In the workplace, abundant decisions have to be made. You will present evidence to recommend a course of action or convince someone to do something not previously considered regularly to influence these decisions. This means you will engage in persuasion. Persuasion is the act of motivating audiences to think or believe something or to take action (Adler, 2019). Some examples of persuasive presentations in the workplace may include feasibility reports, program evaluations, business case presentations, sales pitches, and project proposals. Even cover letters, job interviews, and motivational speeches can fall into this category. And if you find yourself working in marketing, you'll be writing and delivering persuasive messages and presentations regularly.
A specific organizational pattern, AIDA, is ideal for presentations requiring persuasion, such as marketing messages pitching a product, service, or even an idea. The AIDA approach divides the message body in the traditional three-part organization (introduction, body, conclusion) into two parts, making for a four-part structure:
Attention-grabbing opener
Interest-generating follow-up
Desire-building details
Action cue
Nearly every commercial you’ve ever seen follows this general structure, which is designed to keep you interested while enticing you towards a certain action, such as buying a product or service. If a commercial took the direct approach, it would say upfront, “Give us $19.99, and we’ll give you this turkey,” but you never see that. Instead, you see all manner of techniques used to grab your attention in the opening, keep you tuned in through the follow-up, pique your desire in the third part, and get you to act on it with purchasing information at the end. Marketing relies on this structure because it effectively accommodates our attention spans’ need to be hooked in with a strong first impression and told what to do at the end so that we remember those details best while working on our desires—even subconsciously—in the two-part middle body.
There are many ways to persuade, but not all of them are ethical. Generally, there are three ways to persuade your audience: by using force and/or threats of punishment, by using deception to trick your audience into thinking or acting a certain way, or by using open and honest communication to convince the audience to voluntarily think or act in a certain way (Adler, 2019). Placing yourself in the shoes or position of the audience to review your persuasive presentation is a great way to be an ethical communicator.
Attributions:
Content for the 'AIDA Approach' section was adapted from
4.1: Choosing an Organizational Pattern Copyright © 2022 by John Corr; Grant Coleman; Betti Sheldrick; and Scott Bunyan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
References:
Adler, R. B. (2019). Communicating at work: Strategies for success in business and the professions. (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Indeed Editorial Team. (2023, July 24). Indeed.com. How to present an idea to your boss (with template); Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/ats-resume-template