Chapter Thirteen:

Science of Marketing and Narration

The purpose of rhetoric is persuasion. Marketing is a form of persuasion directed towards generating action. These actions can be anything from convincing a person to attend an event, vote a specific way, choose coffee over tea or plastic over paper, or even to adopt a belief. To do this you must set up and present them with a consistent but incomplete pattern. You give them feed only from the pattern that requires initiatory action on their part, and their own need for completion and closure will lead to their adopting the necessary response.

If you are selling something, you must build up the context of the sale so that all that is left is their agreement to the financial transaction. You construct this pattern in terms of their emotions, needs, and motivators. It is not enough for the sale to complete your own need pattern; it must solve and complete their need patterns. You create the circuit of their desire so that they must purchase from you to close the circuit and let the current flow. To do this, you must first figure out what needs they have open, then frame your offer as the solution by telling the story of their desires enacted through your product. Only after they've been drawn through your narrative should you offer it to them for sale.