Creating Product Descriptions that Close Sales

In the last episode, Anna Bradshaw and I talked about conversion copywriting and how investing in it and your website’s content could help generate sales for your good food business. There were many important topics in that conversation about conversion copywriting, creating good content, and drawing in customers to your business website. I thought the issue deserved a closer look.

A frequently overlooked part of the business, copywriting is the foundation of everything your customer experiences. Investing in great content should increase your ROI, especially if you repurpose your content for different communication channels. “Message matching” across all your marketing touchpoints will drive customers to your site, encouraging them to click that “buy now” button.

Join me as I share some actionable steps you can take today to help improve your close rate.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• Landing pages are destinations for your site, and the intention is for the viewer to have only one obvious action. Your product page has one obvious action: putting the product into the cart. - Georgiana Dearing
• Good writing helps close sales; poorly written descriptions and poorly organized content can turn shoppers away. - Georgiana Dearing
• The goal of all content design is to make it as easy as possible for the readers. - Georgiana Dearing
• There’s no hard and fast rule about the length of a product description. What you need to consider in your product details is the content that will add value to your readers and help them choose to buy from you. - Georgiana Dearing
• Your product page is the place to share that great news. Social proof sells, and you need social proof on your site. - Georgiana Dearing

Key Points From This Episode:

• Product descriptions help turn clicks into sales, but many brands still need to improve this aspect on their sites.
• Your product page is the “last mile” of the sale. How you set up that page will make or break the sale for you.
• Invest in your product description. Invest in good writing. Good writing helps generate sales, while poorly written descriptions and unorganized content do not attract shoppers.
• The product name on your site and your packaging should match. It makes it easier for customers to find your product.
• The “price” and “buy now” buttons should be as close to the top of the listing as possible. This placement in the site makes the purchase decision as easy as possible for your customers.
• Shipping information on the site should be clear and located near the product price.
• Include a subhead that would sell the product in a concise manner.
• The first paragraph of your product description should answer customers’ initial questions about the product.
• Your product description should also include product expectations about the flavor, quality, quantity, and what to expect in the shipment. 
• Make sure to include a review feature on your site, as it’s becoming a basis for people to buy your product.
• Make it easy for your customers to spread the love by adding share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Shared posts create direct links to your products. They help your product rise in popularity and organic search results.

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Transcript

Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

[00:00:00] Georgiana Dearing: Hello foodies. Welcome to another episode of the Virginia Foodie. I'm George Deering, founder of va foodie.com, and I provide content marketing strategy and coaching for good food brands. For today's Marketing Monday episode, I'm revisiting my interview with Anna Bradshaw, a copywriter specializing in digital copywriting for brands.

[00:00:21] in episode 66, we talked about conversion copywriting and how the time and money that you invest in your website content can pay off for you across all your communication channels. Many of you sell online already, and most of you have the basic elements of a product page.

[00:00:38] Georgiana Dearing: That's your product name, the price, and your buy now button. Most of you have shipping information somewhere on your site, but only about 30% of you include this on the product page. Anna and I focused on product descriptions that convert sales, but you may be shocked at how many brands still need to include a complete description of the item they are selling.

[00:01:02] Think of your product page as a landing page, and in marketing, a landing page has a specific role in online actions. Landing pages are destinations for your site, and the intention is for the viewer to have only one obvious action. Your product page does just that. It has one obvious action, and that is putting your product into their cart.

[00:01:26] It's that last mile of the sale. How you set up that page will make or break the sale for you. Anna shared some insights on product pages that are so important that I'm going to share some actionable steps that you can take today that will help improve your close rate. So let's begin this walkthrough of the Anatomy of a product page.

[00:01:49] Your product name should match what is on your packaging and not be a shortened version. For example, if you're selling at retail as vegan apple sauce, the product name on your website should not be apple sauce. It should be vegan apple sauce, just like your package. This helps with organic SEO and also helps customers who are already looking for you, find you online.

[00:02:16] And if you're in a flooded category like apple sauce, you can include the brand name, Josie's Vegan Apple Sauce, and another step in writing a product name is adding a case count in the name. If you are selling in cases. I see many brands who fold cases under product that they also sell as individual products, and they really should be separated if your products are connected to social selling.

[00:02:43] and Google product pages, and they should be tools, scrape the pricing information and offer a range that includes the highest dollar. Sometimes a $10 item may show up with a $60 price because the case price is included in the same product listing. Josie would end up with two products, Josie's vegan, apple Sauce, and Josie's vegan apple sauce six count case.

[00:03:10] Georgiana Dearing: Each of these products could have variance based on the jar size, for instance, eight ounces and. Next up is your price and Buy Now button. After the product name, the price and the buy now button should be as close to the top of the listing as possible. This is to close sales quickly as possible, especially with returning customers.

[00:03:33] If they know you already, they want to buy and keep moving. As with all of these tips, our goal is to make the purchase decision as easy as possible for visitors to your site. Next, we talk about shipping. Your shipping information should live close to the price.

[00:03:52] This doesn't mean your entire policy, but a very simple statement that sets expectations about shipping. If you offer free shipping, then right below the price, it should say shipping included or include shipping. If you do not offer free shipping, then shipping calculated at checkout clearly means that there will be other charges.

[00:04:16] You should also make that word shipping into a hyperlink It goes directly to your shipping policy page and you need a shipping policy page. whatever your e-commerce platform.

[00:04:29] Make sure you aren't using the, sample text that came with the site. It should be edited to reflect exactly what you're doing, so you aren't making any promises that you can't deliver. Now for the meat of the story, your product description, Anna Bradshaw has some very helpful information about creating product descriptions, and this is the place where you should consider making an investment.

[00:04:54] Good writing helps close sales, poorly written descriptions, and poorly organized content can turn shoppers. Anna's first tips were about the organization of the content, and her very first one is that the text should be left aligned. That seems like a small detail, but the goal of all content design is to make it as easy as possible for the reader and left aligned.

[00:05:18] Copy block is easiest to read in Western culture. We read left to right and our eyes are consistent. To start reading on the left side. No centered copy. The next tip is to include a subhead or a way to sell the product in a very short statement. This would be the one key phrase that sells your product for you.

[00:05:39] It may be something you say over and over the farmer's market or at tasting events. Something that sums up the why shoppers want to buy your food product. It's all about taste here. You want to entice shoppers taste buds.

[00:05:53] And when you write a product description, The first paragraph should answer any questions the reader may have about the product. This helps optimize your search results. The product name is the HTML title tag that gets scanned first. It's the destination of your page, and that first paragraph should help answer any search queries.

[00:06:15] The description should start with something that summarizes the product. Supporting content below that can add more value to how a shopper may experience your product. That copy that follows your first paragraph can also be broken into skimmable chunks by creating a bulleted list. There's no hard and fast rule here about the length of a description.

[00:06:37] What you need to consider in your product details is what content will add value to your reader and help them make the choice to buy from you. Next are the expectations. These copy decisions are all about setting expectations. The description copy should definitely include expectations about the flavor appetite appeal, but they should also include what to expect in the shipment.

[00:07:03] are the nuts and bolts of the purchase and can be included at the very end. Something like case orders include six jars shipped in one box.

[00:07:13] People love to see product reviews and they're becoming more and more important in the decision to buy. If you still need to add this feature to your site, I want to encourage you to add a review tool. You should also include any product endorsements. You may. If you've been listed in any media as a great gift or a fantastic food, fine.

[00:07:35] Your product page is the place to share that great news because let me tell you, social proof sells and you need social proof on your site. The topic of social proof leads me to my last tip for improving performance of your product descriptions, and that is in regards to shareability. Make it easy for your customers to spread the love by adding share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

[00:08:04] Pinterest especially is so valuable in providing direct links back to your page. If you think of Pinterest as a big search engine that is literally populated by fans sharing great fines. Your products should be out there in the mix, driving people back to your shopping cart.

[00:08:22] All those shared posts are links directly back to your products and every instance of them helps your product rise in popularity and in organic search results. And so ends my anatomy lesson of product descriptions. I covered 10 tips about the organization and design of your product, listing, your product name, price, buy now button, shipping information, product description, subheads, product details, expectations, social proof, and shareability.

[00:08:56] give at least one or preferably all of these steps a try on your site today. But if you are not a confident writer, this is the number one place you should seriously considering making an investment for your brand. If you need help sourcing this, just let me know.

[00:09:14] Georgiana Dearing: if you found this helpful, you should join my Marketing Made Easy Coaching Group. Each month I share a video with training tips like this, along with handouts and downloadable content that you can use to create your own targeted, manageable, and repeatable content strategy. Group members can also sign up for a half hour consultation with me on the third Monday of every month.

[00:09:37] They're free with a paid membership. And as a chance for me to answer your questions about your marketing content, sign up for Marketing Made Easy on the Virginia foodie.com. You can also find a link to it under the Grow Your Brand tab on va foodie.com, or message me directly and I can get you. And that's a wrap on another Marketing Monday.

[00:09:58] If you like this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen or like and share it. All of these things help me keep helping you and your business grow.