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  • Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know

    Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know

    Updated post

    When was the last time you saw an ad or read an article that persuaded you to buy something you didn’t even need? Well-crafted words can be powerful enough to influence your decisions. This writing skill is worth developing in your professional and personal life.

    Here are some powerful, persuasive writing tips you should know to convince your reader to buy from you. First, let’s define persuasive writing.

    What’s Persuasive Writing?

    Persuasive writing convinces your reader to side with your point of view. To achieve this, you need facts, statistics, and other research from credible sources. When your point of view is backed up with strong and credible evidence, your reader is more likely to agree with you.

    What Makes Persuasive Writing “Persuasive”?

    Persuasive writing has three key elements. First, includes the beliefs of a group of people or a culture. If the writer seems to understand the reader’s beliefs, then the reader is more likely to agree with the writer. Second, the writer must appeal to the reader’s sense of logic by providing scientific evidence and facts. Third, the writing must appeal to the reader’s emotions.

    If you can’t appeal to the reader’s beliefs, sense of logic, or emotions, then it’s difficult to persuade the reader to agree with your point of view.

    How Can You Use Persuasive Writing at Work?

    If your job is to influence people through the written word, then persuasive writing will be an extremely handy skill to have.

    Persuasive writing will persuade your audience to follow your social media channels because people value the insights they get from your blog posts or articles. 

    Persuasive writing persuades customers to buy products and services. Advertising and marketing copywriters, for example, write copy for web content, email campaigns, marketing brochures, ads, and corporate brochures.

    Persuasive writing skills are also necessary for press releases, copy for fundraisers, and articles about government policies.

    How Can Persuasive Writing Help Your Business?

    Persuading your customers and clients to invest in your products and services is key to your business’s success. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s research on the psychology of persuasion has had a tremendous impact on marketing.

    One concept he has proven is the principle of reciprocity. Humans naturally want to return favors and pay back debts. An example of this in marketing is a business that provides advice to website visitors through free blog posts, training courses, and PDF downloads. The informative, free content increases the likelihood that people will pay for the company’s products and services in the future.

    Another principle is social proof: whatever most people do, someone joining the group will do the same, even if the behavior doesn’t make logical sense. Consider how a worker may work a little longer just because everyone else in the department works late. And think of the last time you decided whether to give a new restaurant a try because of how busy it looked. If you read about a popular trend with your age group, you’ll be more likely to try it.

    Scarcity is another persuasive tactic. An ad for “the last available room,” “30% off your purchase today only,” and “offer ends at midnight tonight” will create a fear of missing out (FOMO).

    Persuasive writing will give people the push they need to decide to subscribe to your email list, buy two for the price of one, sign up for a course, or invest in your consulting services.

    How Is Persuasive Writing Useful to You?

    Persuasive writing can help you to get a job when you’re writing to a prospective employer. It can help you to get a promotion or raise.

    Persuasion is also critical when speaking during an interview or conversation for a promotion. Whether spoken or written, words can be used to appeal to others and convince them to agree with your point of view.

    Key Takeaways

    Persuasive writing uses psychology to give people that nudge to make a decision now. It wins you over with logic and appeals to your emotions. It may even play to your fears (FOMO) or convince you to make a purchase because of the free value you have already received. Persuasive writing creates action through the power of words.

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    Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know
  • What’s Something You Used to Believe as a Kid That Seems Ridiculous Now?

    What’s Something You Used to Believe as a Kid That Seems Ridiculous Now?

    When I was growing up, my teachers often told me there was no money to be made in writing. As a child, I accepted that as fact. Writing was something you did for fun, they said, not as a realistic career. Looking back, that belief seems both ridiculous and surprisingly accurate at the same time.

    My teachers were partly right. Most fiction writers never become household names. Very few achieve the success of writers like J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Charlotte Brontë, or Neil Gaiman. Most novels never end up on school reading lists, in public libraries, or on bestseller shelves. Making a living solely from fiction has always been difficult.

    What my teachers failed to mention was that writing careers extend far beyond novels. There are writers who earn a living through journalism, technical writing, copywriting, grant writing, and corporate communications. Many of these fields pay well and offer opportunities that my teachers simply didn’t mention (or maybe they hadn’t thought to). Had I known about those options, I might have pursued a different career.

    Of course, the writing profession has changed dramatically. Artificial intelligence has affected the profession in ways nobody could have predicted. AI tools can help generate articles, outlines, and even entire books. This has lowered barriers to entry (so it’s easier to become a writer), but it has also created new challenges. Talented writers are sometimes accused of using AI when their work is entirely their own. Others face pressure to lower their rates because technology can produce content more quickly.

    In the end, my teachers were neither completely right nor completely wrong. There’s money to be made in writing, but you need to choose the job carefully. Today, the challenge is not just writing well—it’s proving the value of human creativity in a time when anyone can generate words at the click of a button.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?
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  • Power of Belief

    Power of Belief

    Reblogging this because I love the message. Also, if you have a goal, don’t be afraid to go for it, and don’t be afraid of failure!

    Author Quotes: Power of Belief

  • What Would You Do With an Unlimited Budget for 24 Hours?

    What Would You Do With an Unlimited Budget for 24 Hours?

    Now, this is a dream-come-true situation! Everyone wants an unlimited budget. No one wants to decide if they should buy A instead of B, but they want both! When I saw this question, I thought, oh dang, this is a business owner’s dream come true! No more prioritizing software subscriptions or delaying the purchase of new equipment because the budget says no.

    So here’s what I would do if I could go wild with the spending for just one day.

    The Spending Spree

    With unlimited funds and a ticking clock, I’d start with my wish list and buy the best office setup available: an ideal office chair, the most up-to-date monitors and keyboards, and a year’s worth of subscriptions for all the software I need and wish I could try out.

    Next, I’d lock in memberships. Industry associations with annual fees. Premium networking groups. Masterminds I’ve admired from the outside. One year, paid in full, before the clock runs out.

    Beyond the Business: The Fun Part

    Here’s where it gets fun. Elite credit cards with eye-watering annual fees? Applied. Exclusive dining clubs? Joined. I’d prepay for a year of reservations at restaurants I’ve only read about. (Or buy gift cards to them.)

    And yes—I’d buy a house, mortgage-free. It’s going to be a busy day, but you can get a lot done in a short time. And I have a year or more to enjoy all that I bought within 24 hours. 

    The Real Takeaway

    This thought experiment is the ultimate way to ask ourselves what we really want if money weren’t an issue. I would surely take advantage and make a great life for myself. 

    What would your 24-hour list look like?

    Daily writing prompt
    If you had an unlimited budget for 24 hours, what would you do?
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  • What’s a moment that made you question reality?

    What’s a moment that made you question reality?

    More than once these days, I watch a video about something that seems to defy reality and I question what I’m looking at. Is it even real? Can my cat cook me dinner? And then I go to the comments and someone says, “This is AI.” What a trick! It’s scary, the speed at which AI has slipped into everyday life. One minute it was science fiction, and the next it’s everywhere. 

    You can’t even write an email without a recommendation for AI to write it for you. How about doing something more useful? (Please, AI, make me my lunch. I’m too lazy to cook!)

    It’s both fascinating and unsettling.

    AI is Good

    AI can be incredibly useful, especially if you run your own business and you don’t have the funds to hire three staff members without giving up your child’s college tuition. It can handle repetitive office tasks faster than people. It can also analyze data if you prompt it correctly. But you still need human oversight, or it can reach some oddball conclusions.

    One way AI makes you question reality is by generating scenes that never happened. Not fake news. But reenactments of scenes from the past. Reading pages out of history books can be boring. Hiring actors and creating sets can be expensive. So using AI to recreate the past, such as a scene from the Ice Ages, is educational. I call this a benefit.

    But there’s another side to it that makes reality feel a little unstable.

    AI is Bad

    AI systems can “hallucinate,” confidently giving wrong information that sounds completely believable. That means people still need to double-check the AI’s work, even while depending on it more every day. AI once gave me advice to do something real humans wouldn’t do. That really made me question this new reality of AI assistance.

    Another scary moment was when I was watching a video by a creator I follow. Then I clicked on the profile and realized it wasn’t her. It was a series of AI-generated videos using her likeness and voice. I had been deceived!

    Key takeaways

    AI creates moments that make me question reality. Sometimes it’s for a good reason (accurate historical enactment) and sometimes bad (stealing someone’s work). Overall, we’re getting closer to living out those sci-fi movies we used to watch!

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a moment that made you question reality?
    View all responses