Spruce Up Boring Product/Service Descriptions With Variety, Voice and Verve

by Marcia Yudkin

Published on this site: September 22th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

Sigh. You have another 17 product descriptions to go for your web site or catalog. You realize the reader was yawning long ago, and you're going to scream for not knowing how to avoid making every widget sound the same.

To the rescue! Here's a quick checklist to help you inject variety and freshness into your copy:

• What problem does the widget solve, and for whom?
  
  
• How long has the widget been selling steadily, and why?
  
  
• What uses or occasions is the widget especially appropriate for?
  
  
• Where would you normally find one of its ingredients or components being used?
  
  
• What doesn't the widget have, which makes it superior?
  
  
• It's a cross between a what and a what?
  
  
• How will the user feel when using it?
  
  
• What does this widget go well with?
  
  
• What kind of testing went into making the widget?
  
  
• Why might you want more than one widget?
  
  
• Why is the price so reasonable?

Now look at your list of answers and choose one or more ideas that provide an appealing angle. Add the practical facts like how big and how much, and you're done.

No matter how prosaic the item, no matter how similar it is to other items, ingenuity can make it stand up and wave "Buy me!" to a shopper.

Marcia Yudkin: [email protected], author of Persuading on Paper and 10 other books, specializes in compelling, yet hype-free copywriting. This article is adapted from her report, 73 Ways to Describe a Widget: Never Be Brain Dead
Again When Having to Write Catalog Copy or Sales Material,available from http://www.yudkin.com/catalog.htm.