How to write persuasive product descriptions that sell?

How to write persuasive product descriptions that sell?

Reading Time: 11 minutes

A product description is one of the key selling points for every eCommerce business. 

In retail stores, the sales take place after, 

• Looking at the product
• Feeling the product in hands
• Taking the product information from the sales professionals at the store
• Comparing it with other products
• Bringing reviews from existing customers
• And more

But, online selling is crucial because customers are unable to see the product and don’t know what exactly it is as there are no sales guys online.

Hence, product description becomes the most significant factor to make visitors understand everything about the product and persuade them to make the purchase.

Now, how to create a persuasive product description for your eCommerce products? To get an answer to this, we are going to cover,

• Things you must include in your product description
• What’s the appropriate length of the product description
• And, finally, the ways to write a product description that sells

So, let’s begin with the first step,

What to include in your product description?

To write a persuasive product description, you must know what can help your online store visitors to make a buying decision.

Is it only the product specifications? Not really. Let’s find out.

• Product features/specifications

The first thing an online visitor looks for is the product features or product specifications.

What does product features/specifications include?

• Appearance
• Ingredients or materials used to make the products
• Feel of the product
• Colors used
• Height
• Weight
• Size
• Strength or durability of the product
• Composition
• Components
• Capabilities
• Safety
• And, more

All these are the primary product features or specifications. You need to identify which product features you can showcase based on the product type you sell.

For example, on eBay, when you sell a product like a fitness tracker, here is the long list of product features and specifications to help a buyer understand what he/she will get in this fitness tracker-

• Product benefits

Every product description must consist of product benefits. 

Let me do one clarification- product benefits are different than the product features.

Product features are centered on the product and its functionalities. And, product benefits are focused on how your product can be useful to its buyers.

So, to help your eCommerce store visitors to buy your products, you need to show them how useful they are to them.

Once you list your product features, your next section in the product description should be the benefits part.

Check out how beardo.in showcases the benefits of each of their products-

Well, if you’re looking to sell medicines online like Netmeds.com, showcasing why to use a specific medicine becomes mandatory-

• How-to-use section

Today, the eCommerce market has become the most competitive one. By the end of 2019, global eCommerce sales will rise 20.7%, which is a decline from the previous two years (28% in 2017 and 22.9% in 2018).

The decline is because of the increasing competition in every eCommerce segment. And, to sustain in your industry, you need to keep up with the sales every year.

And, to sell more products, you need to showcase how buyers can use your products.

See how Maybelline showcases the way to apply its lipstick on all the marketplaces-

See, there is another way to showcase how-to-use section in the product description the way Beardo.in is doing-

The most persuasive way to utilize this section is to represent it graphically. Visual graphics leave a long-lasting impression.

• Product care tips

Today, you can buy almost all kinds of products online. Apparels, shoes, medicines, jewelry, furniture, you name it.

When you buy from retail stores, the sales guys explain to you how you need to clean certain appliances and how much care you need to take. If not the sales guys, you get a written manual where everything is written in detail.

Similarly, when people come to buy your products, you can provide the care tips (if any) that are required for your product sustainability. With this information, the visitor knows every effort he/she needs to make for your product’s long life.

For example, a fabric might need a machine wash or dry clean. Myntra provides just one field to provide a care tip for the fashion products-

Also, when you buy furniture online, see how Pepperfry provides a long list of care tips for a sofa-

Not necessarily all product needs special care tips, and when some products need, they might be just one tip or probably multiple ones. Hence, based on your product type, decide to use the care tips in your product description.

• Company or seller information

If you’re here, that means you’re selling your products either on your own store or on marketplaces.

Whichever is the case, you need to let your product visitors know about your company. On marketplaces, you’re called a seller.

Your company information helps visitors know about your company, its specialization, and about their products and services. This is where they get a thought of why they should buy from you.

Here is the example of the topmost online marketplace, eBay that showcases seller information in a separate box on the product description page-

Now, ReviseAtHome, being a niche education eCommerce store, showcases their company information in a separate tab in the product description page-

Coming to a top niche fashion brand, March Tee, that has a unique way of showcasing product features. It has a separate page, where they have placed the product details in-depth and at the end of their product description page, they have company information-

Whether you’re crafting product descriptions for marketplaces or for the individual sellers, you need to make sure you have got a separate section of company details.

• Comparisons

Sometimes, people tend to compare the products before they finalize on buying one. If a person has seen a product on your online store, they might leave your site to compare them with others. Many online comparison websites are available.

But, marketplaces have an option to place such comparisons. Individual sellers cannot have this opportunity.

Mostly comparisons happen on the marketplaces because they have multiple brands selling similar types of products.

For example, Amazon can sell desktops from multiple sellers with different product specifications. See how they provide a link to compare similar products and make the right buying decision.

Once you click on this link, a separate section gets loaded on the page like this-

If you’re a marketplace selling similar kind of products, try adding comparisons in the product description page.

• Warranty, guarantee, and support

This is quite common among the businesses who deal with the durability of the products. If you’re selling smartphones, furniture, etc. needs to mention it in the product description section explicitly.

Amazon sells many products that need to showcase warranty information and here it is-

What type of guarantee can you offer if you don’t sell warranty-oriented products? Take inspiration from Andamen–

Find yours and place it in your product description to invoke conversions.

• Media graphics (videos, images, etc.)

Why are we discussing media graphics in the product description section? Because graphics do talk.

Though Google can’t read images, your users can. Your product photos and videos give a clear idea of what and how the product is.

If your product detail page has enough of product information, but no appropriate graphics, then you immediately lose your customers.

So, let your graphics also provide product information just like BlueStone.

• Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

What else you must have in your product description is the frequently asked questions (FAQs). You won’t find most of the eCommerce businesses doing, but having them immediately after all of this above product information, place your FAQ section for each product you sell.

Now, you’re done with what all things to include in your product description. It’s time to find out how long you should write a product description.

How long should a product description be?

There are hundreds of product types that are sold every day online. Each of them is of different segments, sizes, and portals.

So, there is no fixed size, length, or depth of product description to have on your online store. It may depend on the size of the eCommerce store.

If it’s the marketplace and has too many similar products, you can have a long product description.

But, if you’re a niche eCommerce store, your products are limited and hence, unique. So, you can decide on how long you can describe your product. Usually, they remain limited in niche online stores.

Well, that’s completely your choice.

How to write a persuasive product description?

Now, it’s time for some unbeatable product description writing tips that can help you educate your buyers and sell your products instantly.

1. Begin with a killer product title

The first thing a user notices is the product title. 

Here, the ‘killer’ word does not mean that you use some adjectives to prove you have something different to provide.

But, it means that a product title that fulfils the demand for explaining what the product is in one small line.

If you’re selling an eyeliner on Nykaa, your product title will remain something like this-

Nykaa adds the name of the product, its type, and attribute that gives the right impression about the product.

Ustraa explains about the product in one line, but it explains what the product can do- trimming and styling of beard.

This product title needs to be the words that your ideal customer would search while looking to buy your product.

Make sure you use the topmost searched keywords for your product titles.

2. Use salesy language

Your eCommerce store is a place where people come to your store, and you’re not available to make sales.

It means your eCommerce website works as a sales professional for your brand.

Sometimes, small and mid-size eCommerce business owners (mostly niche brands) have this concern that the way other businesses use salesy language on their service or tool-oriented website, they can’t use it.

That’s wrong!

It’s your website, and you need to decide what kind of tone and voice you want it come out with. 

Check out how the Victoria Secret uses the sales language in their product description–

3. Use more Power Words

Every popular brand uses Power Words to make sales.

What are power words?

Power words are the adjectives or words that evoke certain emotions for a product or the brand that leads to an impact.

While creating a product description, you can use such words and persuade visitors to take a particular decision.

What kind of Power Words can you use?

Where to use and how to place these power words matter a lot. So, make sure you use these power words effectively to make sales.

4. Be creative

Today, every niche brand tries creative ways to describe their products in the product description section. 

One of the top ways of being creative in writing product descriptions is storytelling.

Describe your product as if you’re writing a story. 

Yes, stories work a lot these days, and most brands are making the most of it.

Check out how FirstCry is using storytelling in their product description-

5. Highlight the benefit first

How you define the flow of your product description also matters a lot.

If you think your customers are more interested in product benefits more than the product features, create your product description focusing on benefits first.

Sometimes, buyers least care about the product specifications or features because they don’t understand their importance of existence – for example, beauty care products, medicines or even machines.

If you go online to buy soap, do you check out what ingredients are used for making the soap? No, right?

In such cases, you need to first highlight the benefits and then the product specifications or features for the intelligently expert buyers.

Dentbay sells dental machines and here is the example of one of its products, where they’ve highlighted product benefits first.

6. Use smaller sentences

Whenever it comes to writing website content, I suggest using shorter sentences.

Why? Because

• It speeds up the process of reading
• When reading becomes fast, your readers understand it well
• Longer sentences are boring to read and sometimes, it may lose readers’ interests
• The reading link might break, and the readers might feel overwhelmed by the longer text

In sales, we need to keep our online store visitors hooked to make sure they don’t lose interest.

So, if you have longer sentences, shorten them now and see how conversions are doubled.

7. Avoid using jargons or massive vocab

Jargons are the words that a particular industry or group of professionals use when they communicate related to their group.

For example, when I communicate with my clients and say, SME, I mean small and mid-size enterprises.

But, in the software testing industry, SME also means subject-matter experts.

Well, this SME has nothing to do with eCommerce businesses. But, I am trying to showcase that one jargon means different things to different groups of people.

Also, sometimes, some words are only understood to the people who are highly proficient with language vocabulary.

For example, “Felony results in a non-bailable conviction.” If a lawyer writes this in his product description, do you think it’s an easier word that his customers or you would understand? Obviously, no.

A felony means a serious crime. A lawyer selling his/her services online may use this jargon. But, the description for his/her customers would be something like this, “A serious crime such as murder results in a non-bailable conviction.” 

Understand your product from your customers’ perspectives and then create the product description.

8. Use the right keywords

Right keywords mean what? 

A particular keyword has a long list of variations available. All those variations might be getting searched by your customers. But, using all of them is not advisable as it would look keyword-stuffed, which may affect your eCommerce store on the search engines.

With the right keywords, I mean, using the keywords that are searched the most on the search engines.

For this, you can take the help of the various keyword research tools and compare them with their search volume to finalize on the keywords to use.

9. Include bulleted list

Almost all marketplaces have one thing in common when it comes to product description, which is the use of a bulleted list.

Using bulleted lists, you can highlight important product features and benefits. Also, it simplifies the reading for your customers. And, your customers get details faster when it’s showcased using bulleted lists compared to the paragraphs.

Almost every eCommerce brand has a bulleted list in their product description and so should you. Here is an example of H&M product description–

Bulleted lists in your product description bring easy scannability and hence, more reading satisfaction.

10. Keep enough spacing between the description

This is a small tip, but an essential one for writing a product description. When you place too much text together, it affects readability.

Your online store visitors might feel cluttered and lose interest in reading what your product is all about. They leave your site and probably never come back.

So keep enough spacing between the entire product description. Take inspiration from Verge Girl–

11. A/B test your product descriptions

If you want to test what type of product description works for your audience, you can go for A/B testing. 

Create different versions of your product description, and test them by dividing the audience coming to your eCommerce store. 

For example, one page has product benefits with the bulleted points and another page has product benefits in the sentences. You need to test both of these pages against each other and find out one has higher bounce rates and which ones have higher average time spent on the product page.

The one that wins the test needs to be taken as the final product description for the product page.

Let your product description to make sales

When you don’t have sales guys selling your products on your online store, make your product description to work for you.

Include the essentials of your product description, keep its length appropriate, and write the persuasive description to make sales.