E-ZINES 401: Content Development and Writing

Declan Dunn is a widely recognized and frequently quoted authority on Internet marketing and sales. He is an accomplished writer on the subject and has his own web site at www.writething.com.

He has a style of writing that is often clearer and more persuasive than any of his peers. How does he do it?

After an analysis of an article that is currently posted on his web site, I’ve determined a number of characteristics that are distinctively his. If you wanted to write like him, you would bear in mind the following: 

1. His style has an easy informality. It makes him sound friendly, unguarded, relaxed. These characteristics are expressed through:

• Frequent use of contractions (don’t, didn’t, I’ve)
• Conversational phrases (expressions more often heard in speech than seen in print)
• Occasional slang
• Starting sentences now and then with a conjunction (And, But, So)
• Referring often to "you" and "I"

2. He can skillfully modulate his tone. This is something that really separates him from his imitators. "What’s tone?" you may ask. Tone is attitude. You can "lighten up," "get serious," or shift gears in any number of ways. A key result is to hold the reader’s attention by avoiding monotony. 

In the 2,875-word article I reviewed, Dunn shifts tone several times. He begins with:

• A dramatic opening in which he discloses some uncertainty ("I’m scared to write this article") and portrays himself as a lone voice whose opinion contradicts the "experts," followed by:
• Common-sense talk, an earnest and confident expression of his beliefs and advice, stated clearly, and using words matter-of-factly, for their literal meanings, followed by:
• A comic story about his failed attempt to buy a computer system, using a slangy, self-deprecating style, followed by:
• More common-sense talk, illustrated by another long example from his own experience, this time using a lot of emphatic words to express conviction and strong feeling, followed by:
• A quick 2-paragraph wrap-up, in no uncertain terms, ringing home his point like a smartly hammered nail.

 3. His style is highly readable. It makes use of:

• Wide variation in sentence length (from 2 words to 48 words)
• Getting sentences off to a fast start by typically starting with the main subject and verb;
• Maintaining a strong energy level, by using action verbs (rather than "is," "are," "was," "were," "be," "been");
• Using mostly short words and short sentences, which score well on readability tests (average sentence length, 16 words; Flesch reading-ease score, 68.6, which is well within the comfort range of 60-70)

4. He avoids sales-speak. In the article I studied, he rarely did any of the following:

• Make absolute statements (always, never);
• Use intensifiers (very, really)
• Use sales jargon
• Use numbers or statistics
• Ask rhetorical questions
• Use emotionally charged and manipulative language

Use of persuasive language
This absence of sales-speak surprised me most. Marlon Sanders, another expounder of Web sales methodology, has a list of 12 words uncovered in a Yale study as the "most persuasive in the English language." Dunn rather neglects them. 

Here are the 12, plus three more that Sanders recommends. In parentheses after each word is the number of times Dunn uses it in an article of 2,875 words.

you (48)
easy (5)
free (5)
results (4)
secret(s) (4)
new (2)
save (2; once in a negative sense)
money (2; used with negative connotation, as in money misspent)
love (1; used ironically)
discover(y) (1)
guarantee (1)
health (0)
safety (0)
proven (0)
reveal(s) (0)

Dunn refers to "customers" and "people" many times but never calls them "prospects." Only twice does he call them "prospective customers." He never uses the phrase "sales pitch"; instead he refers to the "sales process."

Words seldom used. There are a large number of words you are accustomed to seeing in content about sales. Dunn uses each of the following words only once or twice in this long article: power, opportunity, success, profit, solution, convince, should, problem, benefits, essential, real world, and compelling. And the one time "compelling" is used, it’s with a negative connotation. That’s a total of less than 0.7% of all the words in the article.

Words avoided. There is a much larger group of traditional sales terms and jargon that Dunn does not use at all: capture, seize, force, law, formula, hot, button, grab, compel, seduce, must, unique, realistic, selling, proposition, potential, famous, tested, classic, potent, competitive, advantage, appeal, minimum, maximum, maximize, attention, lose, mistake, unstoppable, rocket, at last, like it or not, in my humble opinion.

The vocabulary of the customer. Instead, Dunn uses a vocabulary that customers would use (who see themselves as "people" and not "prospects"). He uses words for their literal meaning, not the special slant that sales-speak gives them.

And the effect in the article is to illustrate his point, that customers should be allowed to come to you on their own terms and that your job is to listen to them, communicate with them in a language they understand, and provide the "results" they are looking for.

The only sales jargon Dunn uses is a word of his own invention: "targetcasting," which he carefully defines. It represents his philosophy of permitting customers to target themselves instead of being made targets of, by sales and marketing communications.
 

Getting real
Dunn’s strategy as a communicator is to present himself as a three-dimensional person. Instead of the soap-box oratory and sermonizing that even the best known sales experts are capable of, Dunn is like a one-man stage performance, by a gifted actor who writes his own material.

Starting with disclosure. The opening sentence hooks you: "I’m scared to write this article."

It's a brilliant tactic. Why does he want us to believe he’s scared? Is it stage fright? Does he know something we don’t know? It’s an immediate dramatic situation, it seems very personal, and it appeals directly to our curiosity.

It turns out that what he’s scared about is not very clear. But in the opening paragraphs, he presents himself as a lone voice about to express an opinion that contradicts all the experts. He casts himself as just an ordinary guy, like the rest of us, who is using common sense – something we all have. He’s inviting us all to identify with him – little guys in a world with more than its share of self-proclaimed gurus, wizards, and experts. And it works.

Just the facts. The common sense talk that follows is easy to absorb because (a) he has our attention, and (b) what he’s saying is not loaded with rhetorical tactics that make us feel inadequate, dumb, or anxious. It’s just plain talk with no unsubstantiated claims like "Discover the secrets that will make your revenues SOAR 278% in the first week!!"

When you appeal to common sense, there are no secrets. And when Dunn eventually gets around to talking numbers, they are based only on a one-time experience, when c|net picked one of his sites as Best of the Web. He reports, "The traffic to this site has tripled, email inquiries multiplied by literally 10 times, and I got a month's worth of traffic in one day." He implies but never claims that you would get the same results.

Comic relief. After several paragraphs of common-sense talk, Dunn gets personal again. But this time it’s a more comic self-disclosure. The story he tells of taking a friend's advice on buying a computer system aspires to writer/actor Spalding Gray. The language and tone shift, and we see another side of him. Watch the attitude of helpless frustration showing up in the italicized words: 

"Good advice? I didn't think so when, after six weeks of searching, I gave my money to some guy from New York selling an Acer computer (with my entire schtick) for a good price. He sent me this cruddy-looking box that was barely held together by tape. I got scared reading about the BIOS threat on my warranty (I think it is some form of germ warfare). I knew it was a bomb when I plugged it in and that stupid monitor just kept blinking at me for two hours, through manuals, confusion, and frustration. Left with nothing but a dumb, gray box blinking at me, I returned it immediately.

Dunn does not use language like this anywhere else in the article. And it’s not because he’s telling a story. He tells another story later on, with a very different tone. It’s a success story, and the scale of the success seems to have taken him by surprise. He reflects that surprise with a new vocabulary of emphatic words: incredible, literally, like wildfire, tremendous, enormous, and stunningly.

Conclusion
The lesson to be learned from all this is that Dunn succeeds because he is able to present himself through words and shifts of tone as a whole person, with a range of human experience and a rich emotional life. We are disarmed by this revelation and suspend our disbelief as we do in the theater.

He gains credibility without using the manipulative, button-pushing language of his imitators, who talk about persuasive sales techniques but come across in print as one-note, tub-thumping, cardboard-flat characters.

If you want to write like Declan Dunn, it’s simple. Watch your language, forget all the laws and secret formulas, and learn how to be real.

About the author:

Ron Scheer has been helping businesses communicate with customers and employees for over 12 years. His keep-it-simple approach is based on two user-centered objectives:

Make information easy to find. Then make it easy to understand and use.

His methodology blends the discipline of information design with content analysis, clear writing, and usability. And it welcomes the vast opportunity of the Web, which has changed business
communications forever.

Printed with permission of Ronald Scheer, Ph.D.

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