Messaging for persuasion and influence

Persuasive written messaging

What do we mean by using persuasion in communication?

Persuasion is a subset of communication, and has often been defined as a communicative process to influence others (Jowett & ODonnell, 2006, p. 31). Perloff believes persuasion is about attitudes and how to change them (2010, p. 3). He goes on to define persuasion as a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice (Perloff, p. 12). Persuasion occurs through mediated channels (communicated via a medium such as the internet, mobile technology or news media), and also in interpersonal (face-to-face) situations. Written communication is largely the focus of this paper, as well as the applications of social influence through interpersonal and organisational relationships.

People persuade themselves to change attitudes or behavior. Communicators provide the arguments. Receivers can make the changes or refuse to make them (Perloff, 2010, p. 14).

Communication can do and does change attitudes. Such changes rarely happen immediately. Persuasion is a process, and the pace of change can be slow, step-by-step, with each step counting as an instance of self-persuasion (Perloff, 2010, pp. 25-26).

Related terms

It is important to understand the terms used, so lets clarify some key concepts at this early point.

Persuasion versus coercion

What is the difference between persuasion and coercion? (To coerce is to force, pressure, intimidate, compel, bully or drive.)

Persuasion involves transmitting a message so that people convince themselves of their own free will to make a decision. Persuasion attempts to satisfy the needs of both the persuader and persuadee (Jowett & ODonnell, 2006. p. 1)

Coercion, in contrast, is a technique for forcing people to act as the coercer wants them to act often agaisnt their preferences. Usually a direct or indirect threat is involved, and individuals are deprived of some freedom or autonomy (Perloff, 2010, p. 16-19).

Coercion can be applied quite subtly, and can vary in intensity, for example, in threatening messages, employers directives, interrogation or perceived moral obligation. The concept of persuasion overlaps with the concept of coercion (Perloff, 2010, p. 17).

Propaganda

We have all heard about propaganda in the context of Hitlers Germany. But what is it exactly? And is propaganda still with us in other ways?

2

As noted above, persuasion involves transmitting a message so that people convince themselves of their own free will to make a decision. It is generally viewed as a positive force (Perloff, 2010, p. 19).

Propaganda typically describes mass influence through mass media. Propaganda intentions are generally hidden stealthy, secretive and concealed. Propaganda is also where a group has total control over the transmission of information (Perloff, 2010, pp. 19-20, 24), for example, the North Korean government and armed forces communication. It is manipulative. Propaganda tends to be associated with evil intentions or forces.

Propaganda

Propaganda can also be perceived as a process of persuasion and, as such, is inherently neutral or value neutraland thus it can be seen as a process of persuasion which can be used for good as well as ill. (Advertising/PR?)

Subjectively, people also refer to propaganda as persuasive communication with which a person disagrees and attributes hostile intent, eg opposing political messages, spin and news management. These are merely at different points on the way between education and propaganda.

What about manipulation?

Is persuasion manipulation? Or is manipulation persuasion? Although the terms overlap, there are key differences.

Manipulation is when a communicator disguises his or her true persuasive goals, hoping to mislead the recipient by delivering an apparent message that contradicts or conflicts with its true intent (Perloff, 2010, p. 24).

Flattery, sweet talk and false promises are manipulative techniques. Manipulation in public relations would comprise exaggeration (hyperbole), distortion, selective choice of misleading facts or even telling lies to support the claim.

Publicity as persuasion

Publicity involves the use of communication to make an entity (person, group or organisation) publicly known.

Publicity can be initiated either internally or externally and can be favourable or unfavourable. Being public implies visibility, attention, prominence, identification, understanding and openness.

Publicity is used to attempt to influence peoples knowledge, attitude or actions.

To influence means to affect or alter by indirect or intangible means (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). An attitude is an internal state of feeling toward, or an evaluative response to, an idea, person or object. As people form beliefs about an object, idea or person, they simultaneously develop attitudes toward it. Attitudes are important determining factor in behavior; and attitudes and behaviors are generally consistent (OKeefe, 2002, p. 16).

3

A belief is a perceived link between any two aspects of a persons world; it expresses a relationship between two things, or a thing and a characteristic of that thing. To change old beliefs or to create new ones, a persuader has to build on beliefs that already exist in the minds of the audience. The stronger the belief of a receiver, the more likely it is to influence the formation of a new belief (Jowett & ODonnell, 2006, p. 33).

As a form of persuasion, publicity uses communication (versus physical force, patronage or purchase) to influence others, including the formation and maintenance of mutually beneficial organisational-public relationships (Hallahan, 2010, p. 529). Anyone can engage in publicity; it is not just a technique employed by the public relations profession.

Changing behavior with persuasive messages

Effective messaging is crucial to successful communication

Messages are the information that individuals, groups or organisations want their target publics (readers, viewers, listeners, recipients, audiences, constituents etc) to know (Mahoney, 2008).

A key message is a theme, premise or argument that is the single idea used in all communication in a particular activity, project or program.

Essential to adapt messages to audiences

The most important skill in persuasive success is that of adapting messages to audiences. Skilled persuaders adapt their messages to those they seek to influence. Adaptation can usefully be considered as two separate, but related tasks:

1. Identifying the current obstacles or resistance to agreement or compliance. 2. Constructing effective messages aimed at removing or minimising such obstacles or resistance.

Messages these days are sent into a congested environment, in which they compete with many other messages for the attention of target audiences. The aim in sending a message is first to interest the receiver ahead of other messages. Then the role of the message is to inform or persuade the receiver to act upon it.

A persuasive message must actually reach the minds of the target audience, or the effort and cost of trying to reach them will be completely wasted. Receivers must understand the message, remember it and undertake actions before their behavior is likely to be altered.

Expectations need to be realistic. People seldom change old attitudes or habitual behaviors in one move. Most changes induced by persuasive messaging tend to be incremental (Pfau & Wan, 2006, p. 106). Single persuasive messages generally seek small movements in receivers: initially forming or shaping thoughts, feelings or behaviors where none existed before; reducing hostility levels in opponents; winning over apathetic, uninformed or conflicted receivers; or intensifying thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviours among supporters. However, messages can also induce people to decide a significant change immediately, for instance a consumer making a purchase decision.

4

Input elements

Political scientist Harold Lasswell concisely summed up the essentials of communication: If you can figure out who says what, to whom, how, with what effect, you will have come a long way in understanding how communication works (Lindenmann, 2006).

The input choices for designing messages in a persuasion campaign:

Sources (Who)

Who is the speaker or sender of the message (organisational) and how credible, expert, attractive are they?

Messages (What)

What kind of appeal is made and how is information presented?

Channels (How)

All the available possible means of communication?

Receivers (To whom)

Who is the message aimed at and what is the age group, education level, personality structure, etc?

Intent (With what effect)

What outputs and outcomes are being sought? What is the desired aim and does it require a behaviour or attitude change?

The inputs selected then lead to a range of possible outputs.

Output variables

The stages through which a message must pass to achieve a persuasive outcome (based on McGuires matrix:

Exposure Did the intended receiver even get the message? Do they watch or read the selected communication channels?

Attention If they were exposed, were they paying attention or were they doing something else as well or instead of?

Liking Did they like the messagenot in the sense of finding it nice but in appreciating the design, appearance, music, etc?

Comprehension Did they understand the messageor was the content confusing, e.g. climate change, new government policy or new regulations?

Acquiring skills Do they need to change a behaviour, e.g. learn how to cook, put on a seatbeltand do any of these changes require new skills?

Changing attitudes

Did they like the campaign but vote for the other party? Have they decided that they do want to change their approach to a topic or product?

Remembering Did they remember the key message at the point where it was most likely to influence their response, such as the supermarket or voting booth?

Deciding to act Having seen, liked, understood and remembered the messages, and having changed attitudes towards the intent of the campaign, did the audience make the next step and actually decide to do something about itwhether thats stopping smoking, eating more fruit or going to Bali?

Behavior change

Having decided to act, did they actually make the effort and alter their behaviour in line with the desired intent, or perhaps, in a different way?

5

Reinforcing the decision

Having behaved as suggested once, will they repeat the action or forget the message?

Consolidating the results

Does the campaign make the most of its own successes, by telling the audience how theyd responded, perhaps through individual case studies or release of relevant statistics?

Determining the nature of messages

Persuasive messages need to fit within an overall strategic structure to be most effective. The framework below shows how messages should be developed to support the organisations priorities. Communicators are often pressured to jump into communication activities without much depth of thought. The easy road is to go along with what others say.

Everyone communicates, and therefore senior managers, lawyers, marketers and others with a shallow understanding of communication may try to impose their own subjective views on the way communication activities should be handled. However, ultimately you need to demonstrate that the writing you are engaging in actually supports your organisational goals.

Key questions to ask yourself about a persuasion campaign

1. What is important to our stakeholders?

2. What do we want them to do, think and feel as a result of this action?

3. What will it take to get them to do that? (Types of messages.)

4. How does the goal/objective of this activity connect to our business goals?

5. What value will result to the business if we achieve the goal of this activity?

6. Can we integrate this with another action for better leverage?

7. How will not saying anything about this help us achieve our goals?

Organisational mission, goals and objectives

Organisational goals and objectives that can be influenced by communication

(Key stakeholders, how, when, and about what)

Public relations strategies

Public relations messaging

6

Four guiding principles for persuasive messages

Respected PR scholars, Cutlip, Center and Broom, identified broad four principles to use as a guide to the development of persuasion in public relations. Keeping them in mind will be valuable for achieving effective results:

1 Identification principle Most people will ignore an idea, opinion, or a point of view unless they clearly see that it affects their personal fears and desires, hopes or aspirations. Your message must be stated in terms of the interest of your audience.

2 Action principle People seldom buy ideas separated from actioneither action taken or about to be taken by the sponsor of the idea, or action that the people themselves can conveniently take to prove the merit of the idea. Unless a means of action is provided, people tend to shrug off appeals to do things.

3 Principle of familiarity and trust We buy ideas only from those we trust; we are influenced by, or adopt, only those opinions or points of view put forward by individuals or corporations or institutions that we regard as credible. Unless the listener has confidence in the speaker, the listener is not likely to listen or believe.

4 Clarity principle The situation must be clear to us, not confusing. The thing we read, observe, see or hear, the thing that produces our impressions, must be clear, not subject to several interpretations. People want things to be straight forward. To communicate, you must employ words, symbols or stereotypes that the receiver comprehends and responds to (Cutlip, Center & Broom, 1985, pp. 1789).

Practical steps for developing persuasive messages:

1. Identify existing perceptions about the organisation, product or service by research or analysis of existing information.

2. Decide what realistic changes can be made to those perceptions, and state as goals. Identify the relevant and effective principles or elements of persuasion. Decide if the persuasive message is appropriate. Will it reach the target receivers? Will it have enough impact? Is it credible and influential? Facts should be the underlying basis of the work, but stating the facts in a message is rarely enough. Human emotions need to be included in messages for stronger impact because people relate to other people and their experiences more than to purely factual information.

3. Ensure the messages are credible and deliverable through PR. Perhaps alternative media may be better suited.

(Gregory, 2008, p. 113)

7

Sequence to form messages

When developing messages, a suggested sequence of activities is:

Analysis

Goals and objectives

Publics/stakeholders/receivers

Messages

Strategy

Actions

Timescales

Resources

Evaluation

Review

(Based on Gregory, 2008, p. 44).

Public relations is mostly about using messages to achieve change by target publics, audiences or stakeholders. Obviously the angle, content and timing of messages are crucial to communication success. Messages are the point of contact between a sender and receiver. If they are unsuitable or distributed badly, they may cause the receiver to end the relationship immediately. Ideally, messages should be formed after testing with a sample of the target audience or, even better, from full consultation with that target audience.

Summarising an argument down to its bare essentials in a key message helps to focus management minds and imposes discipline on vague thinking (Gregory, 2006, pp. 1945).

Its not what you say, its what they hear

The message sent by the communicator is important, but the most important thing is the takeaway message absorbed by the receiver. The takeaway message is the target audiences response to the message put out by the communicator: it is what the audience hears versus what the communicator says. Good takeaway messages focus on the stakeholders needs, not the organisations desire to communicate a message about its programs.

To be effective, a takeaway message targets stakeholder beliefs or opinions and answers the question, How is this relevent to me? Messages should drive the behavior change in the specific audience being addressed.

Public relations requires almost continual problem-solving and use of professional judgment because every situation has its unique and different time, place and audience. Attempting to establish a single set of rules for developing message content would be counter-productive.

8

Repeat the message

Nevertheless, continuity in messaging is essential for successful outcomes. With major themes, the main message needs to be repeated frequently with variations that keep it fresh. It needs to be kept simple and needs to be delivered at the appropriate time and place in the most appropriate form through the most appropriate channels that reinforce the message.

Message frequency is the number and pattern of messages presented to a particular public in a given period of time while message reach is the number of different people who are exposed to a single message (Smith, 2005).

For nearly all messages, one exposure to a message is insufficient. Several exposures are required for receivers to absorb the message optimally. Around 3-5 exposures seem to be optimal for most messages. Messages need to be repeated several times in various media to achieve sufficient retention and to generate credibility and greater acceptance when people see it repeated in more than one source.

Every communication project or program has a limited budget and therefore the practitioner is obliged to find a balance between reach and frequency. Usually it is more effective to focus on a tightly defined audience more frequently rather than reach a larger number of people less frequently. However, there are no fixed rules of practice for messages. Each situation is different and the tactic with messaging depends on using professional judgment on the unique aspects of the situation.

Remember that the great volume of information available today from the web as well as traditional news media is making receivers extremely selective in choosing sources from which they acquire news and other information (Wright, 2005).

Also extremely important is the reality that people strongly tend to believe the side of a story they hear first (Wright, 2005). The onus is therefore on aiming where possible to communicate promptly, especially on important subjects.

9

Help, the campaign strategys not working! How to fix

If the PR activity is not working, then the problem will be:

1. the nature of the product or service being promoted, or 2. the message being sent.

1. Possible product problems

The product is sub-standard.

The product is too bland or unoriginal.

The product and/or message is aimed at wrong target markets.

The product needs to be sampled first by consumers.

2. Possible message problems

Saying the wrong things, or in the wrong way, or the medium or timing are wrong or clash with another breaking story.

News media arent interested. Pitch OK?

Action to fix messages that are not working

Consequences can be serious when you realise your strategy is not working.

What can you do? Start by asking two key questions:

1. Are my goals right and attainable?

If no then change them. If yes, go to question 2.

2. Whats wrong with the strategy?

What has been overlooked or misinterpreted?

Did you ask the right questions, or enough of them, initially?

Did you get enough accurate answers?

Do you understand your publics/stakeholders sufficiently?

Are your messages credible and satisfactorily deliverable?

Is the activity too ambitious?

Is the activity insufficiently resourced?

(Gregory, 2008, pp. 179-180)

10

References

Cutlipp, S., Center., & Broom, Glen. Effective Public Relations. (6th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1985.

Gregory, A. (2006). Ethics and professionalism in public relations. In R. Tench and L. Yeomans (Eds.). Exploring Public Relations. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education.

Gregory, A. (2008). Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns. London: Kogan Page. Hallahan, K. (2010). Being Public. In R. Heath (Ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Public Relations. Thousand

Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Jowett, G., & ODonnell, V. (2006). Propaganda and Persuasion. (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Publications. Lindenmann, W. (2006). Public relations research for planning and evaluation. Retrieved from

www.instituteforpr.org/ipr_info/relations_research_planning/ Mahoney, J. (2008). Public relations writing in Australia. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. OKeefe, D. (2002) Persuasion: theory & research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage

Publications. Perloff, R. (2010). The Dynamics of Persuasion: communication and attitudes in the 21st century (4th

ed.). New York: Routledge. Pfau, M. & Wan, H. (2006). Persuasion: an intrinsic function of public relations. In C. Botan & V.

Hazleton (eds.). Public relations theory II. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Smith, R. (2005). Strategic Planning for Public Relations. (2nd ed.). Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates. Wright, D. (2005). A Benchpoint global analysis of how research is used in public relations

throughout the world. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference, San Antonio, Texas, August 2005

Messaging for persuasion and influencePersuasive written messagingWhat do we mean by using persuasion in communication?Related termsPersuasion versus coercionPropagandaPropagandaWhat about manipulation?Publicity as persuasion

Changing behavior with persuasive messagesEffective messaging is crucial to successful communicationEssential to adapt messages to audiencesInput elementsOutput variablesDetermining the nature of messagesKey questions to ask yourself about a persuasion campaignFour guiding principles for persuasive messagesPractical steps for developing persuasive messages:Sequence to form messagesIts not what you say, its what they hearRepeat the message

Help, the campaign strategys not working! How to fixAction to fix messages that are not working

References