Making Your Case With

Persuasive Messages and

Proposals

Chapter 9
General Advice About
Persuasion

 Know your readers

• Demographic information (age, race, gender,

income)

• Psychographic information ( social, political,

personal preferences)
Choose and Develop Targeted Reader Benefit

 No one is persuaded to do something without reason.

 Some reasons involve tangible benefits.

 Of reasons involve intangible rewards.

 Do not underestimate the power of intangible

benefits.

 Benefits can be both intrinsic or extrinsic.

 Let intrinsic reward do the main work of your

persuasive effort.

 Let readers see the exact benefits

 Product features and reader benefits.

Make good use of three kinds of appeals

 Logic (logos)

 Emotion (pathos)

 Character of the speaker (ethos)

 Think what kind of logical appeal to make?

 Save money? Saved time? A more dependable

product?

 Emotional appeal: higher status, increased

popularity?

 Character: what kind of image of yourself and your

company will resonate with customers?
Make It Easy for Your Customers to Comply

 In creating persuasive appeal do not put

insufficient thought into making the requested
action as clear and easy to perform as possible.

 Envelop, address, safety rules, conservation

rules.
Persuasive Requests

 Determining your strategy

• Common ground persuasion technique

 Getting attention in the beginning

 Developing the appeal

 Making the request clearly and positively

 Summarizing the plan for requests

Determining Your Strategy

 Figuring out the best strategy involves three

interrelated tasks;

 Determining what you want?

 Deciding upon a persuasive strategy that will

overcome reader objection.

 Determining your actual goal for persuasive

request.

 One time donation vs. continued donation

 First time request vs. third time request.

General planning

 Parts of the Message

 • Gain attention

 • Build interest

 • Reduce resistance

 • Motivate action

 Applies to:

 • Message within an organization

 • Sales message to a customer

Common ground persuasion technique.

 A special kind of persuasive request is one that

casts the request as a problem-solution message.

 First, present a problem that you and the readers

share.

 Then, show how doing as you prose will solve

the problem for all concerned.

 Example: fund raising letter,

 This can be a powerful technique for internal

audiences who might not be receptive to a
proposal.
Gaining Attention in the Opening

 Opening has a goal to lead to the central strategy.

 Additional goal is to gain attention.

 Draw in your reader with an interesting

beginning.
Attention gaining opening

 Determine what your reader finds interesting:

 You want to be brief, targeted, and interesting.

 A few attention‐grabbing tools for a persuasive

message include:

 • Product feature

 Our new humidifier has a unique self cleaning

system.
Examples

 Problem statement

 Last month our department was forced to work 120

overtime hours, costing us $5,000 and causing
considerable morale damage.

 Unexpected or surprising statement

 If you checked carefully, you’d probably find that 20

percent of your customers account for 80 percent of your
profits.

 Your local R&G supplier is going out of business!

 Reader benefit

 Now you can immediately protect all your computers

from the latest viruses with our online antivirus program.
Examples

 Stimulating question

 How would you like to cut employee overtime costs in

half?

 • Headlines

 An update of 401K deadlines is included in this

newsletter.

 • Questions

 If I could show you how to save $50 a month on your

utility bill, would you be interested?

 When your employee calls in sick, how much does it

cost your company to recover?
Build Interest

 why a change is needed and why readers need to

feel affected by the problem?

 Because your readers are interested in their own

goals, their problems, their needs, their hopes,
their fears, their dreams and aspirations ‐‐ your
product or service is of secondary importance to
them.

 Your focus needs to be on addressing your

prospect’s wants or needs, or solving one of their
problems before you start talking about the
details of anything else.
Examples

 Supply facts and figures

 Currently 30,000 known computer viruses are in

effect, and the number increases by 300 to 400 each
month.

 Give examples

 One company lost valuable data and had no recent

backup disks to replace infected files.

 Cite expert opinion

 “Hostile code can hit without warning,” says virus

specialist Dr. Tony Tims, “so companies must have
a virus antidote or they risk all of their operations.”
Build Interest

 Provide specific details

 In a test comparing six of the leading antivirus

programs, our program was flawless in virus
detection, easy to administer, and low in ownership
cost.

 Mention direct benefits

 Our antivirus program can protect you from subtle

corruptions of data that may go unnoticed for
months.

 If you accept our invitation to speak, you will have

an audience of 50 potential customers for your
products.
Build Interest

 Mention indirect benefits

 Your company continues to be a pacesetter in the

health care industry by setting an example for
other organizations who might be apprehensive
about increased governmental regulations.

 Your appearance would prove your

professionalism and make us grateful for your
willingness to give something back to our field.
Overcome Resistance

 Here you want to identify possible obstacles and

offer counter arguments including:

 Demonstrate your credibility by being

knowledgeable. Show how the receiver or others
will benefit, especially when requesting favors or
making recommendations.

 Michael’s special blend of unique research

combined with an unprecedented award record
led one Los Angeles Times reporter to dub him
the “dean of landscape architects.”
Overcome Resistance

 One way to reduce resistance is with credibility.

If you are believable and reasonable, you’ll have
less resistance.

 Another way to offer credibility in persuasion is

to show prospects a full or partial list of your
customers, your history, or your successes.
Motivate Action

 Now you’ve grabbed your reader and hopefully

interested them in your idea, proposal,
production or service, and you want to them to
act.

 Most people will avoid taking action if they can,

so some suggestions for motivating action
include:

 Asking for specific action confidently.

 Including an end date, if appropriate.

 Repeating a key benefit.

Example

 If you take advantage of this first time offer now,

we’ll pay all shipping and handling charges. We
are offering complimentary evaluations to the
first ten buyers who sign up for our technical
system today.

 The goal of persuasive writing is to bring about

a change to your reader’s opinions, attitudes,
beliefs, behaviors, purchasing plans, brand
preferences, or immediate buying actions.
Developing an appeal

 Present your reasoning logically and in an

orderly fashion.

 You should do more than merely list points.

Convey points with convincing details.

 Need to make a good use of you-viewpoint as

you are approaching a skeptical mind.

 Pay special attention to the meanings and clarity

of your words.

 Need to use logic and emotion appropriately.

Making the Request Clearly And
Positively

 Choose you words carefully.

 You should avoid words that detract from the

request.

 Avoid words that remind of images and ideas

that might work against you.

 Avoid words that bring to mind the reasons for

refusing.

 Example:

 The closing can be of different types depending

on situation.
Sales Messages

 One of the most widely used forms of business

communication is the sales message.

 It has become an elaborate, highly

professionalized genre.

 Careful attention is paid to each part of the

message.
Ethical Concerns

 Questioning the acceptability of sales messages.

 Sales messages are controversial for two reasons.

 They are often unwanted.

 They sometimes use dubious persuasive

techniques.

 Sales messages via email is often more

controversial.

 You need to consider those objections.

• Permission-based email. Survey.

Ethical Concerns

 Persuasive messages use unfair persuasive

tactics?

 Ranges from wrong wording, visuals, omission

of important information.

 Example.

 Other kind of online sales messages are

particularly obnoxious.

 A persuasive message is by definition biased.

 As a result, ethical considerations are important.

Use conscience and ability.
Preparing to Write a Sales
Message

 You must know all you can know about your

product or service you are selling.

 Prospects need the most to know about the product

or service.

 Study your readers. Gather all possible information

that will help you find out why they would buy
your product.

 Use research team or do your own research.

 Use logic, imagination or the product itself as your

guide.

 Familiarize yourself with all available media.

Determining the central appeal

 With your product, prospects and media in mind, you

are ready to create the sales message.

 At this step you decide on what appeal you are going

to use.

 One appeal should stand out as the main one-

beginning, middle and end. Message should
emphasize central, best appeal.

 Emotional, logical and character based appeal:

examples.

 People also buy products as they feel good to identify

themselves with the company.

 Think about how the buyer will use your product.

Examples

 A rational appeal for a retailer:

 Here is a proven best-seller- and with a 12% greater profit.

 Emotional appeal for fishing vacation:

 Your line hums as it whirs through the air. Your line splashes
and dances across the smooth surface of the clear water as you
reel. From the depth you see the silver streak of a striking bass.
You feel a sharp tug. The battle is on!

 A character based appeal:

 In 1984 three enterprising women met to do something about

the lack of accessible health information for women.
Gaining Attention Before the
Message Begins

 Attention grabbing envelop

 With email no envelop but attention grabbing

starts with the From, To and subject line.

 Beware of spam and junk mails.

 Let your reader know of your and your company.

 Subject line of the email is main place for getting

attention. Spam filters.
Attention Grabbing Envelop
Gaining attention in the opening of the
message

 First words of your message must also gain

attention and motivate the reader to keep
reading.

 Be creative but do not write something just to

gain attention.

 Attention needs to be followed with service and

quality.

 One of the most attention grabbing opening is a

statement or question that introduces a need that
the product will satisfy.

 Rational appeal is very useful.

Building a persuasive case

 With reader’s attention now you proceed with the

planned strategy.

 Example: emotional appeal. Rational appeal.

Character based appeal. Stay with the initial strategy.

 Sales messages are highly conversational, fast

moving, and aggressive.

 Can use fragments, catchy clichés and slangs.

 It may also use visual emphasis devices and a variety

of type sizes and fonts.

 Punchy writing and visual effects enable quick

processing of the messages main points.
Stressing the You-viewpoint

 You viewpoint is very important for sales

messages.

 Successful sales message is built on readers

interest.

 Be liberal in your use of the pronoun you

throughout the sales message as you presents the
reader’s benefits.

 You may also want to make use of scenario

painting, putting the reader in a simulated
context that brings out the product’s appeal.
Examples

 Facts  You-viewpoint

 We make aristocrat hosiery in three

colors

 The Regal vacuum cleaner weighs

only a few ounces.

 Lime-Fizz is a lime-flavored
carbonated beverage.

 Baker’s Dozen is a packaged in a

rectangular box with a bright bull’s-
eye design.
Choosing words carefully

 Every word matters.

 Try putting yourself on the readers place.

 Choose words carefully as they come with

different shades.

 Word selection implies a choice, while the word

preference implies a first choice.

 Framing your requests in the positive is also a

proven persuasive technique.

 Readers will tend to opt for solutions to

problems that avoid negatives.
Examples

 Original version  Positive writing

 Tastee ice cream has nine grams of  Tastee ice cream is 95% fat free.
fat per serving.

 Our new laser paper keeps the

wasted paper from smudged copies  Out new laser paper ensures
to less than 2 percent. smudge-free copes over 98% of the
time.
Enhancing your message with
visuals

 The web has made readers more visually oriented than

ever before.

 Consider different visual tools available at your

disposal.

 Both direct letter and email sales have become more

visually appealing.

 Sometimes some emails are almost all pictures and

sometimes the exact opposite.

 A photo is not just a photo. It represents a mood, a set

of values, and even an experience.

 Visual elements and positioning must project the

desired message and complement the textual content.
Example
Including all necessary information

 Be sure to include all necessary information.

 No questions should be left unanswered.

 Your information must be able to overcome any likely

objection.

 Information should also be clear and convincing.

 Think about enclosures, attachments and other

supplementary information if they do not fit easily
into the letter.

 You may want to direct your readers’ attention to these

other pieces with comments.

 What about email messages?

Driving for the sale

 After you have developed your reader’s interest, next step is to

drive for the sale.

 It should come as a natural conclusions to your previous

paragraphs.

 How to word your drive?

 If sales effort is strong, drive is also strong.

 If you use a milder selling effort, you could use a different method.

 However, the drive must be specific and clear.

 Make the actions easy for readers.

 Urge for immediate action. However, some readers might get

offended.

 Mention few words to recall the main appeal.

Examples

 Just check your preferences on the enclosed

order card and drop it in the mail today.

 To start enjoying House and Garden, just call 1-

888-888-000. be sure to have promo code 3333
handy to receive your 40% discount.
Additional Care

 Adding a postscript

o Sales message use post scripts as part of design.

o Can be used in number of ways- to remind, to
rush, to pass along the sales message.

 Offering name removal to email readers

 This required by law.

 Take care in positioning the link.

 Provide readers with options of messages.

Situation Painting Appeal
Emotional Appeal
Visual Appeal
Evaluating Contrasting
Examples

 A weak, self-centered message

 Skillful use of character and rational appeals

Bad Example
Good Example
Good Example Continued
Proposals

 Types of proposals

• Internal or external

• Solicited or unsolicited
Proposal Format and Contents

 Format and formality

 Content
Qualifications

 Desirability of the solution

 Qualifications of the proposer

 Return on the investment

Steps in preparing proposal

 Writer’s purpose

 Background

 Need

 Description of proposal

 Benefits of the proposal

 Cost and other particulars

 Evidence of your ability

 Concluding remarks