A product and service description is a brief copy that describes your product and tells a story about why it is worth buying. Marketers get the first part right. Unfortunately, the first part only. Most product descriptions out there work as mere information dispenser.
However, a product and service description can be so much more. It is a compelling story about your product. As with stories, it should have an attention hook, a climax, and an impact.
Besides, the description should not only amuse but also empower the customers to make informed decisions. Moreover, it should address the problems and offer a specific solution. In a nutshell, a product and service description should ideally push your sales. If it’s not, you need to redo your copies.
Even earth-shattering marketing strategies boil down to one key theorem. Know thy audiences. If you write a product/service description for everybody, you write it for nobody. Because the best descriptions address the deepest desires of the core audiences.
So, your first task is to fixate on a target group. Then write as if you were talking directly to them. Brainstorm on the following questions.
What is the first information that your customers want to know about your product?
Have you given enough thought about the pain points of your customers?
or the trigger points that make your customers go wow?
Another great way to understand your customers is to build a buyer persona. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. Buyer personas incorporate empathy in your marketing communication. To know more, you can see The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Buyer Persona.
Rent the Runway is an online apparel renting platform. It lets teenagers to middle-aged women rent clothes that otherwise would be too expensive for them. Now think from a woman’s perspective.
Now, what’s so special about this product page, especially the product description? As seen, all the descriptions revolve around body positivity and women empowerment. Apart from immaculately and precisely describing the dress, the copy also addresses whom the dress would fit: women with hourglass figures.
But wait! Rent the Runway is not done. The company adds a second but a subtle product description under the title of Stylist Notes. The notes add a feminine touch by vividly accentuating the women figure who would wear the dress. As if empowering them with words.
For one thing, we know how futile dress photography is, shooting models with unreal figures. As if to bolster the product description, the website also adds photos of clothes worn, shot, and submitted by real customers. Moreover, you can view and sort clothes as per your body type.
A feature is what makes up the product. Contrarily, a benefit is what makes the product useful to the customers. Merely listing features is a mistake often made. Rather, a copy that transforms features into benefits can help your customers make better decisions.
Imagine if this were the product description for a contactless chip reader.
Boring and mindless, right? This list of features never answers why I would need a contactless reader in the first place. Here is an alternate plan executed by Squareup.
The fastest and most secure way to pay.
Process payments in just two seconds.
Connect wirelessly. Sell instantly.
A battery that keeps up with you.
Lets us accept every payment everywhere.
Free brownie points. The visitors are guided with useful visuals along with the product and service description.
As with features, pain points can also be translated into benefits. In fact, this is the easiest and most effective ways to write a product description. For instance, what is the single problem with your wallet that you absolutely hate?
Well, how do you think most professional men responded? As we grow, so does our wallet. However, a fat wallet is literally a pain in the bum. So, Bellroy leveraged this consumer insight and came up with the idea of slimming wallets. And here goes the product and service description for Bellroy.
THE SAME CAPACITY, WITHOUT THE EXTRA BULK
Our wallets are designed to hold what you need, while keeping your pockets trim and tailored.
They even went as far as to add a comparison scale that lets you visually contrast two wallets i.e. Bellroy Slim Wallet vs generic fat wallet.
Human beings are odd species. We value stories more than facts. We are genuinely engineered to love and breathe stories. Hence, brands have adopted stories as the ultimate weapon to hook customers.
How do you write an absolutely out-of-the-box product and service description? You write a story; this is exactly what Teema Teas did. Instead of generic tea talks such as ‘freshens you up’, this brand unearths the story behind its every flavor of teas.
While doing so, the wily copywriter skilfully inserts the unique health benefits of each flavor. Moreover, the brand also ticks on empowering the customers by providing them with useful information.
Another brand that, in our opinion truly harnessed the power of stories is Yellow Leaf Hammocks.
The company, instead of writing usual fun descriptions for hammocks, choose to tell you the background story of their hammocks. The unique story of each weaver responsible for creating the hammock. Despite focusing on emotions, the brand doesn’t lose its aim to convey the benefits nevertheless.
A good product and service description is not merely leaving a string of meaningless superlative adjectives. Rather, the right set of words can set your brand tone. In fact, words have powers. The right choice of words can make customers admire you or hate you in an instant.
Besides, the words must be aligned with your brand personality. For instance, compare two beverages: Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Despite the fact that both are beverages, see how drastically their product descriptions vary? While the former focuses on heritage and originality, the latter embraces choice of freedom.
It’s not uncommon to face a writer’s block. So, finding the right words compatible with the brand tone can become a challenging task. In times like this, googling synonyms also doesn’t do the trick anymore. Therefore, you can try Words to Use.
Firstly, choose your industry. Let’s choose Apparels and jewelry, shall we?
Once you do so, you will be further given more options to choose from i.e. clothing and fashion, handbags, etc. Well, let’s go with clothing then.
Now you can even find the right words based on the parts of speech and related domains. As for clothing, there is a domain under Fabrics. Suddenly finding the right words doesn’t seem so daunting, does it?
How to waste the least words to get your products across customers’ minds? Visuals! However skillful a copywriter you might be, without guiding visuals, words seem bland. Because rich visuals and imagery instantly endorse your product description.
In this regard, Joovy follows a simple, yet extremely effective technique. Each line in their product and service description is backed by respective images. Moreover, the features (in bold) are simultaneously backed by benefit (in thin fonts). Joovy even goes as far as to add a video product description.
You know how it goes: Eyes don’t lie.
We want to be like people we admire. Thus, social proofs can be infused into product descriptions. See how Red Bull snuck social proof into its product description. It did convey its benefits after all but in a far stronger way.
This is an ingenious move by Redbull to add such customer testimonials inside its product description.
So, what did you learn from the brands? Here are some extra pro-tips to furnish your product descriptions.
Voila! There you have it. Nevertheless, should you seek help with writing solid product and service description for your page, contact BlogWriters, your dedicated content marketing team.
