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Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) recently hosted the professional development webinar “Influencing Your Audience,” in which featured presenter Ken O’Quinn discussed how to craft messages that motivate people to say yes. Topics discussed were persuasive credibility, message tactics and tactics of influence.
Persuasive credibility
O’Quinn began his presentation by discussing the foundation of persuasion. He explained that to set the stage for influence you must improve your persuasive ability by establishing credibility. According to O’Quinn you can strengthen your image credibility in three ways.
The three ways in which people judge credibility are:
1. Expertise
2. Trustworthy nature
3. Goodwill
Message tactics
Upon establishing and strengthening your credibility the next step is to consider message tactics. The three components to message tactics are analyzing your audience, positioning your best information and crafting an effective opening.
Analyzing your audience involves understanding their interest. Understanding your audience’s perspective is important because it allows you to prepare for potential obstacles. Therefore, you should analyze your audience by categorizing them as motivated or unmotivated by your persuasive messages.
Positioning your best information considers the interest levels of your audience. O’Quinn offered specific tactics for various interests.
When the audience is supportive or neutral:
1. Reveal your position or your main point in the opening paragraph.
2. Explain why and give the benefits.
3. Present costs and additional details.
When the audience is resistant or skeptical:
1. Make it clear by fact or example that this is a significant problem.
2. Explain the cause of the problem or the barrier to solving it.
3. Detail your solution.
4. State the advantages of changing.
Crafting an effective opening is the third piece to O’Quinn’s persuasive messaging formula. It requires that you revisit what you are trying to accomplish in your message and apply it to your audience’s interest level.
Tactics of influence
A part of effective messaging is being able to hold your audience’s attention throughout the entirety of the message. O’Quinn shared a few guidelines for creating effective messaging through tactics of influence.
Use concrete language and leave out buzzwords. According to O’Quinn buzzwords have two problems: they are boring and vague. This presents a problem for effective messaging because buzzwords ultimately fail to motivate people.
Urge people to imagine the outcome. If your audience can envision it they will make a connection to the outcome and are more likely to remember it.
Remember the “bandwagon” effect. When you are at a standstill and are unsure what to do, look around and consider what others are doing.
Include substantive information. The use of examples, illustrations or data will support your credibility. However, O’Quinn warns to be weary of over doing it.
Invoke the consistency principle. Aspire to live up to commitments because when your actions fail to match your beliefs it makes everyone uncomfortable. O’Quinn expresses that consistency is a valued trait and therefore people who are not consistent are viewed as unreliable, irresponsible and disorganized.
Ask for less initially. First build a relationship of trust and respect and then reach for more.
Be friendly and helpful to people. It can make you more likeable and in turn credible.
The “Influencing Your Audience” webinar is a part of PRSA’s communication strategy presentation series and is available on demand. The webinar is available to PRSA members for free; nonmembers may also gain access to the webinar for the full price of $200.