buyer's project

Business Writing

Buyer’s Project Format and Lecture

The Buyer’s Project is simply a persuasive sales letter. This is covered in your Bovee & Thill text in Chapter 9, pp. 262-299.

Persuasion

---Persuasion is the process of changing people’s attitudes or influencing their actions.

It is an attempt to change an audience’s attitudes, beliefs, or actions.

---The business meaning of persuasion is influencing an audience by informing them and aiding their understanding.

---Persuasive messages aim to influence an audience who is inclined to resist the message you are trying to convey.

---The best persuasive messages are closely connected to your audience’s existing desires and interests.

---When analyzing an audience, take into account their cultural expectations and practices so that you do not undermine your persuasive message by using an inappropriate appeal or by organizing your message in a way that seems unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

Three questions to ask before you begin to write a persuasive message are:

1. What are you writing about?

2. Who are you writing to?

3. What do you want to happen as a result?

Four Strategic Elements of a Persuasive Message:

1. Needs and Appeals: Satisfying your audience’s needs. (see Maslow’s Pyramid

on page 265 of Bovee & Thill). Once you have analyzed the need motivating

your “buyer,” you can craft an appeal, a “hook” that will interest your

buyer in your message and product/cause. Your “hook” should be “you-oriented”

and you should make it sound like it is in your buyer’s best interest to listen to your message. You need to also consider the following:

a. demographics: age, gender, occupations, income, and education of

your audience.

b. psychographics: the personality, attitudes, and beliefs of your audience.

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2. Emotion and Logic: When people’s needs are not being met, they are likely to

respond emotionally. The danger of making a person too upset is that they

will not listen to your message. People also need to find rational support for

an attitude they’ve already embraced emotionally. To help satisfy this need,

a logical appeal calls on human reason. For the best results, use both emotional

and logical appeals in the first two paragraphs of your persuasive message.

3. Credibility: Enhance your credibility by supplying evidence that is objective and

specific. One of the best ways to gain credibility is to support your message with

facts (testimonials, documents, guarantees, statistics, researched data). This gets

your audience to believe you. Also, express personal traits that enhance your credibility through your style and approach. Be enthusiastic, objective, and sincere. Also, be an expert—know the subject area so you can help your audience

make a decision. Establish common ground—try to identify with your audience.

4. Semantics: Is concerned with the meaning of words. Make sure that you do

not use biased language, slang, and do not be defensive. The words you choose to state your message say much more than their dictionary definition. Abstractions

are subject to interpretation, but often work well in a persuasive message. You can use them to enhance the emotional content of your persuasive message.

(For example, you may be able to sell more flags by appealing to people’s

patriotism). Abstractions are most persuasive when combined with detail.

Organizing and Writing Your Persuasive Message:

Your buyer’s project (persuasive sales letter) should have four paragraphs. You need to use the AIDA plan for this letter (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). This plan is covered on pp. 282-285 of your Bovee & Thill text. The AIDA plan is as follows:

1. Attention (the first paragraph of your letter): Here, you convince the audience

at the beginning that you have something interesting or useful to say. The audience wants to know, “What’s in this message for me?” Make an attention-getting statement that is: personalized, you-oriented, straightforward, and relevant. This paragraph also correlates to the needs and appeals paragraph discussed earlier. You want to “hook” your audience in by getting their attention emotionally, but do not make them too angry or they will not continue to read your letter.

2. Interest (the second paragraph of your letter): This explains how your message

relates to your audience. In this paragraph, you continue the opening theme, “hook,” that you started with but in greater detail. Relate the benefits specifically

to the attention-getter. This paragraph should tie together factual description and

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and the benefits of the product/program/cause. This paragraph correlates to the

emotion and logic strategy mentioned earlier.

3. Desire (the third paragraph of your letter): In this paragraph, you back up your

claims and increase your audience’s willingness to take the action that you’ll

suggest in the next paragraph. This is where you tell your audience what you’ll do with the money…etc, and where you provide statistics…etc. This correlates

to the credibility strategy mentioned earlier.

4. Action (the fourth paragraph of your letter): In this paragraph, you close by

suggesting that your audience take a specific action (join your gym, donate money…etc.). End your message by describing precisely what it is that you want

them to do, and restate how your audience will benefit from your service/product.

Also, make the action easy for them. Provide an answer form or contribution form, and a return stamped envelope, if needed.

You receive AIDA messages in the mail all of the time, particularly at Christmas time.

All of the charity letters…etc. you get in the mail use this plan. Their goal is obvious:

they want you to donate some money. Look at the examples that I have posted before

beginning your project.

Download the images and read it. It is a model paper.