Category Archives: E-commerce

Write for Your Target Audience

Know Who Buys Your Product

It’s always a good idea to know who you’re writing for, but knowing your audience is especially important in product descriptions, since your goal is to sell. Ask your client who buys their products or who they want to have buy their products.

Create a Specific Persona

Once you know who your target audience is, hone in some more. Turn your client’s target audience into a specific person.

Know your person’s gender, age, interests, style, sense of humour, and how he talks. Keep your target person in mind the whole time you write, imagining that you’re talking to her. Be sure to use the word “you”.

Choose an Appropriate Tone

You want to know how your target person talks so that you can write in that style. In general, your tone should be friendly, and maybe a bit humorous (depending on your audience).

Choose words that attract your target person. Is she interested in products that are cute, cool, hipster, cutting-edge, trendy, healthy, vintage, or elegant?

Will he understand product-related jargon? Write using your audience’s language and tone.

A note about tone: Ideally your client will have a consistent tone throughout their product descriptions. If they already have an established tone, follow that.

If they haven’t developed a tone yet, maybe they’ll like your tone and use it in their other descriptions.

Build a Features-Benefits Bridge

A feature is a fact about a product. A benefit is how the product affects the buyer. Shoppers are much more interested in benefits than features, so you should focus on them in your product description.

One way to do so is by creating a features-benefits bridge. Link each feature that you include with a benefit that that feature provides.

If you’re selling microwavable lunch containers, your features-benefits bridge might look like this:

Microwavable — Avoid the hassle of plates; heat your food straight in the container.

Learn More:

• Forbes: Online Personas
• Shopify: Product Descriptions That Sell
• Kissmetrics: Product Descriptions That Sell

Stick to the Facts

If you’re like me, you don’t like being lied to. Keeping that in mind, let’s see how to write product descriptions without being dishonest.

Provide Precise Details

You want to share what makes your product unique and great. Generalities certainly won’t help with that!

Bad: This mug is large, red, and lightweight.

Better: This mug is 0.3L (10.1 fl oz), a cheery scarlet-red, and 10% lighter than other porcelain mugs.

The more precise you are about  your details, the more likely your customers are to be happy with what they bought, since the product matches the description.

Being specific also makes your product stand out. Rather than saying that your product is “excellent”, show why it’s excellent.

Support Claims About Quality

Let’s face it — not every product can be the best, most amazing, most advanced, coolest thing that your customers have ever bought. Throwing superlatives into your product description isn’t going to convince your buyers. Rather, you need to describe what makes your product great (especially in terms of benefits) and back up your claims with evidence.

Bad: This is the best mug! No other mug retains the heat so well while also being microwavable.

Better: This porcelain mug keeps drinks toasty and provides just the right temperature balance to keep your hands warm without being hot to the touch. Plus, it’s microwavable. Do you want some hot chocolate?

Learn More:

• Shopify: Product Descriptions That Sell
• Volusion: Example Product Descriptions

Action Verbs and Sensory Adjectives

Writing guides often advocate limiting adjectives. This is tricky advice for product description writers because it’s tempting to rely on adjectives to sell your product.

Choose Verbs Over Adjectives

Action verbs pack a punch. Try to avoid using “is”, “are”, “be”, and passive verbs, all of which seem bland. On the other hand, action verbs speak stronger than adjectives. Rather than cramming your sentences with adjectives and weak verbs, choose strong verbs.

Bad: This beautiful necklace is perfect for your fashionable tastes.

Better: This necklace will satisfy the desires of the fashionista in you.

Here I changed the generic adjectives beautiful, perfect, and fashionable, and the weak verb is to the strong verb satisfy and the interesting noun fashionista. Which sentence makes you want to buy a necklace?

Get Sensory with Your Adjectives

Run-of-the-mill adjectives don’t sell, but sensory adjectives do. A sensory adjective appeals to smell, taste, touch, sight, or sound. Sensory adjectives help buyers experience your product virtually, and that experience sells.

Bad: Our soft, lilac print pillow will help you sleep better.

Better: Dream the night away on this creamy soft pillow. The lilac print pattern leaves you practically smelling the flowers.

When you include an adjective in a product description, ask, “Is this sensory? How does it help sell my product? Could I replace it with a more specific and powerful word?”

Learn More:

• Kissmetrics: Destructive Power of Adjectives
• Shopify: Product Descriptions that Sell