Business Communication Today, Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Writing Persuasive Messages

Before writing a persuasive message one must understand what persuasive means. Persuasion is the attempt to change someone’s attitudes, beliefs, or actions. A common mistake when writing a persuasive message is failing to clarify your purpose. You need to make your message sounds better than any other alternative they might have in mind other than your message. One way of doing this is by analyzing the situation such as getting to know you’re demographic. Demographic includes characteristic such as age, gender, occupation, income, and education. You will also need to know psychographics which include characteristic such as personality, attitudes, and lifestyle. After having this information one must write a persuasive message that is understand to their motivation. Whatever it is that drives people is what you will need to know how to use in your writing.

Here are some examples of Human needs that influence motivation: (p.280)

Need: Basic Physiological requirements: The needs for food, water, sleep, oxygen, and other essentials.

Implications For Communication: Everyone has these needs, but the degree of attention an individual gives to them often depends on whether the needs are being met; for instance, an advertisement for sleeping pills will have greater appeal to someone suffering from insomnia than to someone who has no problem sleeping.  

Need: Safety and Security: The needs for protection from bodily harm, to know that loved ones are safe, and for financial security, and other assurances.

Implications For Communication: These needs influence both consumer and business decisions in a wide variety of ways; for instance, advertisements for life insurance often encourage parents to think about the financial security of their children and other loved ones.

Those are just two of the many examples you can use. Just remember that the Need is “the individual senses a need of some sort, from the basic need for food to a need for recognition or self-respect. We are all born with certain needs but can acquire other needs as we grow up, such as a need for achievement or a need to affiliate with compatible friends and colleagues.” Action is “To fulfill a need, the individual takes actions or adopts behaviors that he or she believes will result in the need being satisfied. The quality of the action is a matter of choosing which action to take, deciding how much effort to put into the action, and deciding how long to sustain that effort.” Outcome is “The individual observes the outcome of the action (sometimes called the reward) and determines whether the effort was worthwhile. Actions that result in positive outcome are likely to be repeated; those that result in negative outcome are less likely to be repeated.” (p.281).


here are some helpful links:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5043/effective_persuasive_messages_for_business.html
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/writing/article_1443.shtml