It’s crazy to think that in most cases for ecommerce stores and online shops, the product descriptions you write are the only form of communication you will have with your customers and is, more often than not, the make or break feature that will generate your income.
Most entrepreneurs believe that a product description is simply a list of features and a little description that describes the product and the product will sell itself. This is evident by simply searching for an ecommerce store of your choice.
However, by taking back control of your product descriptions, you can write them in such a way that will change the way your customers see your products, making them far more likely to purchase them. Here’s how you can write captivating and enticing product descriptions in just 10 easy steps.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #1: Focus on Your Target Market
It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to write a neutral and broad product description, so customers from all over the world and from any demographic will be interested in buying your products. However, descriptions like this are only going to come across as generic and can seriously harm your bottom line.
As an ecommerce business, you should already know your ideal target market and the type of people who are interested in your products, so rewrite and create them for this market, rather than trying to market to everyone. To hone in on who your target market is so you can write your product descriptions specifically for them, check out this Ecommerce Business Branding Guide.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #2: Benefits Over Features
When writing your descriptions, you may be overwhelmed with the number of features that your products have, so much so that you want to list them all out to share this crucial information with your potential customers.
However, if your customers cannot see the benefits of these features in their everyday lives, they won’t be interested in purchasing your products. List out the benefits of your features, rather than a list of specs to see an instant improvement in sales. Don’t forget to check to ensure your description is communicating the right message when writing. You can check out an editing tool like AcademAdvisor.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #3: Avoid Being Generic
Sometimes, writing product descriptions is hard work, especially when you’re trying to write 10-50 of them, if not more. It’s easy to run out of things to say while trying to make your products sound different yet exciting.
It’s when this happens that you can easily turn to stock phrases like “Excellent product quality!” or other bland phrases. These generic terms are only going to put your customers off buying your products since this is something they’ll read for a lot of products that they see on the market.
If you’re stuck for ideas, it’s best to leave generic phrases out completely so maybe even return to writing your product descriptions at a later date when your mind is fresh. However, if you need your product descriptions ready immediately, you can use tools like State of Writing to expand your vocabulary and sites like ViaWriting to help you generate new product ideas and concepts. Alternatively, you could even try a service like iWriter to get another person to write up your product descriptions for you that you could later tweak.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #4: Play on Your Reader’s Imagination
It’s common knowledge that holding a product in your hand dramatically increases your desire to want to buy and own it. As an ecommerce store, your customers can’t see and hold your product, however, through writing you can play on your reader’s imagination to give them that same sort of sense. When writing your product descriptions, use language that appeals to the reader’s senses. Describe what it’s like to see, touch and use your product so consumers can image it in their own life.
Check out this article from Shopify to help you write product descriptions that sell.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #5: Story Time!
One of the biggest problems with product descriptions is that consumers often know that they’re being marketed too which can lead them to take everything you have to say with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, this is a mindset you can break by including a story in your description that consumers can engage with.
“These stories only need to be short but will typically talk about a customer case study (someone who has brought your product in the past) and how they used the product to change their life or add benefit to themselves. This helps the reader forget their being marketed to and adds an emotional connection to your products” – Bret Vandenberg, Ecommerce Marketer at Best British Essays.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #6: Be Concise & Direct
Your potential customer doesn’t have all day to sit and read through product descriptions that are 1,000’s of words-long and details all the ins and outs of your product (perhaps they do, but they’re not going to spend much time doing that!).
Aim to keep your product descriptions a couple of hundred words at the maximum to ensure that your reader doesn’t get bored, and so you can keep things streamlined and easily digestible for them. This may prove difficult, especially when you’re trying to add customer stories and benefits and everything else we’ve discussed in this article.
Instead, try breaking your product pages down into sections. In the first, you can have the actual description, followed by a section for customer stories and finally reviews, or whatever structure works for you. You can track the word count of your descriptions using tools like Easy Word Count.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #7: Accuracy is Key
If you’re reading through product descriptions and see that they’re full of spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and other writing issues, it’s safe to say that you’ll seriously doubt the reputation and credibility of the ecommerce store that you’re buying from.
After all, if a store can’t even write quality product descriptions, how can they offer a quality product?
The same can be said for your store which is why it’s so important for you to go through and check the quality of your product descriptions when it comes to proofreading and spell checking. You can make this process easier and more accurate using a service such as BoomEssays.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #8: Implement Social Proof
If you head over to Amazon, you’ll see there is a huge culture that runs on product reviews from customers. This is because online shoppers trust the judgment of other online shoppers (statistics say just as much, if not more, than they do with their own friends).
This means including product reviews from your customers is an essential part of generating a sale and without it, you’re far more likely to lose sales, especially if a competitor is offering this feature. Check out this Shopify article on How to Get Customer Reviews for Your Ecommerce Store.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #9: Match Your Branding
It’s easy to fall into a habit of trying to write about your products in the most exciting and dramatic way possible so your customers simply cannot resist buying what you’re offering. This, however, may lead to the problem of your product descriptions not matching the branding and personality of the rest of your ecommerce store.
When you’re writing, make sure that your content aligns with the style of your business and uses the same tone of voice as your store (such as informal, formal, casual, humorous, etc.). Don’t forget to check your grammar using tools like Grammarly.
Ecommerce Product Descriptions Tip #10: Don’t Forget SEO
While writing these descriptions, especially with all the points above in mind, it’s important to remember your SEO practices, including researching appropriate keywords (do this with KWFinder), optimizing your product image tags and properly formatting your content for web and mobile browsers. Check out our article on SEO for Ecommerce Stores here.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are a lot of things you have to consider when it comes to writing product descriptions to ensure that they captivate consumers and generate those all-important sales. Be as creative as you can be, practice when you can, and you’ll be sure to see a drastic improvement in the income of your ecommerce store when you improve your product descriptions.
