persuasion

Develop a 4-part fear appeal

Avoid losing readers in these hot spots

Fear appeals persuade. But they can also paralyze.

Strong fear appeals persuade … The stronger the fear appeal, the more likely it is to move your readers to act, according to 50 years of research and 100 studies reviewed by researchers Kim Witte and Mike Allen.… Read the full article

Stories: better than sex?

Give readers a shot of the love drug, oxytocin

We knew stories were more effective than charts, tables, graphs and simple assertions at helping readers remember what they’ve read, use the information and make good decisions based on the information.… Read the full article

Take me away

‘Transporting’ stories change readers’ minds

Have you ever been lost in a story?

Have you ever looked up and found that hours, not minutes, have passed since you turned on your Kindle and that you are in fact in your own bedroom and not at the palace, about to be crowned queen?… Read the full article

Move from event to impact

Focus news stories on MOI

Screenwriter Nora Ephron long remembered the first day of her high school journalism class.

Ephron’s teacher announced the first assignment: to write the lead for a story to appear in the student newspaper.… Read the full article

Who’s ‘Me’?

You can’t write a WIIFM without the M

If you wanted to keep teens from smoking weed, what message might you communicate?

One health organization, reports Guy Kawasaki in his book Enchantment, used the message that young people who smoked weed were five times more likely to engage in sex.… Read the full article

‘Say Goodbye to the 60-hour Work Week’

Steal techniques from this great WIIFM copy

You know that the topic is never the topic: The reader is the topic.

You’ve acknowledged that readers don’t care about “us and our stuff”; they care about themselves and their needs.… Read the full article

‘You’ for all audiences

Use 2nd person in marketing — even PR

You. It’s a power tool of communications.

The second person increases readability, boosts opens and clickthroughs and is the most retweeted word in the English language.… Read the full article

Write in verbs, not nouns

Your conference name is not a benefit

Remember Verb, the superhero on “Schoolhouse Rock”? He was great because he could do so many things.

His theme song went like this:

I get my thing in action (Verb!)
To be, to sing, to feel, to live (Verb!)
That’s what’s happenin’

I put my heart in action (Verb!)
To run, to go, to get, to give (Verb!)
(You’re what’s happenin’)

Well, guess what? … Read the full article

Avoid fake benefits in persuasive writing

No ‘Pat yourself on the back for choosing us’

“Clean your face,” demands a hotel soap wrapper. No, YOU clean YOUR face! I want to respond.… Read the full article

Stop We-We-ing on the reader

Talking about ourselves — better than sex?

It feels so good to talk about ourselves.

Talking about yourself activates the same pleasure centers in the brain as food, money or sex, according to Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir and her colleague Jason Mitchell, whose research on the topic was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.… Read the full article