I took a business class last semester where I had to write a bunch of speeches. One of those speeches was persuasive.
As I was writing content for my affiliate sites, I found that a lot of what I learned in that class could be effectively used to persuade readers to buy a particular product/service I was selling/marketing, so I started employing a variety of techniques in my writing.
I looked through my notes from the semester, and took out some key points that I thought could be useful to those of you attempting to do the same with your sites.
I know the book was a lot more thorough than my notes, but I can't find it anywhere. It's likely I sold it one day when I was broke so I could go to the bar, haha. Oh well.
Here is what I did find:
Persuasion is the process of influence.
Three types of persuasive appeals
Persuasion and Dissonance
Five responses to dissonance by the reader/listener
Persuasive Organizational Sequences/Tips:
Monroe’s Motivated Sequence - an organizational strategy for persuasive speaking based on the creation of cognitive dissonance. This may be the most powerful persuasive method of all. Think Martin Luther King Jr. here.
More organizational tips:
That's all I have for now. I'm going to look through and see if I can find anything else useful. If I find my book I'll edit the post and throw in some more details and examples.
I hope someone finds this of use. Good luck.
As I was writing content for my affiliate sites, I found that a lot of what I learned in that class could be effectively used to persuade readers to buy a particular product/service I was selling/marketing, so I started employing a variety of techniques in my writing.
I looked through my notes from the semester, and took out some key points that I thought could be useful to those of you attempting to do the same with your sites.
I know the book was a lot more thorough than my notes, but I can't find it anywhere. It's likely I sold it one day when I was broke so I could go to the bar, haha. Oh well.
Here is what I did find:
Persuasion is the process of influence.
- Changing existing beliefs/attitudes/values
- Reinforcing existing beliefs/attitudes/values
- Influencing the actions of others
Three types of persuasive appeals
- Ethos – appeal based on a speaker’s personal character
- Pathos – appeal based on emotional impact
- Logos –appeal based on logic or rationality
Persuasion and Dissonance
- The act of persuasion involves the creation and resolution of dissonance in the minds of audiences.
- Cognitive dissonance is inconsistency or conflict between one’s beliefs, values, attitudes, or actions which produce a state of psychological tension.
Five responses to dissonance by the reader/listener
- Discredit the source
- Reject or deny the new action that caused the inconsistency/reinterpret message
- Stop listening
- Seek new information about the source of message
- Alter values, beliefs, attitudes, or actions
Persuasive Organizational Sequences/Tips:
Monroe’s Motivated Sequence - an organizational strategy for persuasive speaking based on the creation of cognitive dissonance. This may be the most powerful persuasive method of all. Think Martin Luther King Jr. here.
- Attention – Grab audience attention, create interest
- Need – Introduce information/arguments that create dissonance (i.e., you are creating the “need” for resolution of dissonance)
- Satisfaction – Provide a “way out” of dissonance for the audience; tell them how to resolve the tension they feel.
- Visualization – Get your audience to visualize two scenarios
- (1) What the world looks like if they accept what you propose in the Satisfaction stage
- (2) What the world looks like if they fail to adopt your solution.
- Action – Tell the audience what they can personally do with respect to your proposal/argument/solution.
More organizational tips:
- Items of logical proof: Put your least controversial point first. Ease your audience into the controversy.
- Familiarity: Establish value criteria that are familiar to the audience, then demonstrate how your argument fulfills those values.
- Justification: If you can demonstrate that a policy (for example) violates a variety of standards or values that the audience holds, then make each main point demonstrate your argument using a different value.
That's all I have for now. I'm going to look through and see if I can find anything else useful. If I find my book I'll edit the post and throw in some more details and examples.
I hope someone finds this of use. Good luck.