Tag Archives: product description

Writing great product descriptions

A well thought out and written product description can be very powerful. It can move your customers to buy from you, or at least make them sit up and take notice of your products. Having a great product description is as important as having fabulous images or an amazing website. Your descriptions contribute to your customers’ experience and also contributes to the credibility of your online shop or products.

The most common mistake that most people make is that they simply describe their products, as in what it is. This leaves your audience a bit flat – they can see what it is you’re selling. They want to understand the unique value proposition of your product, or how it gives a solution to a problem they have.

What makes a good product description?

An effective description describes the features and benefits of your product to your customer. The aim of your description is to provide the customer with information that compels them to want to buy it immediately.

This involves writing persuasive copy and answering these questions…

  • What problem does your product solve?
  • What do your customers gain from using your product?
  • What separates your products from others on the market?

You also need to think about SEO, (search engine optimisation), such as relevant keywords that you think your customers will use when searching for products like yours. If you get the right keywords, you’ll get more visitors …and more sales. Google will then recognise that you’re getting lots of visitors and so your online shop or website will rank higher.

The three rules to selling online

There are three basic rules to selling online…

People don’t like to be ‘sold to,’ they like to buy. If they are being sold to, then the seller is in control – if they choose to buy, they are in control. So, what you need to do is tempt your audience by solving a problem or helping them achieve a goal.

Appeal to their emotions, so they WANT to buy your products. I’m sure you’ll have heard the acronym, FOMO – the fear of missing out. This is a good example of appealing to people’s emotions. It’s not one that I’m particularly comfortable with – a good example is phone companies – they use this tactic to encourage us to buy the latest mobile phone, with all the latest technology and gadgets. The truth is, the phone you have is probably good enough for what you want, but they make you WANT to have the newer version.

You don’t have to use this hard-hitting tactic. You can use your copy to highlight the problems that your audience faces and how your product solves that. Make them feel good about the solution.

Your customers will want to have a logical reason or a rationale for buying your product – not just the emotional one. This is where your product specifications or good customer service comes in. This alone won’t sell your product, but it helps your customer feel good about the decision to buy from you.

If you think about the ads you see on TV…for fast food delivery for example. They tempt their audience in with the kind of food they know their target audience likes. They tell them that whenever they fancy a particular meal, they can get it immediately. They don’t have to go out in the cold, drive to the shop, queue for ages whilst their food is prepared, then get it home without the food getting cold. NO, you can order and have it delivered, hot and ready to eat – in your own home, on your sofa, in front of your TV.

We all know that this is more expensive, but we do it anyway, because the adverts make you WANT to.

Once they’ve set the scene, you have the specifications – what food is available, what side orders you can have, what drinks you can order, and even desserts. And you’re given the website address to order it from.

OK, I’ll give you some examples for the smaller businesses.

Jane is an artist. She sells her artwork in the form of one-off original paintings.

What will tempt her target audience? What problem is she solving for them?

Buying original artwork is an emotional buy. Your audience need to feel a connection to it – it needs to speak to them. Whether you sell landscapes or wild seascapes, wildlife, or flowers, you need to know your audience and what makes them tick.

If your artwork is one of a kind, your audience may be drawn to that because no one else will own that same painting. It makes them feel unique and valued, especially if you do commissions, so they can ask for what they want.

If you do pet or family portraits, emotion plays a big part in the decision to buy an original.

It might be that you have regular buyers who just love your work and are building a collection. They will want your latest creation as it will complete their collection.

If you paint pictures of a particular place, such as a beach that has a popular feature, or a castle that people can book for a wedding, the emotion to sell here is that they can have a little piece of a memory they have of that place hanging on their wall. They may have childhood memories of that beach that they want to capture forever in their home.

Once you know what the emotional part is, you can connect with your potential buyers by selling the benefits, for example, the feeling the painting evokes, such as joy from a memory of childhood.

The features would be the size of the painting and the materials you use to create it. You need to weave these together.

Burnham-on-Sea lighthouse

Let’s take the beach example – the feature in the painting is a lighthouse. I come from Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, where there is a lighthouse on nine legs, so I’m going to use that – it reminds me of my childhood and walking the family dog with my Mum, come rain or shine.

Example 1

Burnham on Sea beach with lighthouse.

38cm X 55cm

£30

Example 2

Burnham on Sea beach, featuring the famous lighthouse.

If you have ever holidayed in this popular West Country seaside resort, you couldn’t fail to notice the iconic 36 feet high, white wooden lighthouse, which stands on nine vertical pillars.

If you’ve walked the short distance from the pier to the lighthouse, this painting will bring back many peaceful memories of this regal, yet tranquil setting; the slight breeze with the taste of salt in the air, the sea rolling gently in, and the soft, yellow sand underfoot.

This oil on canvas, is just £30 and measures 38cm X 55cm.

OK, so I know I’ve gone a bit over the top with my description, but you get the idea – paint a picture of your painting with words to entice your buyers in. Spark their imagination – help stimulate their senses.

Let’s have a look at a different example…

Alice makes jewellery. She uses silver wire to make her pieces and incorporates gemstones with the silver.

Example 1

Silver and amethyst gemstone ring.

£10.99 plus postage.

Select your size from the dropdown box.

Example 2

Hand crafted delicate, silver ring, adorned with a stunning purple amethyst quartz gemstone. The spiritual meaning of amethyst is healing, tranquillity and calm. Amethyst has been used throughout history to expel feelings of anger, frustration, or fury from your body.

It is also the traditional gift for the 33rd wedding anniversary. The colour purple has been linked with nobility and is a regal colour, so it has that certain luxurious quality.

Available in many different sizes, this ring is £10.99 plus postage. A little bit of luxury without breaking the bank.

Again, I may have over-exaggerated the description to get my point across, but I hope you now have a better understanding and I hope this article has given you some clarity about how to write a good product description.

As well as describing your product on your online shop or website, you should also use social media to point your audience to your website. On social media, you could talk more about your journey or story. How did you come to paint or make jewellery? What inspired you to start? Why do you use the material you use? This kills two birds with one stone. You’re describing your product and telling a story at the same time!

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to drop me an email or message on social media.

You can also subscribe to my monthly email, which gives you valuable tips for marketing your small business, as well as ‘member only’ access to lots of free marketing resources to help you with your marketing.

Features vs Benefits of your products/services explained

When you think about marketing your product or service, most people think about marketing the features, as opposed to the benefits. But it’s the features that sell whatever you have for sale. This week’s blog post looks at features versus benefits, why both are important and how to market these things separately.

One of them looks at what your product or service does and includes everything that you’ve worked hard to develop and bring to market. The other looks at HOW your product or service will improve your audiences’ lives.

What is a feature?

Let’s look at a very simple example…a slow cooker. So, you’ve decided you want to buy a slow cooker. The first thing you’ll look at is the features – this is the description that you will find about the product. For a slow cooker, this could be:

  • A choice of sizes and capacity to suit your family
  • Glass bowl or ceramic bowl
  • Oval or circular shape bowl? This will depend on what you want to cook in it.
  • Digital settings with a timer
  • What are the settings – usually low, medium, and high, but some only have low or high.
  • Easy to clean
  • Sturdy handle 
  • Versatile – can cook a huge range of foods

All these things describe what your slow cooker can do, what it looks like and how it works.

What is a benefit?

Again, let’s look at the slow cooker as an example. The benefits are the outcomes that slow cooker users will experience.

  • It saves you money
  • It saves time in the kitchen
  • Less preparation time – you can get it ready and leave it to do its thing
  • If you set it in the morning, you have a hot meal to come home to in the evening
  • Less clearing up, you only have one pot to wash, not several
  • Less chance of burning food
  • A slow cooker gives off less heat than a conventional oven, so not so hot in the kitchen
  • As food cooks slowly, meat falls off the bone and the food has more time to infuse with herbs and spices, so can be tastier
  • Ideal for the busy person who doesn’t have time to spend hours preparing and cooking in the evening
  • If there are several of you in your household, you don’t have to all eat at once – you can leave it on low and people can eat when they want to
  • It’s not just for soups and stews – you can cook a variety of dishes – even bake bread or make jacket potatoes, cook cakes, and even rice pudding!

Marketing your features and benefits

When you set out the features and benefits of a product or service, as I did with the slow cooker, it seems obvious, but it can take ages to think about this when you have your own product or service you want to sell.

Marketing is hard; just because you know why your product or service will make your ideal customer’s life better, doesn’t mean that they will. You need to carefully examine what your features are and what your benefits are.

Let’s face it, when we’re trawling the internet looking for that special something we want to buy, we don’t care about the business, how long it took to make or produce; we don’t necessarily think about the person behind the business who must make the trip to the post office to post the item. All consumers really care about is what’s in it for them? Why should they buy your product or service compared to others on the market?

When you are pulling together your marketing strategy for your business, its products, or services, you need to keep in mind ‘what’s in it for your customer?’ This should be the question you continually ask yourself.

Try using a feature/benefit matrix

A feature/benefit matrix is a great way to address these things and make you think seriously about each of the features your product or service has – then produce three things that are benefits of that feature.

Once you have these set up, you can think about the messaging you will use to illustrate those features and benefits to your target audience. And what call to action you will use to help you get your message across.

FeatureBenefit 1Benefit 2Benefit 3MessageCall to action
Feature 1       
Feature 2       
Feature 3       
Feature 4       

Below is a couple of examples using this matrix for our slow cooker.

Feature  Benefit 1Benefit 2Benefit 3MessageCall to action
Digital timerYou and your family can eat when they want toYour meal will be ready when you get home from workSaves time on preparation and cleaning upGreat for busy households. You never have to worry about making sure all your family are home at the same time ‘or their meal will be cold or burnt’Buy now – check out our different slow cookers
Easy to cleanFood doesn’t burnDishwasher safeDigital touchpad easier to clean than knobsSaves you time and effort. Just one pot to clean, not loads of washing up.Buy now – link to website
VersatileCook soups and stewsBake cakes and dessertsBake breadAll in one option. It’s not just for soups and stews. You can make cakes and desserts, perfect for entertaining.Download your eBook with over 100 recipe ideas

You get the idea! There are lots of phrases I’ve heard that illustrate that from a selling perspective, it’s best to focus on benefits:

  • Features tell and benefits sell
  • Sell the sizzle, not the steak

This really tells you it all. Whilst the features tell people about the product or service itself, the benefits are what people are really interested in – the ‘what’s in it for me’ part.

Whilst the steak is important, it’s the sizzle that will sell – what it smells like, tastes like – evoking that emotion in the buyer to entice them to buy. It’s the description of what it’s like to eat the steak that will sell it – not just the picture of a steak on a plate.

Conclusion

I hope this has helped you to distinguish between the features and benefits of your products/services. Now it’s your turn! Take one of your products or services and think about the features – then make a list of the benefits that feature brings to your ideal audience – and use that in your marketing to sell your item.

If you need help with your marketing strategy, and how to best sell your products or services, using the feature/benefit matrix, or just don’t know where to start with your messaging, give me a shout. I can help you see things clearer, so you can focus on your target audiences’ what’s in it for me question.

Email me at cindymobey@outlook.com