The Power of Persuasion: Making Your Message Resonate

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The words of everyday conversation are shorter than corporate or academic language because they have fewer syllables, and they usually are more specific, so they enable readers to see, hear, feel, and smell.

Psychologists Marti Gonzales and Aronson used it to their advantage when they were called in to help improve the results of an energy conservation program in California. The program provided free energy audits to homeowners, but few people were participating. The auditors were experts in the efficiency of buildings but no one had examined how they communicated their findings and recommendations to the homeowners.

Language was important. An auditor could show the homeowner where weather stripping under a door could block air from coming in, but Gonzales and Aronson said more people would be motivated to act if the auditor said this:

 If you add up all the cracks around the doors you would have a hole the size of a football in your living room wall. Think about how much heat would escape from a hole that size. And your attic totally lacks insulation. We call that a "naked" attic. It’s as if your home is facing winter not just without an overcoat but without any clothing at all.

A crack in the wall could be viewed as minor, but a hole the size of a football feels disastrous, Gonzales and Aronson wrote in the Journal of Applied Psychology. And the idea of being naked in winter focuses the listener’s attention and increases the probability that the homeowner will comply with the request and take action.

Great speakers are persuasive because they use plain, common language to motivate people to act.. John F. Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He didn’t say ... "Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what you can do to enhance optimal, cross-functional leveraging." Great speakers use words that connect with the audience.

Aristotle laid out three key elements of persuasion: credibility, a strong argument, and the ability to tap an audience’s emotions. One way to do that is through the use of metaphors, which enable readers to grasp complex ideas by linking the unfamiliar to the familiar.  They are valuable in a persuasive appeal because the implied comparison narrows the frame of reference for the audience so that people view the subject in the context that you want to establish in the their mind.

When a writer describes an always-tired executive as having "the eyes of a basset hound," you get one unmistakable picture. When the Chicago Bears had a lineman whose popular nickname was "the refrigerator," you did not need to know much about football to have an immediate image of how wide and tall he was. A writer who says she gave up gardening because her plants always "looked like they were sprayed with Agent Orange" evokes a picture of her garden.

Another tactic to strengthen your persuasive appeal by making the request "real" for the audience is to make it personally relevant. Here are two techniques:

That is because people place a higher value on something we risk losing than on something we are likely to gain. People are more likely to want to minimize or avoid a loss than they are if the goal is to have a positive outcome.

Using the energy-conservation scenario above, a strategy that stresses savings might actually discourage people from changing their habits. It would be better to present the conservation recommendations in the context of energy and money the homeowner would lose.

In one experiment, psychologists discussed mammograms with two groups of women. One group heard about the benefits of regular check-ups; the other was told about the dangers of not having check-ups, and the group also was shown pictures of what can happen when mammograms are ignored. A follow-up study a year later found that many more women from the group exposed to the risks began getting regular exams.

Say What the Person’s Friends or Colleagues Are Doing
Relate the favorable experiences or sentiments of people your target audience knows, because when people are trying to decide what action to take, they often will take their cue from what others say or do. It is the principle of social consensus: If other people are doing it or supporting it, it must be a worthwhile idea.

 If the issue is getting people to sign up for a program or a committee, mention who else already has signed up. If you are trying to generate support for your idea, mention other people who endorse it, particularly if they are at the same professional level.

Influencing an audience to comply with your request means connecting with readers and listeners on their level. Using language and examples that personalize your appeal is a great place to start.

Ken O'Quinn is a Corporate Writing Coach for Writing With Clarity (http://www.WritingWithClarity.com). Ken can be reached at ken@writingwithclarity.com.

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