What Are The Key Elements Of Effective Product Copy?
In our digital first world, how you communicate to your customers through your online copy is everything to the success of your company. Product copy is one of the most crucial forms of copy you can create as it is literally designed to sell your products and services to your customers, facilitating a direct channel towards your revenue stream.
It is an opportunity to speak to your customers to sell them on your products or services to describe all the amazing benefits they offer, the features they include, as well as answer your customers’ questions. Plus, it also enables you to utilize various SEO techniques to promote keywords and optimize your product content to make sure your customers can find you and your offerings!
Other content on companies’ websites, such as static website pages, landing pages or blogs can sometimes be prioritized, with less time and effort spent on product copy. And while it’s true that most people don’t read full product descriptions and tend to only skim – this doesn’t mean that product descriptions aren’t important. In fact, this truth about customers’ online reading habits only reveals how vital it is to craft your product copy in the most effective way to best serve your customer.
Remember, while they may not read the full product description, your customers will still value your product descriptions in general, to determine if the product or service is right for them and their needs – and if they don’t find the information they are looking for, or aren’t sold on your product or service, well, then off they will go, bouncing from your site and onto a competitor’s!
The moral of the story here, is you should never overlook your product copy!
In this article, we will outline the essential things to consider when creating product copy that will convert curious readers into faithful buyers. And in a later article, we will explore examples of good product copy vs…weaker.
What are the key elements of strong product copy?
1) Know your audience
Is your customer a busy mom of three, looking to find a reasonably priced item that she can count on to keep her family safe and happy, and get back to her hectic day? Or is it a discerning, fashionista looking for the perfect addition to her next Instagram story? Or maybe you offer nutritional services, and your potential clients are looking for guidance on maintaining a healthy diet.
Regarding these three examples above, your approach for writing product copy to reach these different kinds of audiences would dramatically vary from each other. It is essential that you have a deep understanding of who your customers are, so you can speak directly to them and their needs, appealing to their unique tastes and sensibilities, and explain how your products or services are the ideal solution to their problems.
2) Tone, tone, tone
Product copy also offers a brilliant opportunity to develop and highlight your company’s unique brand voice and brand identity, to help distinguish your company from your competitors. So, consider what your voice will sound like. Are you a young women’s fashion brand geared towards millennials that may utilize a sassy, yet sophisticated tone? Or do you offer men’s grooming products and a tongue-in cheek, humorous approach may serve you well? Consider the best voice that will be most effective to reach your customer.
Bonus – Usually the best voice to reach your customer is the voice that they themselves would speak in. One invaluable way of discovering how you customer speaks is by diving into your product reviews. Look at the language they use and how they talk about your products. Talking in the voice of your customers will offer them an immediate sense of familiarity, helping to present you as more of a friend rather than a company, blatantly selling them products.
3) KISS or Tell
In general, it’s better to keep your copy short, tight and concise to appeal to most online customers’ short attention spans. You have probably heard of the KISS principle (Keep it Simple Stupid). However, depending on the product that you are writing for — say, a utility product with tons of features and functions — it may be better to get nitty gritty and discuss the various nuances, specs and specifics of the product, as the potential buyer of a product of that nature may be interested in all the minute details. This allows you to make sure you that you are offering a thorough and comprehensive description of the product, as well as leaving most of your audience’s questions answered too.
On the other hand, it’s possible your product may actually be able to sell itself with fewer words. Sometimes, a product description that feels and sounds more like a tagline may be more appropriate. So again, it is important to have a deep understanding of who your customers are and what information they need to see, to determine the best way to tell the product story.
4) SEO
Similarly, to that of any copy on your site, having strong, well-written content that will resonate with your audience, — but they cannot find —will serve you little purpose! The same goes for your product copy. You must also write it in such a way that is optimized for your customers to be able to find you and your products.
The first order of contention to consider is the ecommerce platform you are selling your products on, as that will influence which SEO methods and tools will be best to employ. For Amazon, for example, it is important to know how to structure and create your product copy listing for a Vendor Central vs Seller Central seller, to know the guidelines you must follow to be compliant with the platform (i.e., how many characters should be in each field, etc.) as well as be up to date on how the algorithm works.
Then once you know the basics, you must also determine which keywords will be best to plug into each of those fields. There are various Amazon keyword research tools on the market to try out to determine that list of essential words. Another great way of finding potential keywords is to look at your competitors’ product listings, and take note of what words, common phrases, and language they typically use to describe their products.
