A Simple Guide to Writing Killer Product Descriptions
The copy you include with your products on online retail site listings is more important than you might realize.
What is Product Description?
A product description is to explain your product’s features, benefits, and specifications in a way that it entices a browsing customer to buy it. This may sound simple enough, but space is usually limited when you list your products for sale online. You may not be able to go into as much detail as you’d like, so a few simple tips can help you make more effective, streamlined, and enticing product descriptions.
Product descriptions can make or break purchasing decisions, so if you haven’t given appropriate attention to the copy included with your product descriptions, it’s essential to give it a second look. If you want to overhaul your product descriptions and entice more buyers, follow these handy tips for taking your product descriptions to the next level.
Put a New Spin on Your Product Specs
When you list a product for sale online, you need to include the relevant details that consumers will want to know about the product. However, including the dimensions, color options, power requirements, and other basic details aren’t quite enough. You should take your product specification descriptions a step further and tell potential consumers what they can expect from your product through your product specs.
Detailed product specs help your listing stand out during high-traffic holiday shopping seasons as well as the rest of the year. When customers have the choice between similar products from different sellers, they tend to choose the one that offers the most detail and the most enticing promises as to the product’s functionality.
Try to put a different spin on your product specs and write them as benefits to potential buyers. Instead of focusing on the bare specs, such as the product’s base materials, highlight how the product feels in the hand or looks in a certain space. Write about how the product fulfills its intended purpose in an intuitive and effective way. The language of your product specifications should reflect the product’s value to the consumer.
Showcase Your Brand’s Unique Personality
You don’t need to do the same types of product listings as your competitors. It’s important to stand out, and if you have a unique brand personality you should be leveraging it like the asset that it is. Think of ways to infuse your brand’s personality into your product descriptions. A little bit of humor can go a long way. You can also write about the benefits of your product and how they relate to your target customers’ needs and goals.
If you have the ability to make a memorable impression with potential buyers, it’s important to capitalize on this opportunity. Modern consumers have an unprecedented level of choice when it comes to virtually any purchasing decision. If your brand can’t offer what they want or something unique, they can buy from a competitor in a matter of seconds.
Highlight Your Product Reviews
Modern consumers almost always look at reviews before committing to purchases. If you offer a competitive product, you should allow your customers to leave reviews about their experiences with the product on any many sites as possible. If you are confident in the value you offer with your products, you should see lots of positive reviews rolling in before long. Why not work these positive reviews into your product descriptions?
If your products have received positive reviews from happy customers, consider working snippets of those reviews into your product descriptions. When you mention the construction and dimensions of the product, work in a review that mentions the build quality and craftsmanship. When you describe the product’s aesthetic qualities, try to include a review that mentions how good the product looks in certain spaces.
A simpler solution to incorporating reviews into your product descriptions is to simply post an aggregate review score with the product.
For example, if you offer your customers a five-star review system, showcase each product’s average star rating alongside their written descriptions. Get creative and you might be surprised at how effective reviews can be as parts of your product descriptions.
Speak to Your Customers’ Pain Points
Your product fulfills a specific need or solves a specific problem, so why not address these functions with your product descriptions? Talk about the situation you envisioned solving when you developed your product. Try to sympathize with your potential buyers and let them know that you have been in their shoes before, and this is why you created your product.
Selling your products online and outshining your competitors requires much more than just showcasing what your product can do. Talk about what your product offers in terms of long-term value, how it can improve buyers’ lives, and the benefits buyers enjoy by purchasing the product.
Incorporate Sensory Language
The old adage “show, don’t tell” applies as much to your product descriptions as it does to creative writing. Instead of blandly describing your product’s physical features and capabilities, use sensory language to create a more engaging product description. Talk about how the product feels in the hand, how it responds to user control, how it looks in its intended space. Depending on the type of product you’re selling, you may want to include detailed descriptions of how the product smells or tastes.
Try to engage potential buyers’ senses with your wording and spark their imagination. When potential customers start imagining how your product looks, feels, sounds, smells, and/or tastes, they automatically start thinking about what it would be like to own it. Your product description can be a powerful inclusion in your buyer’s journey.
Highlight Your Products’ Unique Selling Points
No matter what type of product you sell, there are probably at least a few companies offering the same or similar products. It’s essential to stand out from the rest and offer potential customers something beyond the ordinary. If you have put extensive thought and effort into your product development, then you likely have at least one or two special features that your competitors cannot match.
When your product has unique selling points, these features should be front and center with your product descriptions. Explain to readers how your product outperforms competing products, offers greater value, and can ultimately solve their problems more effectively. If you offer any type of customization options with your product, such as color options, engraving, or other types of personalization, make sure you highlight these options prominently with your product descriptions.
A buyer’s journey is all about building a memorable, personal connection with a customer. If your brand offers a customer the chance to personalize a product in a way that competitor products cannot, this inherently pushes the customer further along the buyer’s journey with your brand by offering a more personal connection and increases the chances of making a sale.
Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for writing the perfect product description. Many different consumer products exist within every niche, and it eventually falls to the customer to make a purchasing decision. Modern consumers want to make informed purchasing decisions, so you can increase the chances of them picking your products instead of your competitors’ by providing them with unique, detailed, and personalized product descriptions.