Every speaker has one shot to make the audience care. What happens next determines whether they were worth listening to. Photo by Kevin Gonzalez on Unsplash
IF you don’t get your audience’s attention with your communications from the get-go, then you’re dead in the water.
That’s a given.
All your communications (public relations, advertising, in-person sales, speeches, etc.) must be attention-getting and engaging.
If they’re not, then whatever you do after that won’t matter.
But, despite the hundreds of messages bombarding us daily, all vying for our attention, only a small percentage are successful.
When you’re successful in securing your target market’s attention, then your message must be hyper-focused on its next mission: persuasion.
Persuasion Relations?
Maybe PR should stand for Persuasion Relations. Hmm…
You likely need to persuade the recipients of your message to:
- buy your product
- try your service
- recommend you to others
- support your cause
- change their mind
- or something else
If your communications don’t get your message recipients to do something that benefits your organization, then you’ve wasted your time.
And money.
And everyone else’s patience.
But what is persuasion, exactly?
Here’s where it gets interesting — and where a lot of communicators get it wrong.
Persuasion isn’t manipulation. It isn’t spin (a horrible four-letter word in the PR world). And it definitely isn’t propaganda.
Persuasion, at its core, is a communication process that intends to influence people through ethical means — in ways that enhance, rather than erode, a democratic society. That distinction matters enormously.
When persuasion crosses the ethical line — when it becomes misleading, deceptive or manipulative — it stops being persuasion and becomes something else entirely: propaganda.
Propaganda is self-serving, nonresponsive and manipulative. It operates through half-truths, innuendo, and outright deception.
Consider the tobacco industry’s decades-long effort to cast doubt on the link between cigarettes and disease. That wasn’t persuasion. That was propaganda at its worst — and the public eventually saw through it, at a catastrophic cost to the industry’s reputation and bottom line.
PR professionals have a responsibility to communicate ethically, accurately, and with their publics’ best interests in mind. That’s not idealism. That’s strategy. In a world where trust is declining and skepticism is rising, ethical persuasion is the only kind that works long-term.
Why Your Audience Isn’t Listening — Even When You’re Talking
Here’s an inconvenient truth: even well-crafted, ethical messages often fail to land.
The reason? Human psychology.
People seek consistency between their existing attitudes and new information. When new information conflicts with what someone already believes — what psychologists call cognitive dissonance — they don’t usually change their minds. Instead, they change the channel. They find information that confirms what they already think, ignore what challenges them and forget what doesn’t fit their worldview.
Psychologist Leon Festinger articulated this in 1957, and his work helps explain why PR professionals sometimes feel like they’re shouting into a void. Audiences are, quite literally, filtering out messages that make them uncomfortable. This filtering shows up in five distinct ways.
- Selective exposure — people actively seek out messages they expect to agree with and avoid messages they don’t.
- Selective attention — even when exposed to a contrary message, people focus on the parts that support what they already believe.
- Selective perception — people interpret information to fit their existing attitudes rather than updating their views.
- Selective retention — people remember what reinforces their beliefs and conveniently forget the rest.
- Selective recall — when memory is activated, people draw on the parts that confirm what they already think.
Sound discouraging? It shouldn’t. It should make you a smarter communicator.
If you know your audience filters aggressively, you write messages that work with their existing attitudes rather than against them. You find common ground. You lead with values they already hold. You make it easy for them to receive what you’re offering — because you’ve done the work to understand where they’re starting from.
What this Means for Your PR writing
Every persuasive message requires a clear goal. What do you want your audience to think, feel, or do differently after they encounter your communication?
And — just as important — can you honestly say your message serves their interests, not just yours?
The most effective PR professionals understand that persuasion isn’t about overpowering an audience’s defenses. It’s about earning the right to change their minds by offering something real, valuable and true.
PR doesn’t stand for “Propaganda Relations” (heaven forbid!!). The professionals who succeed long-term know exactly where that line is… and they stay well clear of it.
The 3 Big Takeaways
- Persuasion is the engine of every PR effort — if your communications aren’t moving people toward a specific action or belief, it’s not doing its job.
- Persuasion that relies on misleading or manipulative tactics isn’t persuasion, it’s propaganda, and it always backfires eventually.
- Human psychology (cognitive dissonance, selective exposure, selective retention) means your audience is actively filtering your messages. Understanding how this works makes you a more effective communicator.
If you could persuade your audience to do one thing, what would it be? Do share!
Stay authentic — and remember, there’s a very thin line between persuasion and manipulation. Always know which side you’re on.
Jeffery E. Pizzino, APR (seen here in a vintage photo circa 1983 serendipitously doing a Clash impersonation in a since-forgotten location) is a spin-free public relations pro who is passionate about telling the why of your story with clarity, impact and authenticity. He began his PR career in 1987 at Ketchum Public Relations in New York City but has spent the majority of his career as a solopreneur. He’s the Chief Authentic Officer of the Johnson City, TN-based public relations firm, AuthenticityPR. He also functions as the fractional CCO for his clients.
Jeff has an MBA in Management from Western International University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications — with an emphasis in PR — from Brigham Young University (rise and shout!). He’s also accredited in public relations (APR). This Milwaukee, Wisconsin native holds an Italian citizenship and plans to live and work there someday. Jeff and his storyteller wife Leticia have four children and four grandchildren. In his extremely limited nonwork hours, he studies Italiano, practices guitar, write songs, gardens, works out, disc golfs, reads, listens to New Wave music, serves as an assistant communication director in his church, watches BYU football, enjoys watching the original Mission Impossible TV series, and plays board games (mostly Dominion and Seven Wonders). No, this guy’s never bored and looking for something to do. Email Jeff.
