10.4.5 Goals of Persuasive Presentations

Persuasive presentations often entail the audience to “do” something concrete. For example, you may create a proposal to request funding for a highway expansion project. After establishing the problem, and analyzing it, you would offer solutions. In this “call to action” step, the speaker/you will attempt to persuade the board to sign a contract or send a payment to a particular address. This is important because it drives the audience to take immediate action towards the solution.

Action goals address the question, “What do I want the audience to do as a result of being engaged by my presentation?” The goals of action include adoption, discontinuance, deterrence, and continuance.

Adoption means the speaker wants to persuade the audience to take on a new way of thinking or adopt a new idea. Examples could include buying a new product such as software for the organizations or choosing a new vendor for laboratory equipment. The key is that the audience member adopts, or takes on, a new view, action, or habit.

Discontinuance involves the speaker persuading the audience to stop doing something that they have been doing. Rather than take on a new habit or action, the speaker is asking the audience member to stop existing behavior or ideas such as eating or drinking a beverage while handling laboratory equipment.

Deterrence is a call to action that focuses on persuading the audience not to start something if they haven’t already started. The goal of action would be to deter or encourage the audience members to refrain from starting or initiating behavior such as not ignoring safety protocols.

Finally, with Continuance, the speaker aims to persuade the audience to continue doing what they have been doing, such as keep buying a product, or keeping up with industry certifications.

A speaker may choose to address more than one of these goals of action, depending on the audience analysis. If the audience is largely agreeable and supportive, you may find continuance to be one goal, while adoption is secondary.

This section is adapted from Informative and Persuasive Presentations  in Communication@Work – Simple Book Publishing by Jordan Smith licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.