Product Descriptions

Writing a product description is a way of explaining, through copy, what a product is, how it works and why it’s worth purchasing. Effective product descriptions, like advertising, create a need for a product by explaining its use, its benefits, its overall worth, and creating a feeling of need, or void, that the product can fill. The advertising aspect of product descriptions can be implied or expressed, implicit or explicit, overt or understated. Whether the reader is aware of it or not, he or she is being enticed to learn more and, ultimately, purchase the product at hand. Product descriptions can be cleverly veiled marketing delivered in an informative manner. Product descriptions can be written in different styles, manners, and tones. Some are visually evocative; causing the reader to use his or her imagination and envision a scenario, e.g. a description for sandals that begins with “imagine sitting on a white, sandy beach; turquoise waves crashing on the pristine shore…” as opposed to immediately listing the various major descriptive points of a product in succinct, bulleted points. That is not to suggest that one style of product description writing is more effective than others; it can simply be approached from many angles.

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