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Persuasive speaking has specific goals, and in order to achieve these goals, it is important to understand the relationship between attitude change and behavior change, the elaboration likelihood model, types of propositional claims, and the influence of culture on persuasion. The goals of persuasion can include conversion, modification or maintenance, of attitudes and/or behavior. Social judgment theory explains how latitudes of acceptance, noncommitment, and rejection reveals how likely a person is to change their attitude.
It is important to consider how attitudes and behaviors are related. Attitudes formed through direct experience are more likely to conform to behavior, so consider how you can make your audience feel a direct connection to the issue in order to improve your chances that your audience will respond. Social pressure also has a strong influence on behavior, so recognize that the fear of disapproval sometimes makes attitudes and behaviors inconsistent. Changes in behavior that require a lot of effort are challenging for listeners, so consider ways to make change or participation easier. The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion explains how listeners sort messages through the central route or the peripheral route. In order to increase the likelihood that your listeners will process your message through the central route, work to make your issue personal to them.
The claim you are trying to support in a persuasive speech is a proposition, and you can make a proposition of fact (whether or not something is true), value (assessing the worth or merit of something), or policy (calls for a significant how to how things are done). When thinking about how it is you can best persuade your audience, it is also important to understand the cultural composition of your audience, as individualist and collectivist cultures emphasize different values. However you approach your audience, remember that every audience is diverse, and that not everyone embraces the same values from any particular culture.