Persuading with text: AIDA, StoryBrand, SCQA and Cialdini side by side
Search for how to write persuasive copy and you mostly find scattered tips: write actively, be concrete, use short sentences. All true, all insufficient. A text doesn't persuade through pretty sentences but through the right order, and that order was worked out more than a century ago.
This article puts the four best-known writing models side by side, plus two that belong with them in practice: AIDA for adverts and short sales copy, StoryBrand for your brand story, SCQA for proposals and reports, Cialdini as a layer over everything else, and, further down, Made to Stick and the Pyramid Principle. For each model you see the same kind of sentence before and after, so you don't have to take the difference on faith, you can read it. And because reading is not the same as doing, every model comes with a free skill that lets Claude or Codex apply it to your own text.
- Unzip it into
~/.claude/skills/(or.claude/skills/in your project). - Claude then recognises the skill automatically as soon as you ask for more persuasive copy.
- You can also call it directly, with
/schrijfmodel-kiezer.
- Go to Customize and then Skills.
- Upload the zip there as a skill.
- Or paste the contents of SKILL.md into the project instructions of a Project.
- Open
AGENTS.mdin your repo. - Paste the contents of SKILL.md into it, or place SKILL.md alongside it as a separate file and reference it from
AGENTS.md. - Codex reads that along with every session.
Four models, one goal
reg. O.001Most SME copy fails not because of poor sentences but because of the wrong model. An advert built like a company history, a quote that saves the conclusion for last, a homepage that says we twelve times and you twice: those aren't writing mistakes, they're structural mistakes. So choose the model first and write afterwards. The matrix below is the shortest route: find the situation closest to yours and you know where to start.
The oldest four steps in advertising
reg. O.002AIDA is the oldest model in this line-up and still the most widely used. The American advertising man E. St. Elmo Lewis formulated the first three stages in 1898, catching attention, holding interest, arousing desire, and later added a fourth: moving to action. The acronym AIDA itself comes from C.P. Russell, who coined it in 1921 in the trade journal Printers' Ink.
The key insight isn't the order but the diagnosis: a text that isn't working fails at a specific stage. Whoever spots that knows what to fix, instead of rewriting the whole text. How to apply this to adverts is also covered in the guide to Google Ads ad copy NL; the AIDA copywriter skill applies the model automatically.
The customer is the hero, you are the guide
reg. O.003StoryBrand, from Donald Miller's 2017 book Building a StoryBrand, fixes the mistake found on most company websites: the company plays the lead role in its own story. Miller flips that around with a seven-element framework, SB7. The customer is the hero with a problem, your company is the guide who has already solved it before, and the guide gives the hero a plan, calls them to action and shows what's there to win and to lose.
It sounds like marketing talk but it's really a grammar rule: in every sentence on your site, the reader should be the subject. Count it on your own homepage; if it says we more often than you, you know what needs to change. The StoryBrand writer skill builds the complete framework for your brand.
The opening that keeps decision-makers paying attention
reg. O.004SCQA comes from Barbara Minto, who discovered as a consultant at McKinsey that most business documents fail not on the content but on the opening. Her solution: start with the Situation the reader already knows and agrees with, then introduce the Complication that disturbs that picture, make explicit the Question that follows from it, and give the Answer straight away. No warm-up rounds, no methodology chapter up front. Within four sentences the reader knows why this document exists and what it gets them, and can then decide for themselves whether to read the reasoning. For quotes that difference is often decisive: the SCQA communication coach skill NL rebuilds every opening to this pattern, and the quote writer skill does the same for the whole proposal.
Why people say yes, in seven principles
reg. O.005Robert Cialdini isn't a copywriter but a behavioural scientist. His 1984 book Influence described six principles that determine when people say yes, and the expanded 2021 edition added a seventh: unity, the feeling that the sender is one of us. Cialdini isn't a structural model: you don't build a text with it. It's the layer you place over an existing structure once the text works but the reader is still hesitating. The art is in dosing it and, more importantly, staying honest: every principle only works if the underlying claim is true. The Cialdini persuasion skill checks which principles are honestly available in your text and works them in without overdoing it.
Made to Stick: why most messages don't stick
The four models above create text that persuades at the moment of reading. But a lot of business communication has a different problem: the message needs to be remembered, passed on to a colleague, carried into a meeting you're not in. That's why brothers Chip and Dan Heath wrote Made to Stick in 2007, a book about why some ideas endure and others die. Their answer is the SUCCESs framework, six properties of messages that stick: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and told as a story.
The most important concept in the book isn't one of those six but the curse that precedes them: the curse of knowledge
Once you know something well, you can no longer imagine what it's like not to know it. That's why specialists write text full of jargon that means nothing to the reader, and why the average company mission statement sounds like a slogan nobody can repeat. Each of the six building blocks is a weapon against that curse: a concrete sentence can't be vague, a story can't be abstract, and an unexpected opening forces the writer to seek out the reader's perspective.
In practice you don't use Made to Stick as a writing structure but as a test after the fact
Hold your core message up against the six building blocks and see where it fails. Can a customer repeat what you do after reading it once? Does it contain one concrete image, or only qualities? Is the evidence checkable? Run that test on your own homepage and you'll usually end up cutting half of it. The Made to Stick coach skill runs exactly that test: it checks your message against the six building blocks and rewrites what doesn't stick.
Pyramid Principle: the document behind the SCQA opening
SCQA is the opening; for the rest of the document, the same Barbara Minto wrote the Pyramid Principle, first published as a book in 1985 and the house standard at almost every major consultancy since. The principle is one sentence: start with the conclusion, put the arguments that support it underneath, and save the details for whoever reads on. The pyramid runs directly against how most people write, namely in the order they thought it through: first the background, then the research, then the trade-offs, and only right at the bottom, finally, the answer. The reader who only reads the first paragraph, and that's almost every reader, ends up getting exactly the least important part.
Minto added a second rule that's just as useful: arguments at the same level must be mutually exclusive and together cover the whole
She called that MECE, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. It forces you to merge overlapping arguments and name the gaps before the reader finds them. For a quote it means: three reasons that each prove something different, rather than five that say the same thing three times over.
For anyone writing a lot of business documents, this is the model with the highest return, because it doesn't improve just one text but every email, every proposal and every presentation after it. The Pyramid Principle writer skill rebuilds an existing document into a pyramid: conclusion first, arguments MECE, details at the bottom. Combine it with the SCQA opening from section 04 and you have the complete McKinsey structure in two steps. If that pyramid needs to become a presentation rather than a document, the Pitch Deck Builder NL does the same work across eight slides: one core sentence per slide, the reasoning underneath it, and the counter-question your audience is going to ask.
Combining them without it turning into a patchwork
The question that comes after every overview: which model is best? The honest answer is that the question is the wrong one. The models answer different questions, and the best copy uses several of them, each in its own layer. A working order for almost any business text: choose the perspective first with StoryBrand, because a text in which the reader doesn't recognise themselves doesn't get read. Then build the sequence with AIDA for short text or SCQA plus pyramid for long. After that, lay the Cialdini layer over the whole thing: what honest proof is still missing, and where does it land strongest? And finally, test the core message with Made to Stick: can someone repeat it?
What doesn't work is trying to cram everything into one paragraph at once
An opening sentence that needs to grab attention, introduce a hero, sketch a situation and deliver social proof does none of those four things well. Pick one load-bearing model per text and let the others ride along as a checklist. If you're unsure which model should carry the weight, the choice matrix in section 01 is the shortest route, and the persuasion analyst skill is the most thorough: it analyses an existing text across every layer at once and names where the weakest one sits.
One more warning that's missing from no writing book yet still gets ignored on plenty of websites: persuading is arranging what's true, not inventing what sounds good. Invented reviews, false scarcity and borrowed authority work at most once, and the damage afterwards is permanent. Every example sentence in this article is therefore deliberately a fictional illustration of the mechanism, not a client case. The same rule applies to your own text: any principle is allowed, as long as you can back up the claim. Anyone who wants to work on their message structurally rather than text by text should look at strategy NL: that's where this kind of work belongs, as part of an ongoing plan.
From model to practice: let AI do the heavy lifting
Knowing a model is one thing; applying it flawlessly to your own quote at half past eleven at night is another. That's why every model in this article comes with a free skill: a structured set of working instructions you load into Claude or Codex, after which the AI applies the model step by step instead of loosely improvising around it. The difference is significant. A bare AI prompt like make this text more persuasive produces slick sentences; a skill forces a diagnosis first, then picks the model, and shows per stage what changed and why. Exactly how a good editor works, except available at half past eleven at night.
The writing-model picker for this article is the first step: it works out which of the six models your text needs and applies it
Want to go deeper afterwards? There's a specialist ready for each model: AIDA, StoryBrand, SCQA NL, Cialdini, Made to Stick and Pyramid Principle. If you're writing mainly for findability, the SEO copywriter skill NL combines these persuasion principles with search intent and structure, and creating content for AI search engines explains how the same text also ends up in AI answers.
All the downloads together are in the skills overview NL, well over a hundred of them, all free and with no account needed
How we use AI more broadly in marketing work is covered in the engine room, and anyone who'd rather first read how their site is doing right now can have the free SEO scan take a look: persuasive text on a page that can't be found technically doesn't persuade anyone.
Frequently asked questions
Which writing model should I choose for a landing page?
That depends on how well your visitor already knows the offer. If they arrive via an advert on a specific search term, they know what they're looking for and AIDA works: attention, relevance, desire, action. If they arrive colder, via social media or a brand search, they first need to recognise themselves in the story, and StoryBrand is the better foundation. In practice you combine them: StoryBrand for the structure of the page, AIDA as a check on each individual section.
What's the difference between AIDA and StoryBrand?
AIDA describes the stages a reader moves through: attention, interest, desire, action. It's a diagnostic tool for short text that needs to produce a response right now. StoryBrand describes the division of roles: the customer is the hero, your company is the guide who provides a plan. It's a framework for your whole message, from homepage to campaign. In short: AIDA orders the sequence of a text, StoryBrand orders the perspective of your story.
Can I combine several writing models?
Yes, and the best copy does exactly that, as long as each model keeps to its own layer. A combination that works: StoryBrand or SCQA for the structure, AIDA as a check per section, Cialdini as a final layer for the proof, and Made to Stick as a test of whether the core message sticks. What doesn't work is cramming everything into one paragraph at once. Pick one load-bearing model per text and use the rest as a checklist.
Do these models also work for SEO copy?
Yes, because SEO copy has to persuade two readers: the visitor and the system that evaluates the text. The models mainly help with the visitor: a page that answers the search query sharply in the first paragraph is really already following the Pyramid Principle, and a product page that runs through the four AIDA stages keeps visitors around longer. Just watch the order: answer the search intent first, then persuade. A text that sells straight away without informing loses both readers.
Aren't Cialdini's principles just manipulation?
They can become that, and then they backfire on you. Cialdini himself draws the line between persuading with what's true and inventing what sounds good. Showing real reviews is social proof, inventing reviews is fraud. Mentioning a real waiting list is scarcity, a countdown that resets every night is deception. Our starting point: any principle is allowed, as long as the underlying claim is true and checkable. Persuading is arranging what's true.
Can AI apply these writing models to my own text?
Yes, and that's exactly what the free skills on this page are for. A skill is a structured set of working instructions you load into Claude or Codex, so the AI doesn't just rewrite loosely but applies the model step by step: first diagnosis, then model choice, then the rewritten text with a before and after. The skill for this article picks the right model itself; on top of that, there's a separate skill per model that goes deeper. Downloading is free and no account is needed.
Start with the model, not the sentence
Writing persuasive copy doesn't start with better phrasing but with better choosing: first the model that fits the text and the reader, then the structure, only then the sentences. The matrix in section 01 points to the model, the before-and-after examples show what it delivers, and the skills take over the legwork.
Want to know whether your text gets found at all before making it more persuasive? Start with the free scan. More articles like this one are in the knowledge base, what this kind of work costs is on the pricing page NL, and how text fits into the bigger picture of findability is covered under improving your SEO. Would rather think out loud about your own text? Then let's do that in a call, or reach us via the contact page.