20 Tips for Writing Product Description Copy That Sells
Writing a product description sounds deceptively simple. In fact, even the professional copywriter can fall prey to the number one mistake (you don’t want to make) when writing product description copy that sells: writing a description that simply describes the product. How can you be sure your product description is armed to sell? Let’s take an in-depth look at 20 tips designed to optimize the sales potential of your product copy! To Be A Technical Description or Not – Product Description 101 A product description is a sales tool. Unfortunately, it can be very easy to think of it as a quick review of product features or specifications versus a tool. Think about the tools you currently use to sell your product. What is the one quality they all have in common? Likely, it is that each tool sells the product. Writing a product description involves selling to the potential customer. The customer wants to know why they should buy the product. A review of the features, specifications and technical information can provide them with a technical product description. However, such an analysis fails to illustrate the value of the product. Why and How Your Audience Looks for Value When it comes to selling a product online, you must take into consideration economic value. According to Wikipedia, economic value is “a measure of the benefits that [are gained] from either a [product] or service.” The concept of value stems from this measure. Your audience is on the prowl for value, but what exactly is value in their eyes? The dictionary definition of “value” sheds some practical light on this topic. Value is defined in three different ways: The monetary worth, price or cost of something. Something that is purchasable for a low or fair price. The usefulness or importance of something. When your audience reads your product description copy, they want to know the cost, the fairness of that cost and just how the product will prove useful or important to them. Notice that value has nothing to do with specifications, features or technical information. While these three aspects of a product can describe it, they fail to sell it because a potential customer will base their decision on what matters most to them: value. 5 Must-Use Tips to Implement Before Writing Tantalizing Product Descriptions According to WordTracker.com, the typical ecommerce product description is approximately 60 to 70 words in length. Within this small word space, the goal is to educate the consumer regarding the benefits and selling points of the product. Sounds easy, right? Well, it’s more of a challenge than you might think. 60 to 70 words go quick, and each and every one has to count. As you embark on the writing process, here are 5 tips you don’t want to ignore: 1. Know your target audience. One of the common mistakes made by amateur copywriters (and sometimes even the professionals) is failing to know the target audience. Never assume you know them. Always take the time to research their needs, wants and preferences in relation to the product you’re writing about. Knowing you audience is the key to writing a tantalizing description because this knowledge will shape the copy, influence the tone and ultimately deliberate over the angle you choose to take. 2. List the benefits over the features. People want to know why your product is so awesome. Why should they buy it? How will they use it? Will it make life easier, save time or solve a big problem? Does it deliver something they want or need, or both? It’s helpful to brainstorm a list of product benefits before you begin writing description copy. Since you will be working with a limited word count, you should choose the biggest benefits. You’ll need to know your audience well in order to choose the benefits that will seal the deal and make them want to buy. 3. Give your audience a preview of their future. Really good copywriters, the ones who know their trade well, moonlight as fortune tellers—at least when it comes to predicting the future of the customer. Give the audience a glimpse of their future if they purchase the product. How will it affect them a month or a year from now? Highlighting the potential future benefits of a product is an excellent way to showcase its value. 4. Check the limits of your CMS. Content management systems, or CMSs, can throw a monkey wrench into your copy if you fail to check their limitations prior to writing product descriptions. CMSs usually have a word or character limit. So, before you write an epic 100 word description with a killer headline, verify just how much or how little your CMSs can handle. Some things to check before writing include: The limitations of the product copy field (max. words or characters). The presence of additional fields, how they can be used and what limitations they might have (for example, you might be able to squeeze a link or extra selling point into an additional field). Whether or not the CMS forces any information, such as automatically inserted headlines. 5. Incorporation of SEO. Product descriptions are like any other online copy; they need to be search engine optimized. Depending on your website design and CMS, your description lengths will vary. When you’re dealing with a limited word count on the lower end (anything under 100 words), you don’t have a lot of room to insert keywords and phrases; this does not mean you leave them out. Your goal should be to insert at least one strong keyword or phrase in each of the following places two or three times, as quality allows: The headline The product image caption The product description copy. 15 Tips for Writing Responsive Product Description Copy Responsive product descriptions are the ones that generate exactly the response you’re targeting: product sales. Enticing the audience to buy without misleading or overselling is more of … Read more
