The Secret to Writing Seriously Seductive Product Descriptions

How Seductive Are Your Product Descriptions?

Does your product copy entice readers to click buy or try? Or do you simply describe your product and tell web visitors what it does?

The secret to writing seriously seductive product descriptions is to follow a proven process to engage, persuade, and sell.

To get started, you need to know exactly who it is that you want to buy your product.

1. Define Your Buyer Persona

Basing your work on buyer personas prevents you from sitting on your butt in your comfortable office just making stuff up, which is the cause of most ineffective marketing. ~ David Meerman Scott

A buyer persona is an imaginary customer. It is the person for whom you've developed your product and to whom you'd love to sell it (of course!). He or she represents your target audience, but is much more real than a vague description of some demographics.

You need to know your buyer persona so well that you know exactly what makes her laugh, what makes her shake her head in disbelief, what makes her click buy,and what makes her hesitate to order.

To describe your buyer persona, think about what she's reading and which websites she visits, because that will help you understand the right tone of voice that will engage her. Consider what keeps her awake at night, what she dreams of achieving, and how she makes decisions, because that will enable you to create copy that speaks to her and taps into her feelings.

Clearly defining your buyer persona will give you the information you need to transform product-centric descriptions into customer-centric descriptions. Visualizing your buyer persona will empower you to make your descriptions more vivid, personal, and persuasive.

Let's have a look at how this works.

2. Create a Comprehensive List of Features and Benefits

You love talking about your products.

Maybe you've spent years developing your app. Or you're excited about the upgraded specs of your best-selling item. You enjoy providing people with all of the details, the features, and the specs, and that's what people want to read about, isn't it?

No. Not really.

Potential clients don't want to know what your product is or does. They want to know what's in it for them. How does it make their lives better? Which problems does it take away?

Before you start writing, list all of your features and specs, and then translate them into benefits. A feature is a fact about your product, while a benefit is an explanation of what that feature does for your reader. A benefit can be phrased as a positive (e.g., improves productivity) or as a problem that's avoided or reduced (e.g., decreases stress).

The bullet points below for Amazon's Paperwhite, for instance, mix positive benefits (read with one hand and battery lasts weeks) with problems that are avoided (no screen glare and read without eyestrain).

Most people are risk-averse, so it's wise to include some references to how your product avoids glitches, hassles, and problems.

3. Define Your Tone of Voice

Do you want to sound like a boring big corporation? Or do you want to engage readers with personality and a dash of humor?

Your tone of voice can differentiate you from your competitors; it gives readers a strong impression of your organization's culture and personality.

Rather than say you're fun to deal with, let your personality shine through your content and add a dash of humor. Rather than remark that your customer service is excellent, let your tone of voice demonstrate that you're friendly, approachable, and interested in understanding your client's business.

The descriptions below are for similar products, but they strike a completely different tone of voice:

Furry Adventure Slippers on ThinkGeek:

Your tone of voice shows who you are and how you deal with your clients.

To define your tone of voice, consider what you are and what you're not. For instance: We're cheeky and fun, but we never use bad language. Or: We're business-like, but not boring, and we don't use gobbledygook phrases such as market-leading and world-class.

If you were going to speak to your buyer persona in real life, which tone would you strike? That's the voice you want to emulate in your writing.

Check out MailChimp's Voice and Tone website for an excellent example of how to describe your tone of voice.

4. Create a Scannable Format

Research suggests that people read only 16% of the words on the average web page.

To entice people to buy your product or trial your app, they probably need to read your copy. So how do you tempt people to stop skimming your page and start reading your content?

Let's look at two examples:

The InVision product page uses an easy-to-scan and easy-to read format. The subheadings have a font size of 30px, while the body text has a comfortable font size of 20px.

Most subheadings focus on a benefit (e.g., a real time to-do list keeps projects moving forward), while the body text provides a more detailed explanation. Pictures and simple animations almost make you feel as if you're using the product, increasing your desire to try it.