1. Pertemuan 10 Writing Persuasive Messages
Matakuliah : J Komunikasi Bisnis
Tahun : 2010
Pertemuan 10 Writing Persuasive Messages

2. Planning the Message Analyze the Situation Gather the Information
Select the Medium
Organize the Information
In today’s information-saturated business environment, having a great idea or a great product is no longer enough. Every day, untold numbers of good ideas go unnoticed and good products go unsold simply because the messages meant to promote them aren’t compelling enough to rise above the competitive noise. Even if audiences agree that your idea or product is attractive, they usually have other options to consider as well, so you will need to convince them that your choice is the best of all the attractive alternatives. Creating successful persuasive messages in these challenging situations demands careful attention to all four tasks in the planning step, starting with an insightful analysis of your purpose and your audience.
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3. Analyze the Situation Clarify Your Purpose Express Your Purpose
Audience
Members
Decision
Makers
Express Your Purpose
Points of
Resistance
Alternative
Positions
Your purpose might seem obvious—to persuade people to visit your website or buy your snowboards—but persuasive messages can suffer from three common mistakes related to purpose. The first mistake is failing to clarify your purpose before you continue with planning. The second mistake is failing to clearly express your purpose to your audience. You may feel uncomfortable with the idea of asking others to give you time, money, or other considerations, but if you don't ask, you're not likely to get a positive response. The third mistake if failing to realize that the decision you want someone to make is too complicated or risky to make all in one leap.
Build Your Case
Desired
Actions
Corporate
Culture
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4. Analyze the Audience Demographics Psychographics Gender Personality
Income
Attitudes
Consider both the positives and the negatives—both the wants, needs, and motivations of your audience (the reasons they might respond favorably to your message) as well as their concerns and objections (the reasons they might not respond favorably). With these two insights as guides, you can then work to find common ground with your audience, while emphasizing positive points and minimizing negative ones.
The best persuasive messages are closely related to your audience’s desires and interests. To assess various individual needs, you can refer to specific information such as demographics (the age, gender, occupation, income, education, and other quantifiable characteristics of the people you're trying to persuade) and psychographics (the personality, attitudes, lifestyle, and other psychological characteristics of an individual).
Both types of information are strongly influenced by culture. When analyzing your audience, take into account their cultural expectations and practices so that you don't undermine your persuasive message by using an inappropriate appeal or by organizing your message in a way that seems unfamiliar or uncomfortable to your audience.
Education
Lifestyle
Other Factors
Other Factors
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5. Preparing the Message Gathering Information Selecting the Medium
Logical
Emotional
Internal Audience
External Audience
Once your situation analysis is complete, gather the information necessary to close the gap between what your audience knows, believes, or feels right now and what you want them to know, believe, or feel as a result of receiving your message. Most persuasive messages are a combination of logical and emotional factors, but the ratio varies wildly from message to message.
Persuasive messages can be found in virtually every communication medium ever devised. For persuasive messages intended for internal audiences, your choice of medium will closely follow the guidelines presented in Chapter 4. For marketing and sales messages, however, the choices are far more numerous. To complicate matters further, various members of your audience might prefer different media for the same message. If you can’t be sure of reaching most or all of your audience with a single medium, you will need to use two or more.
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6. Writing the Message Positive Polite Language Cultural Differences
Organizational Cultures
Speaker Credibility
The generally uninvited and occasionally even unwelcome nature of persuasive messages means the “you” attitude is more critical than ever. Most people won’t even pay attention to your message, much less respond to it, if it isn’t about them. You can encourage a more welcome reception by (1) using positive and polite language, (2) understanding and respecting cultural differences, (3) being sensitive to organizational cultures, and (4) taking steps to establish your credibility.
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7. Completing the Message
Evaluate
the Content
Revise for Clarity
and Conciseness
Evaluate Design
and Delivery
Proofread
the Message
The length and complexity of persuasive messages make applying Step 3 even more crucial to your success. When you evaluate your content, try to judge your argument objectively and seriously appraise your credibility. When revising for clarity and conciseness, carefully match the purpose and organization to audience needs.
Your design elements must complement (not detract from) your argument. In addition, make sure your delivery methods fit your audience’s expectations as well as your purpose. Finally, meticulous proofreading will identify any mechanical or spelling errors that would weaken your persuasive message.
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8. Developing Persuasive Messages
Structuring Your Message
Balancing Emotion and Logic
Reinforcing Your Position
Your success as a businessperson is closely tied to your ability to convince others to accept or act on your recommendations. Therefore, , being able to persuade others in a written letter or memo is vital in today’s competitive workplace.
The goal of your persuasive business message is to convince your reader that your request or idea is reasonable and that it will benefit your reader in some way. Within the context of the three-step process, effective persuasion involves four essential strategies:
Structuring your message
Balancing emotional and logical appeals
Reinforcing your position
Anticipating objections
These strategies will help you craft strong persuasive messages, no matter what the situation. The amount of detail you pursue in each of these strategies varies according to the complexity of your idea or request. The next few slides will examine each of these four strategies.
Dealing With Resistance
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9. AIDA Model Interest Attention Desire Action
Most persuasive messages follow the AIDA plan: an organizational plan that goes beyond the indirect approach used for negative messages. The opening does more than serve as a buffer; it grabs your audience’s attention. The explanation section does more than present reasons, and it’s expanded to two sections. The first incites your audience’s interest, and the second changes your audience’s attitude. Finally, your close does more than end on a positive note with a statement of what action is needed; it emphasizes reader benefits and motivates readers to take specific action.
Attention. Make your audience want to hear about your problem or idea. Write a brief and engaging opening sentence, with no extravagant claims or irrelevant points. Find some common ground on which to build your case.
Interest. Explain the relevance of your message to your audience. Continuing the theme you started with, paint a more detailed picture with words. Get your audience thinking.
Desire. Make audience members want to change by explaining how the change will benefit them. Reduce resistance by thinking up and answering in advance any questions the audience might have. If your idea is complex, explain how you would implement it. Back up your claims.
Action. Suggest the action you want readers to take. Make it more than a statement such as “Please send me a refund.” Remind readers of the benefits of taking action, and make taking action easy.
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10. Persuasive Messages Requests for Action Presentation of Ideas
Claims and
Adjustments
Throughout your career, you’ll have numerous opportunities to write persuasive messages within your organization. Similarly, you may send a variety of persuasive messages to people outside the organization. In addition, many of the routine requests you studied in Chapter 7 can become persuasive messages if you want a non-routine result or believe that you haven’t received fair treatment. Most of these messages can be divided into persuasive requests for action, persuasive presentation of ideas, and persuasive claims and requests for adjustment.
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11. Requests for Action Written Action Request Gain Attention Use Facts,
Figures and Benefits
Make a
Specific Request
Whether you’re requesting a favor or a budget increase, remember to use the AIDA plan to frame your message. Begin with an attention-getting device. Show readers that you know something about their concerns and that you have some reason for making such a request.
Use the interest and desire sections of your message to cover what you know about the situation you're requesting action on: the facts and figures, the benefits of helping, and any history or experience that will enhance your appeal. Your goals are (1) to gain credibility for you and your request and (2) to make your readers believe that helping you will indeed help solve a significant problem.
Once you've demonstrated that your message is relevant to your reader, you can close with a request for some specific action.
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12. Presentation of Ideas Message Focus Support Decisions Expedite Actions
Encourage
New Attitudes
Reexamine
Opinions
Most internal persuasive messages focus on getting the audience to make a specific decision or take some specific action. However, you will encounter situations in which you simply want to change attitudes or beliefs about a particular topic, without asking the audience to decide or do anything—at least not yet. In complicated, multi-step persuasive efforts, the goal of your first message might be nothing more than convincing your audience to reexamine long-held opinions or admit the possibility of new ways of thinking.
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13. Claims and Adjustments
Claim or
Adjustment
Written
Request
State the Problem
Review the Facts
Motivate the Reader
Make Your Request
Most claim letters are routine messages and use the direct approach; however, some require persuasion. Fortunately, most people in business are open to settling your claim fairly and quickly.
The key ingredients of a good persuasive claim are a complete and specific review of the facts and a confident and positive tone.
Begin persuasive claims by stating the basic problem (or with a sincere compliment, rhetorical question, agreeable assertion, or brief review of what's been done about the problem). Include a statement that both you and your audience can agree with or that clarifies what you wish to convince your audience about. Be as specific as possible about what you want to happen.
Next, give your reader a good reason for granting your claim. Show how your audience is responsible for the problem, and appeal to your reader’s sense of fair play, goodwill, or moral responsibility. Explain how you feel about the problem, but don’t get carried away, don't complain too much, and don’t make threats. Make sure your request is calm and reasonable.
Finally, state your request specifically and confidently. Make sure your request proceeds logically from the problem and the facts you’ve explained. Be sure to specify a deadline for action (when necessary or desirable). And don’t forget to remind your audience of the main benefit of granting your claim.
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14. Marketing and Sales Messages
The Competition
Selling Points
and Benefits
The Audience
For promotional messages, begin assessing audience needs, interests, and emotional concerns—just as you would for any business message. Try to form a mental image of the typical buyer for the product you wish to sell. Ask yourself what audience members might want to know about this product. How can your product help them? Are they driven by bottom-line pricing, or is quality more important to them?
Marketing and sales messages nearly always compete with messages from other companies trying to reach the same audience. In crowded markets, promotional writers sometimes have to search for words and phrases that other companies aren't already using. They might also want to avoid themes, writing styles, or creative approaches that are too similar to competitive messages.
With some insight into audience needs and promotional messages from the competition, you're ready to decide which benefits and features of your product or service to highlight. Selling points are the most attractive features of an idea or product; benefits are the particular advantages that readers will realize from those features. Selling points focus on the product. Benefits focus on the user.
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