7 Secrets to Writing Product Descriptions

Posted on - Last Modified on

If you have a product, the World Wide Web is a good avenue on which to put it up for sale. However, with many e-commerce businesses and online sellers already on the market, how can you persuade people to buy your product? One of the ways that can help you boost engagement and generate sales is to create a product description that sells. Here are seven secrets to doing it.

1. Identify your target customer.

Have a persona of who you want your main customer to be. While you naturally want as many people to buy your product, you still need to have a specific target market. Make sure that your product descriptions are geared towards this particular group of people.

Create a persona of what type of person your product is for. You can try visualizing a day in the life of that particular person. If your product is for men, imagine what your persona's usual activities are, his thoughts upon waking up, the places he frequents, websites he visits and his struggles. This will give you an insight as to what makes him happy and ultimately, what drives him to purchase a particular product.

Having a persona or a specific target market helps you make a product description that’s centered on the buyer and what’s in it for them when they purchase your product.

2. List your product features.

As the developer of your product, you know the ins and outs of it and it’s normal to want to put as much details out there as possible. However, this is not the smartest way to create a product description.

What you should do it to create a list of the features of your products. Highlight the items that are most beneficial to your target market and translate them into advantages.  This can help your potential buyers better visualize the solutions that your product offers.

3. Deliver it in the right tone.

There’s no right choice between taking on a business-like or casual tone when creating your descriptions. But what should translate to people should be your identity as an organization or as the maker of the product.

You need to let your personality shine through. This will allow your market to relate better to you and manage their expectations of you.

4. Make it easy to read.

Huge chunks of text can easily turn readers off. If you want people to read your description, you need to structure it in a way that’s easy to scan. Using subheads and bullet points helps achieve that. If you need to start off with an introduction, make it brief and write shorter lines.

5. Tap the buyer’s imagination

When you sell online, people can’t touch and see the actual product. That’s why product description is crucial especially for e-commerce businesses.

If you want to persuade them to buy, you can appeal to their imagination. Write your description with the aim of letting them understand what it would be like to touch and own your product.

6. Justify your claims

When you use superlatives, you need to quantify them. If you’re saying that a product is the “most advanced”, you need to present specific and factual data that backs up that claim. Otherwise, people will just see it as a lousy marketing ploy and think that you’re just one of those sellers who simply claim to be the best just to make a sale.

7. Optimize for search engines

Infuse keywords in your headline, subheadings, content body, and image description and file name. Be careful not to put so much of it though. Your priority is to write for people, search engine optimization should be secondary. 

Posted 2 September, 2015

jdbsebastian

Content Writer

I produce written content for the Web--from internal webpages and blog posts to marketing materials such as off-page articles, e-books and outreach e-mails. Currently, my projects are on personal finance, health, business, fashion, and beauty products. I'll be glad to send you samples of my work. Please feel free to message me.

Next Article

Learn About Conversion Hacks from Tim Paige of LeadPages on Warrior TV