Writing Persuasive Messages

Test your knowledge 1-5
1. What are some questions to ask when gauging the audiences' needs during the planning of a persuasive message?
- Who is my audience?
- What are my audience members' needs?
- What do I want them to do?
- How might they resist?
- Are there alternative positions I need to examine?
- What does the decision maker consider to be the most important issue?
- How might the organization's culture influence my strategy?

2. What role do demographics and psycho-graphics play in audience analysis during the planning of a persuasive message?
You must take into account the audiences' demographics (gender, age, occupation, income, and education) and psycho-graphics (personality, attitudes, lifestyle, and other psychological characteristics) so that you don't undermine your persuasive message by using inappropriate appeal or by organizing your message in a way that seems unfamiliar or uncomfortable to your readers.

3. How do emotional appeals differ from logical appeals?
An emotional appeal calls on feelings or audience sympathies. A logical appeal are based on the reader's notions of reason.

4. What three types of reasoning can you use in logical appeals?
You can use analogy, induction, or deduction in logical appeals.

5. What is the AIDA model, and what are its limitations?
The AIDA model is a useful approach for many persuasive messages which organizes your presentation into four phases: attention, interest, desire, and action. There are 2 limitation to the AIDA approach:
- it essentially talks at the audiences, not with them
- it focuses on one-time events not long-term relationships