What is the 4P of persuasive writing?

The 4P Formula for Persuasive Copywriting: Promise-Picture-Proof-Pitch . The 4P formula for persuasive copywriting is somewhat different to the traditional 4P Marketing formula – Product-Price-Promotion-Place.

What are the 4 P's in writing?

But then I quickly found that the 4 P's formula works like gangbusters across a wide spectrum of niches—everything from investments and high-tech, to home improvement and insurance. The 4 P's are: pain, promise, proof, and push : >> The first step is to name and magnify your prospect's PAIN.

What is the 4ps structure?

Key Takeaways. The four Ps are the four essential factors involved in marketing a product or service to the public. The four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion . The concept of the four Ps has been around since the 1950s.

What is the 4P formula?

The 4P's include; product, price, place and promotion . During the planning process it is beneficial to use these 4P's. These 4P's can be used to effectively reach out to a target audience and increase the sales of goods or services.

What are the 4 stages of persuasion?

First, effective persuaders establish credibility. Second, they frame their goals in a way that identifies common ground with those they intend to persuade. Third, they reinforce their positions using vivid language and compelling evidence. And fourth, they connect emotionally with their audience.

What are the 4 persuasive elements?

Ethos is the persuasive technique that appeals to the person's ethics. Pathos focuses on playing to the individual's emotions. Logos is the use of reason, logic, and knowledge. Kairos is when a person uses the timing of a situation to create a persuasive moment.

Why is the 4 Ps important?

The 4Ps of marketing is a model for enhancing the components of your "marketing mix" – the way in which you take a new product or service to market. It helps you to define your marketing options in terms of price, product, promotion, and place so that your offering meets a specific customer need or demand .

Which of the 4 Ps is more important?

Many consider the product to be the most important of the four Ps of marketing. That being said, even excellent products can only be successful if a business strategically deploys all vital aspects of the marketing mix, including the remaining three Ps: place, promotion and price.

Is the 4 Ps a theory?

In this thesis, the traditional 4P theory by Jerome McCarthy (1971) was also applied where the purpose was to investigate, in which ways companies applied this 4P theory in their social media platforms.

As mentioned above, the 4Ps include Place, Price, Product and Promotion . The 7Ps model, on the other hand, is a combination of the 4Ps with 3 additional segments, which refer to People, Process and Physical evidence. People are presenting how our business works inside.

What is the 4S strategy writing?

It is a “4S” taxonomy, the S's representing the four components of the revising process: structure, substance, sequence, and style . I stress “components” and not “stages” because the revising process is recursive and because writers often work with two of the components—substance and style, for example—concurrently.

What is 4 Ps in storytelling?

The 4Ps (yet to be credited) refers to People, Place, Purpose and Plot . People: People in your storyboard provide a connection to the wider audience and stakeholders. The storyboard must resonate with the reader, who must be able to see themselves in the story or align with the shared story.

The Four "P" Approach: A Persuasive Writing Structure That Works (2024)

More than half the battle of creating compelling content and copy is solid structure. Disorganized writing inhibits understanding, and without understanding, you’re not going to get a warm reception when you ask for action. Plus, without structural guidelines to follow, you end up leaving out information necessary to your case or promotion.

There are plenty of popular writing structures. One is the inverted pyramid that some journalists favor, which is fine if your goal is to allow the reader to leave mid-story, but not so good if you want people to stick around while you make the case for your call to action.

A popular copywriting structure is AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action), which dates back to the early days of mass media advertising. AIDA is a useful framework, but it leaves some with too little understanding of what each element is intended to include.

The 4 Ps Approach to Persuasion

The 4 Ps structure consists of promise, picture, proof, and push in place of the four elements of attention, interest, desire, and action. The 4 Ps provide more expansive elements than AIDA, which is why it’s a favorite of many top copywriters, notably John Forde.

Let’s look at what each element requires you to deliver to the reader. Oh, and keep in mind that although I refer to readers in this article, the 4 Ps structure works just as well for audio or video content.

1. Promise

The promise you make is designed to catch attention, but here you’re told how to catch attention, unlike AIDA. I’m sure we’ve all seen attempts to catch attention that we’re easily immune to, because it’s something ridiculous instead of beneficial.

That beneficial promise is made with the headline, perhaps elaborated in an initial subhead, and carried over into your opening. This is the most important part of the piece, because if the reader stops here, it’s game over.

This promise is “what’s in it for them.” Yes you want their attention, but the promise is the only reason the reader is willing to give it to you.

2. Picture

Instead of the vague notion of “interest,” here we segue into painting a vivid picture for the reader. You’re fleshing out the promise and beneficial payoff using vibrant descriptive language.

One way to do this is to get the reader to imagine themselves enjoying the benefit or desired outcome. Then you get very specific about how your proposed solution or idea makes that benefit happen.

3. Proof

In the preceding potion of your copy, you’ve communicated the foundational information you want readers to accept in a brain-friendly manner. Now you’ve got to back it up with supporting proof.

Statistics, studies, graphs, charts, third-party facts, testimonials, a demonstration that the features of your product deliver the benefits you’ve promised—these are all part of the Proof section of your piece. Now’s the time to play it straight and appeal to the reader’s logical mind to support the emotional triggers you pulled with the Picture.

Rhetorical arguments and promotional pieces fail when Proof is missing, skimpy, or lacking in credibility. While your relationship with the reader hopefully carries trust and authority, asking people to accept your assertions without supporting evidence is an easy way for your writing to fail.

4. Push

Now we come to the all-important action phase of the piece, which incorporates and expands desire. While “push” can carry a negative connotation, here we’re using it as a more expansive persuasive element that makes action more likely.

The Push phase is more than just a call to action. It’s delivering an outstanding offer in a promotion, and then asking for the purchase. It’s the grand finale where your big idea makes as much sense to the reader as it does to you.

Persuasive writing begins with the ending in mind, so during the push you’re tying the beneficial promise and the vivid picture to solid acceptance and concrete action. Don’t be shy about “telling them what you’ve told them” as a way to connect the dots, because an assumption of understanding is an enemy to acceptance.

Understanding is the Key to Persuasion

Persuasion is not about coercion or manipulation (we’ll leave that to the politicians). As Sean D’Souza wisely says in his training programs, persuasion is about understanding. Understanding leads to acceptance when the product is relevant and high-quality, and when the idea is sound and well-targeted.

Just don’t assume people understand on their own. It’s a noisy world out there, so you’ve got to educate your readers.

Good copy simply educates the reader in a way that the brain finds appealing. And a big part of brain-friendly language is the compelling structure that people need to see things your way.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter.