and legal compliance.
5
Explain how to modify your approach when writing promotional messages for social media. To use
social media for promotional communication, start by engaging audiences with efforts to build networked
communities of potential buyers and other interested parties. Listen to conversations taking place about
your company and its products. Initiate and respond to conversations within these communities, being sure
to use an objective, conversational style. Provide the information that interested parties want. Identify and
support the enthusiastic product champions who want to help spread your message. Be authentic and
transparent in all your communication. Speak directly to customers so you don’t have to rely on the news
media. Finally, continue to use the AIDA model or similar approaches, but only at specific times and
places.
6
Identify steps you can take to avoid ethical lapses in marketing and sales messages. Effective and
ethical persuasive communicators focus on aligning their interests with the interests of their audiences.
They help audiences understand how their proposals will provide benefits to the audience, using language
that is persuasive without being manipulative. They choose words that are less likely to be misinterpreted
and take care not to distort the truth. Throughout, they maintain a “you” attitude with honest concern for
the audience’s needs and interests.
Copyright 2013 Bovée and Thill LLC
KEY TERMS
AIDA model Message sequence that
involves attention, interest, desire, and
action
benefits The particular advantages that
readers will realize from a product’s selling
points
demographics Quantifiable
characteristics of a population, including
age, gender, occupation, income, and
education
emotional appeal Persuasive approach
that calls on audience feelings and
sympathies rather than facts, figures, and
rational arguments
logical appeal Persuasive approach that
calls on reasoning and evidence
marketing messages Messages that
usher potential buyers through the
purchasing process without asking them to
make an immediate decision
motivation The combination of forces that
drive people to satisfy their needs
persuasion The attempt to change an
audience’s attitudes, beliefs, or actions
psychographics Psychological
characteristics of an audience, including
personality, attitudes, and lifestyle.
sales messages Messages that
encouraging potential buyers to make a
purchase decision then and there
selling points The most attractive
features of a product or service
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Developing
Persuasive Messages
The ADIA model
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A. Get your reader’s attention.



Open with an audience benefit, a
stimulating question, a problem, or an
unexpected statement.
Establish common ground by
mentioning a point on which you and
your audience agree.
Show that you understand the
audience’s concerns.


B. Build your reader’s interest.



Expand and support your opening
claim or
promise.
Emphasize the relevance of your
message to your audience.
C. Increase your reader’s desire.


Make audience members want to
change by explaining how the change
will benefit them.
Back up your claims with relevant
evidence.
D. Motivate your reader to take action.



Suggest the action you want readers to
take.
Stress the positive results of the
action.
Make the desired action clear and
easy.
E. Balance emotional and logical
appeals.



Use emotional appeals to help the
audience accept your message.
Use logical appeals when presenting
facts and evidence for complex ideas
or recommendations.
Avoid faulty logic.
F. Reinforce your position.


Provide additional evidence of the
benefits of your proposal and your own
credibility in offering it.
Use abstractions, metaphors, and
other figures of speech to bring facts
and figures to life.
G. Anticipate objections.


Anticipate and answer potential
objections.
Present the pros and cons of all
options if you anticipate a hostile
reaction.

Attention. Engage your readers or
listeners in a way that encourages
them to want to hear about your main
idea.
Interest. Explain the relevance of your
message to your audience. Paint a
more detailed picture of the problem
you propose to solve with the solution
you’re offering
Desire. Help audience members
embrace your solution by explaining
how the change will benefit them,
either personally or professionally.
Reduce resistance by identifying and
answering in advance any questions
the audience might have.
Action. Suggest the action you want
readers or listeners to take and phrase
it in a way that emphasizes the
benefits to them or to the organization
they represent.
Remember that the AIDA approach needs
to be modified for the interactive,
conversational expectations of social
media.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Using the Three-Step Writing Process for
Persuasive Messages
Step 1: Planning Persuasive Messages
Step 2: Writing Persuasive Messages
Step 3: Completing Persuasive
Messages
Developing Persuasive Business
Messages
Framing Your Arguments
Balancing Emotional and Logical
Appeals
Reinforcing Your Position
Anticipating Objections
Avoiding Common Mistakes in
Persuasive Communication
Common Examples of Persuasive
Business Messages
Persuasive Requests for Action
Persuasive Presentation of Ideas
Persuasive Claims and Requests for
Adjustments
Developing Marketing and Sales
Messages
Planning Marketing and Sales Messages
Writing Conventional Marketing and
Sales Messages
Writing Promotional Messages for Social
Media
Writing Promotional Messages for Social
Media
Maintaining High Ethical and Legal
Standards