Writing effective product descriptions is not rocket science! You want to include pertinent information like color, size, raw materials etc., but in order to entice a potential customer to purchase, think about the following things:
- Who is your ideal buyer/consumer
- Appeal to your buyers/customers feelings by talking about them (use “you statements” rather than “I statements”)
- Share stories — your story and past buyer’s stories or testimonials
- Create urgency so as to encourage customers to buy now
Most of these points are referenced in an excellent article by Launch Grow Joy: Ten Secrets to Writing Effective Product Descriptions
My favorite ‘secret’ from the article was #7;
KISS: Keep it simple stupid.
We scan. We see headlines and taglines. We see price. We see discounts. We see bullet points. We see color. We see graphics. We see images.
And our attention spans are about 10 seconds long if we don’t see what we’re looking for in a product description. Picture a product description which is five paragraphs long of just copy. There’s nothing to scan to. There’s nothing that reaches out and grabs your attention. There’s nothing compelling you to spend 10 minutes on the page reading about the product. Boom. You’re out. There’s a 30-second cat video on Facebook to watch.
If you’ve ever visited a product website that is too complicated or confusing, you understand exactly what this ‘secret’ means.
Being brief, but thorough, is a real juggling act sometimes. Try keeping the description short and sweet and then linking to another spot where your customers can read more about your product. Using this option creates the best of both worlds!
When all else fails, look to the big sellers on the web. Online stores, such as Amazon, are excellent places to go to see what works for them. Amazon (as well as other large retailers) have access to unlimited budgets to test what product pages sell the most products, so they can best keep up with the needs of their customers.
And while you are on their site, check out their web layout, headlines and sub-headline verbiage, images, and check out procedures. Adapt to your website whatever you think will make your products pop out and appeal to your buyers/customers!