How To Write A Compelling Product Description Even If You’re Not A Writer

Are you still writing product descriptions that simply describe your products? You’re doing it WRONG. Stop treating your product description like it’s a TV operating instructions.

You need to SELL your product in description.

Here’s how to do it.

Speak the language

You may have noticed that the very best product descriptions in the world have the tendency to use the word ‘YOU’ over ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our company’.

That’s no coincidence.

If you want to focus on your buyer, you need to start being personal with him. Treat the copy of the product description as if it’s a monologue you’re giving in front of your ideal buyer.

Choose the words you (and your buyer) would use in a real face-to-face conversation. But don’t turn on your sales-talk generator just yet. Search online for specific sentences and words and word combinations that people buying similar items use.

Good source for this intel might be a review on Amazon or a tweet about the product on Twitter. It doesn’t have to be a product review necessarily, as you might find these cues inside something like a book review (the book is about your industry though).

## Sell the experience

Remember the very first iPod? It was kind of cool, wasn’t it? And smartly marketed too.

For instance, while competitors were mostly focused on the memory size, advertising 1GB of storage space, Apple turned this feature into a benefit by saying that iPod would store 10,000 songs.

You can do this too, if you just look through the “what is the coolest thing the buyer can do with this product?” lens when re-writing your features as benefits. Like for the iPod, the “1GB storage space” became the “listen to 10,000 songs“.

Compose mini-stories

I’m sure as an experienced seller, by now you already know that stories sell. They make us relate to the heroes of these stories, making us forget about the fact that we’re actually sales copy.

So how do you write the kind of mini-story that sells?

By using the “as heard on the street” formula. Imagine something wacky you heard on the street, that would make your head turn ‘Eggghh?’. Add the product you’re selling into the mix and there you have it. A mini-story to tell in your product description.

For example, “I stole an image from the Internet once” + photo pack you’re selling = “I stole an image from the Internet once, got caught and paid a $700 fine. Now I’m shooting all my photos myself.”

Use these kinds of mini-stories to get viewer’s attention and get them to read the rest of your description.

Include social proof

People are attracted to buying things that are popular. When it comes to your digital products, there are a couple of ways to transmit that sense of popularity around your product.

Inserting quotes from press or bloggers about your product is one way to do it. A regular testimonial from delighted customer can be sufficient too.

One more thing you can do is insert a subheading like “Sold over 1,000 copies”. Just don’t lie about the number of copies you sold, as it will definitely backfire.

Make it scannable

Writing a long description that looks like a long form sales letter can definitely work with some products. But sometimes all you need is** short and crisp** description, especially if you’re product is fairly straightforward.

In this case, you can just make the best use of the headlines, incorporate** easy-to-scan bullet points** into your product description with plenty of white space between them.

You can further improve readability by replacing difficult words with simple ones and by cutting the average length of the sentences.

Over to You

Now that you know the pro tips to writing product descriptions that sell, do you feel you need to rewrite some of your product descriptions? Or maybe you feel that you need to share this one secret to writing descriptions for digital products? In any case, let me know in the comments section below.