Craft Compelling Product Copy That Sells
Have you ever read a product description so rich and textural that it made you skip the specs, forget the reviews and head straight to the Buy Now button? Welcome to your new goal.
Product copy is, at the core, designed to inform and persuade. It’s intended to inspire action and knock down the doubt and other barriers to buying. And, it’s at its best when it elicits a strong emotional response that creates trust and connection with your brand.
Of course, that means you’re going to have to invest some time creating robust and detailed descriptions for the products – and, in some instances, the services that you sell. In these descriptions, you’ll want to:
dispel fear,
address customers’ concerns and
create a compelling experience that gets them excited about owning what you’re selling.
So, let’s break it down into smaller, more manageable blocks to help you make the most of your product data.
Here are the must-haves:
Materials
When telling customers what your products are made of, don’t skimp on detail. If it’s wood, what kind? Where was it sourced? Cotton? Are your materials fair trade? Turn your materials into a story to create a more emotional connection and build trust in your brand.
For example, “The finest White Pine sustainably sourced from the mountains of North Carolina” sounds a lot more appealing than “wood.”
Specifications
Ever bought a piece of furniture that you had to disassemble on your apartment’s stoop and reassemble inside your apartment? Worse, yet – a piece you had to leave on the sidewalk until you could figure out a way to make the return?
Go bananas when adding sizing details to your product data. Beyond the height, width and depth of the piece, include details about seat measurements, drawer measurements, cushion height, shipping container dimensions, weight and anything else a customer might find useful. This instills confidence in the purchase and creates a more satisfied customer.
Photographs
There’s a reason that the cliché “A picture is worth 1,000 words exists.” Show AND tell your customers what they’re getting – in bright, natural light and with several different angles, if possible.
For additional tips on getting the best possible photographs of your products, check out our blog article “Oh Snap!”
Now that you’ve covered your bases, it’s time to organize the information in a way that’s easy to read - and consistent - across all products. This is where Amber Engine spends an extraordinary amount of time when creating product data for our clients. We strive to format the material in a way that makes it easy to find key information quickly and easily from product, to product, to product.
If you’re writing and formatting your own product data, you may want to bold the section headings and use a bulleted list to fill in the details. Or, you might try using blocks of information noted with icons to make the details a consumer searches for easy to spot.
Whichever format you choose, keep brevity in mind. Imagine that your customer is in a hurry and they need the pertinent information now, now, now!!!
Beyond the basics, there’s romance copy. Your romance copy will (ideally) bring the experience of owning the product into view for your potential customer. Here, you’ll use rich, sensory-driven descriptors to give the feeling of sitting on the sofa, opening the armoire doors, shutting the soft-close drawer to ensure that the customer gets an idea of the functionality of your product.
Also, be sure to present your product’s features as benefits. When you speak to the double-stitched seams on your suede sofa, talk about it in terms of durability. “Thanks to our double-stitched seams, our sofa is so strong that it can go to college with the child that spent a decade jumping on it.”
Which of our product copy tips resonates with you? Which will you try first?
Of course, if you’re completely overwhelmed after reading this, know that help is a call or email away. Our team exists to create compelling product copy and accurate product data so you don’t have to. We welcome an invitation to share our craft with you!