COM 295T Wk 2 – Apply: Case: Getting the Tone Right

Getting the Tone Right for Persuasive Messages

Tone is particularly important for persuasive messages. Since your audience holds resistance to you or your message, any indication that your message is self-serving or manipulative will increase that resistance. You should aim for a positive, confident, and other-oriented tone. To do this, you can apply the following strategies: apply the personal touch, use action-oriented and lively language, write with confidence, offer choice, and be positive.

Apply the personal touch. You can apply a personal touch in several ways by personalizing the message and using you-voice. You can also do so by making statements tangible. By definition, tangible means that something can be touched; it is material or substantial. In a business communications context, making the statement tangible implies that the readers can discern something in terms that are meaningful to them. This allows the reader to sense the impact on a personal level. Often, you can achieve a tangible feel by combining you-voice with specificity.

Use action-oriented and lively language. In persuasive messages, you have somewhat more license to write creatively. Focus on using action-oriented and lively words to achieve a sense of excitement, optimism, or other positive emotions. Use strong nouns and verbs to add to the excitement of the message. Some sales messages sound dull because of overuse and reliance on words such as “provide” and “offer.” Across the entire message or thought, the action-oriented and lively language should emphasize a central theme.

Write with confidence. As you display more confidence in your idea, your product, or your service, you can more effectively influence your audience. Effective persuaders provide compelling and simple reasons for action.

Offer choice. In the post-trust era (PTE), customers and clients consider choice an indicator of credibility. They view simple language—which does not imply a lack of sophisticated knowledge—as a display of transparency and respect. In contrast, they view overly complex language as potentially deceptive. Similarly, effective persuasive messages avoid statements that may be perceived as pressure tactics. Hard sells are increasingly ineffective in a PTE, especially in written format.

Be positive. Positivity in persuasive messages helps your audience focus on the benefits rather than the drawbacks of what you are trying to promote.

Read the case below and answer the questions that follow.

You are attempting to achieve a positive and helpful tone to invite employees to the benefits fair. Your goal is to get as many employees to attend as possible.

In this exercise, you will assume the role of a human resources (HR) specialist for your company. Each year, your company holds an open enrollment period during October. During this period, employees can make changes to various benefits, such as health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance, and retirement packages.

As part of the open enrollment period, you hold a benefits fair. At this event, representatives for each of your approved insurance and retirement plan vendors are available. Also, representatives from your own office are there to answer questions. To attract employees to the event, you also invite several high-profile speakers to discuss health care and retirement planning.

You are writing several messages to employees to invite them to the event. You will send these messages via email and as announcements on the corporate intranet. You expect that you can be particularly influential by posting to the benefits blog, which is one of the most widely accessed blogs on your corporate intranet.