Message Strategies & Persuasion for 5 Bridges
- Anna Swafford
- Mar 8, 2022
- 2 min read
Featured photo: Tony Tran on Unsplash
We all remember our high school English classes and the unit on persuasion and rhetoric techniques right? All of those essays analyzing the specific rhetoric of a president's speech or an activist's lecture. Well, all of that critical thinking might be of some use to you now, especially as the planning of your PR campaign rolls out.
What are Message Strategies?
First, you need to understand what the difference is between a message strategy and an action strategy. Action strategies are the actions or events your organization is using to promote your campaign (Matter, 2021). That might look like sponsoring an event or generating some sort of news or publicity for your organization (Smith, 2021, p. 263). On the other hand, message strategies are the actual communication strategies for your campaign. They demand "carefully planned" interactions between your organization and your key publics (Smith, 2021, p. 375). The best way to plan these interactions is by using persuasion techniques
Persuasion Techniques
The easiest distinguishment within the realm of persuasion is ethos, pathos and logos. If you can strategically aim your communication within these three branches you are on the exact right path.
Pathos - emotions
Ethos - credibility
Logos - facts/statistics
Pathos style communication relies on reaching your audiences through an emotional appeal. So this might be trying to make your audience feel guilty for not using your product, or maybe it is following the ASPCA approach and just trying to make your audience sob until they donate to your cause (we have all seen the ASPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan's Angel playing over the images of the mistreated animals, and if not, don't worry it is linked here).
Ethos style communication relies a lot on your speaker's expertise or on simple things such as body language or personal appearance (Connors, 1979). Using an ethos appeal is perfect for when you are needing to share important information, and to do so you could potentially rely on respected opinion leaders in the field. Ethos can be the most difficult or the easiest, and the best way to make your communication lean one way or the other is going to be how much strategy and planning you put into it.
Logos style communication relies on numbers and facts. It is every PR practitioner's nightmare: dealing with numbers and statistics, trust me I know. But logos is still important to every campaign. Logos appeals target "your audience's reason, building up logical arguments" (Scribbr, n.d.). People listen to facts, especially when you put them in compelling graphs or other visuals. But logos is most effective (as with all of the appeals) when it is combined with ethos or pathos in a message.
Hopefully, this breakdown of using persuasion appeals in message strategies was helpful!
References:
Connors, R. J. (1979). The Differences between Speech and Writing: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. College Composition and Communication, 30(3), 285–290. https://doi.org/10.2307/356398
Matter. (2021, March 30). What's the difference between PR goals, strategies, and tactics? Retrieved March 8, 2022, from https://www.matternow.com/blog/whats-the-difference-between-pr-goals-strategies-and-tactics/
Scribbr. (n.d.). What are logos, ethos, and pathos? Retrieved March 8, 2022, from https://www.scribbr.com/frequently-asked-questions/logos-ethos-pathos/
Smith, R.D. (2021). Strategic planning for public relations (6th Ed.). Routledge.
Comments