Application exercises

1. Discuss three situations or messages in which someone tried to persuade you to do something. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of these oral or written messages. (Objective 3)

2. Teamwork. More organizations and businesses are sending sales messages to potential customers through e-mail. This method of reaching the intended customer base has had an unintended result—hostility toward the sender for using e-mail as the delivery mode. Why would potential customers object to sales messages being sent via e-mail? How would the sender of the message know how to reach these potential customers? What mechanisms might receivers use to avoid these messages? (Objective 3)

3. Collect sales messages in different formats (e.g., letter, e-mail, flyer, brochure, postcard). Which are effective and which are ineffective? Explain why. (Objective 4)

4. Technology. In your marketing class, you have been reading extensively that more and more work in this field is done in a collaborative environment. Your course syllabus indicates that you will have three graded oral presentations. Send a persuasive e-mail to your instructor asking that your final presentation be a group presentation. Use facts and logic to support your request.

5. Rewrite the following opening sentences of persuasive messages to attract the receiver’s attention. You may use any appropriate attention-getting technique identified in the chapter to make these openings effective. (Objective 4)

a. This is your last reminder to renew the service plan on your computer.

b. Many franchisees have indicated their sales are better than ever after using our ad agency.

c. We have been in the financial investment field for 15 years and would like to add your name to our list of clients.

Writer’s workshop

The following items may be sentence fragments or contain errors in subject–verb agreement, pronoun–antecedent agreement, comma and semicolon placement, number display, capitalization, spelling, word choice, possessives, modifier clarity and placement, or parallelism.

Rewrite the sentences to make them correct.

1.      

The first day back from my business trip was spend returning phone calls, attending meetings, and to answer e-mails.

2.      

2. Different cultures interpret gestures in different ways therefore care should be taken in using gestures.

3.      

 At our manager’s retreat we reviewed our companies Code of Ethics to see if it was up-to-date.

4.      

4. My supervisors plain left Seattle Washington at 7 Am this morning and will arrive in Stamford Connecticut at 5:37 Pm.

5.      

Our company give all it’s employees martin luther king junior day as a holiday with pay.

6.      

Technology company’s are constantly releasing new versions of software however our organization has not kept up because we donn’t have the budget to buy more powerful computers that are necessary to run the software.

7.      

The number of retirees with out insurance coverage have increased every year since 2000.

8.      

Lets keep the merger of our department’s among the too of us.

9.      

Troy ran the marathon and 100-meter dash threw the javelin and discus and participated in the mile relay during the Spring Meet.

10.  

 I wisht I could win the lottery I would invest most of my winnings and use the rest to take a

vacation and remodle my house.