Intrusiveness and Persuasive Impact of Three Communication Media1

Two field experiments compared the persuasive impact of communications delivered face-to-face, by telephone, or by letter. In both studies, letters did not differ from faccto-face contacts but telephone calls were less effective. In the second experiment, personalness interacted with communication medium such that addressing subjects by name reduced the impact of face-to-face encounters, increased that of letters, and had no effect on phone calls. A third sample of subjects rated the appropriateness of name usage by salespeople, indicating a salesperson should give his own name but was inappropriately personal when calling the subject by name. The findings support the notion that varying media and name usage varies the psychological distance between communicator and recipient. At appropriate psychological distances, communicators and communications have optimum effectiveness; at too great or too little distance, they lose impact. Thus, not only is selection of proper medium important to communicators but how the medium is used can affect impact.