If you have a product-based company, no one understands the importance of product description better than you. The most important step that drives the customer’s decision to buy your product is reading the product description. Hence, there should be no compromise in creating your product description with all the intricate details.
Whether you are a product owner or writer, you need to understand the steps of creating a vibrant product description for your business or client. Let’s get started now!
What is a product description?
A product description is an explanatory piece of copy on the product designed to be read by the customer before they make a purchasing decision. It’s sort of like a gated copy for your customers, who are so enthralled with it that they take your product (or service) with them.
Your marketing copy, sales copy, product descriptions, and feature lists are like a polished athlete. Most of the time, if you’re not turning your customer base into customers, the product is a commodity. But by building a solid brand and a strong product, and a strong customer service culture, a good brand starts to shine a little more brightly, and the customers begin to get a little more demanding.
Customers want to feel special. They want to feel like they’re getting something special, something you don’t make many of. And because those are the only customers you’re going to get, a product that doesn’t make them feel special won’t help you move the product from that first customer into the customer base that will eventually purchase your product.
What is the importance of product copy?
Product copy is one of the best places to tell your users about your product, and when done right, it can boost conversion rates. If you’re already using email marketing, you’re already in a good place to write product copy. But even if you’re not, your landing pages and other pages where you’d normally ask users to fill out a form will likely benefit from product copy.
Product copy can communicate your brand identity. Product copy is different from other forms of content because you can be as creative as you’d like. It’s also less structured than your sales copy or press release so that you can get creative. You can list out all your unique features, specific factors for quick understanding.
Your audience is reading the product description to compare your product with other competitors. Hence, product descriptions give you the chance to be smart enough to add all the critical points that make you the only product provider in the market.
Types of product descriptions
There are two common types of product descriptions you’ll find across almost every website:
1. Long, professional descriptions- This description is aimed to capture the essence of a product but lacks any form of depth or personalization.
2. Short, first-person descriptions – This description is aimed to capture the essence of a product but lacks any form of depth or personalization.
But there’s more than one way to do it. One of the most surprising things I’ve seen in the past year is the progression of some product descriptions from the second category to the first category.
How should you write a great product description?
It starts with the user experience. Understand who your customer is, their pain points, and how you can address them in the product. I’m going to break this down into four key questions you should ask before writing your product descriptions: What will our customers do with the product? What will they like about the product? What will stop them from going to the competition? What’s the price for each version? Let’s go through this one by one.
The best practices for writing product descriptions
Because product copy is so important, you can’t just assume you’re good at it and throw it at your website. If you’re new to writing product descriptions, it can help you read through many examples.
You’ll find a great deal of advice on how to write product descriptions on websites and blogs. Some other relevant articles will also be great resources. If you’re looking for a detailed guide, you can refer to a step-by-step guide to writing product descriptions along with product description examples. You can also refer to the eBook on the art of writing.
Keep in mind that we are talking about a small percentage of people that click through to read product descriptions, so consider that when you write them. Treat them as an ad, not a long-form article, and keep it to a single paragraph, or two at most. You’ll save some customers if you give them good content, and they’ll thank you for it later.
Being brand aware in your design At first glance, product descriptions might seem like a trivial point, but they’ll help define what you offer as a brand if done right.
Conclusion
In this post, we walked through what a sound product description looks like in the digital world, and we’ll share a few pieces of advice about writing a product description that converts. We talked about why a good product description matters, how to write one that works, and a few tips on how to write one that converts.
What’s your favorite piece of product copy? Leave us a comment below. Stay tuned for more guides in this series.