Sales-boosting product texts: key considerations
Product texts make a major contribution to success in distance selling, whether in a catalogue, advertising letter or online shop. However, some online retailers pay little attention to them. The internationally renowned mail-order retailing expert, Martin Groß-Albenhausen, explains what you need to do to ensure that your product texts generate sales.
How to write sales-boosting product texts
In the beginning was the word – and this also applies to online retail. The text which praises or describes a product is just as important for conversion as attractive photographs or user-friendly and well thought-out navigation.
Martin Groß-Albenhausen has summarised the most important rules for writing good copy, thus providing online retailers with access to catalogue copywriter know-how which has been successfully put into practice for several decades.
The benefit/benefit/benefit rule
This three-pronged rule was formulated by the US catalogue guru, Hershell Gordon Lewis.
1st benefit: State a property of the product which makes it superior to others.
Example: “At last, a truly silent washing machine.”
2nd benefit: Place this property in the context of the customer’s leisure time or professional life.
Example: “Whirring and clanking are now a thing of the past.”
3rd benefit: Tell the reader how the product property will improve his/her leisure time or working life.
Example: “For the first time in your life, you can play quiet music in the kitchen…. and enjoy it.”
Seven deadly sins
- “Sloth” is apparent in lifeless homepages which neither perform a pre-selling function nor provide an introduction to the product range, let alone say anything about the positioning.
- “Pride”, i.e. too much “I” copy, too much talk about the company or the entrepreneur and too little about the customer.
- “Gluttony” means pages which try to do too much, without order or direction.
- “Lust” means that the fun of the “art direction” overshadows the main objective of all advertising design, i.e. selling based on benefits to the customer.
- “Greed” manifests itself in saving on sales boosters, which generally involve the mail order retailer giving something back.
- “Wrath” may be felt by customers if texts are incomplete, the lettering too small or the order information concealed.
- “Envy” means looking at what others are doing too much instead of developing one’s own language and positioning expressed in images, copy and goods.
Shop design and copy
Of course, product texts sell above the content level. Nevertheless, there are a couple of rules which should be observed when designing and presenting texts in an online shop:
- No red, green or orange headlines. Texts must provide contrast – nothing beats black or dark blue.
- Dominant backgrounds distract from the subject at hand, i.e. the product.
- Text on unstructured or dark backgrounds is difficult to read and reduces the response.
- Inverse lettering is tiring to read and diminishes the response.
- Colourful, shaped bullet points may look nice, but they turn information into a work of art. They appeal to other areas of the brain and reduce information processing.
- Right-justified or centred text hinders reading comprehension.
The text academy model
This model assumes that the merchant has only limited space and time in catalogues and often also on the shop’s product pages to accommodate benefit arguments, calls-to-action, teasers, all the basic communication concerning the features of the product and obligatory declarations. The model therefore uses a standardised starting point that nevertheless arouses interest. In practice, the model functions as follows:
- Magical mail order lead-in is a word or expression such as “New:”, “Only from [company name]:”, “Exclusive:”, “Bestseller:”, i.e. a teaser with a colon which conditions the further reading of the text.
- Product name: This may be the technical concept, for example, but also (as in the case of Jako-o) a name which in itself is beneficial. “Only from ….: the babygro that grows too”, or “A stroke of luck for children: our mum-friendly, easy-to-wash jeans”.
- Dash and benefit OR “…”: “Only from …: the babygro that grows too – buy it once and your baby can wear it up to the age of two”. In this case, the online retailer has already included the benefit, i.e. the fact that the product has a long lifetime. Of course, you can do it even more elegantly and express the benefit as “going one better”. “ – instead of going through five sizes in 12 months, your baby can wear this babygro until their second birthday. And you can spend the money you save on presents.”
- Descriptive sentence
- Enumeration/facts/data: These include product declarations, information such as “fun motifs sorted into themes for boys and girls” etc.
- Order line: “Only €4.95 until the end of January – it’s enough to have you giggling and drooling yourself! Or save twice as much with a three-pack for €12.95”
- Call-to-action
