We live in an attention economy—true enough. Yet attention is not our only scarce resource: elaboration—the amount of mental effort audiences are willing to invest in processing your message—is just as scarce, and as important for persuasion. Two researchers set out to study exactly this back in 1981: how do mental shortcuts shape persuasion? Their work eventually produced the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), now over four decades old and one of the more durable and widely applied models in persuasion research. The ELM gives us a way to understand elaboration, expand it where possible, and design around it where it isn’t.
How much elaboration a topic activates from any given audience depends on the topic, the circumstances, and the person. When elaboration is high—the topic engages an audience able and willing to think carefully, under the right conditions—your capacity to persuade expands considerably. Most of the time, though, elaboration is low: no amount of message polish will raise it, and communicators need to work through shortcuts instead.
High elaboration: powerful but rare
While high-elaboration situations are relatively uncommon, well-considered argumentation is, misguidedly, the default communication mode of many nonprofits.
High elaboration is communication’s rational ideal: you offer well-considered messages, the audience weighs them carefully and accepts or rejects them on the merits. You might encounter high elaboration in very circumscribed situations: whenever you connect with dedicated supporters, brand ambassadors, and activists working on your issue. High elaboration happens when people have the ability—time, focus, conceptual grasp—and the motivation—interest, concern, curiosity, anxiety—to think carefully about an issue. While high-elaboration situations are relatively uncommon, well-considered argumentation is, misguidedly, the default communication mode of many nonprofits.
Even highly able or motivated audiences vary in their capacity to elaborate at any given moment. Some may care deeply about your issue generally, yet be too distracted to engage right now. Others are trained for effortful thinking—researchers and policy analysts, say—yet lack the time or personal investment in your specific issue. These audiences benefit from a nudge:
- Make messages personally or value-relevant: The more personal or value-relevant a message feels, the more we think about it. Understanding what concerns your audience, and what they value, takes some research—but once you have it, frame your messages and stories accordingly. Where a topic touches a moral stake for your audience, make that stake explicit in terms that fit their worldview. If you can frame a topic in a way that affects their community or group, do so.
- Explain why: Audiences in high-elaboration mode want to understand the reasons behind things. Make cause-and-effect chains clear. Analogies and stories do real work here.
- Reduce distractions: A clean, minimal presentation and a calm delivery protect an audience’s capacity to focus.
- Use simple diagrams: Diagrams are an effective and memorable way to express cause-and-effect chains.
- Don’t overdo the stats: It’s tempting to think high-elaboration audiences want hard proof in the form of lots of numbers. But a stat without context is meaningless, and too many stats are simply mind-numbing. Always contextualize: is this year’s participant number an increase over last year’s? Can an analogy help your audience grasp an otherwise unimaginable figure? The goal is one or two numbers that land, not a table that doesn’t.
Low elaboration: persuasion through shortcuts
Much nonprofit outreach must target people with low interest, limited time, or scarce knowledge of the issue at hand.
High-elaboration audiences are receptive and highly persuadable when exposed to well-considered, value-relevant messages—but as noted above, high-elaboration situations are not the norm. Much nonprofit outreach must target a very different audience: people with low interest, limited time, or scarce knowledge of the issue at hand. For these audiences, no amount of well-reasoned argument will do—they simply won’t follow along.
The ELM suggests ways to harness shortcuts that make communications persuasive even when audiences can’t be much bothered:
- Borrow credibility: If audiences won’t elaborate on your claims, they may still be persuaded by your source. Who or what is your spokesperson for this message? Do they enjoy trust among your target audience and credibility on the issue? Cite them, feature them, let their credibility do the work.
- Make more, briefer claims: Forget the why. Forget long-form arguments. Brief claims, testimonials, and proof points work better for this audience — and the sheer number of them, up to a point, serves as an indirect cue of overall quality.
- Use social proof: Similarly, the number of supporters of your organization or position acts as an indirect cue of credibility. People in low-elaboration mode take their cues from what others already believe.
- Make the presentation attractive: A pleasant, well-designed presentation appeals to this group. ELM research found that low-elaboration audiences are more persuaded by claims in an attractive format than by well-reasoned ones in a plain one.
The elaboration you get is the elaboration you design for
The ELM’s most useful contribution isn’t the model itself—it’s the habit of mind it produces. Before writing a single word of a message, ask: how much elaboration can I realistically expect from this audience, in this context, through this channel? The honest answer to that question should determine almost everything that follows: how long to write, how much to explain, whether to lead with argument or with credibility, whether a well-reasoned case or a well-designed shortcut is the right tool for the job.
Most nonprofit communicators default to high-elaboration mode regardless of context—because the issues are complex, because the stakes feel high, because careful argument is how people who care about things tend to communicate with each other. The ELM is a useful corrective. It doesn’t ask you to dumb things down. It asks you to be honest about who is actually on the other end of your message, and what they are actually capable of and willing to do when they encounter it.
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