Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast.
Speaker:My name is Matt Edmundson, and it is great to be with you today.
Speaker:Let's jump into it, shall we?
Speaker:Now, most eCommerce product descriptions, well, let's just say they are invisible.
Speaker:Can you tell me what the last product description you actually read said?
Speaker:Could you even give me the gist of what was said?
Speaker:I find this a particularly hard exercise, and it's not because I haven't seen any
Speaker:or read any recently, but because, let's be honest, they're just so forgettable.
Speaker:So we scroll past them, glance at them.
Speaker:That's about it.
Speaker:We never really remember them.
Speaker:So in this episode, we're gonna dig into how to transform your boring
Speaker:product copy into descriptions that actually stick in people's minds and
Speaker:ultimately drive our website sales.
Speaker:That's the aim, and I know this is a good thing to do because when we
Speaker:restructured product descriptions, uh, in one of our own e-commerce businesses.
Speaker:We saw conversion rate shift dramatically, and it's not just on my own sites
Speaker:that I've seen the benefits either because research shows that properly
Speaker:structured copy is, check this out, 42%.
Speaker:More memorable after 30 dates.
Speaker:That's after 30 days, right?
Speaker:And I appreciate 42% is a very precise number.
Speaker:Uh, but it's really good news for us, isn't it?
Speaker:Because if we can get our product copyright, then old man alive,
Speaker:could we maybe make a difference to the conversion on our site?
Speaker:But.
Speaker:We've gotta make those changes.
Speaker:So you can keep using the manufacturer copy, right?
Speaker:Which looks identical to your competitor's copy.
Speaker:Or you can explore what we're gonna look at today, which is something called
Speaker:narrative binding, which is basically the science of copy that converts and figures
Speaker:out how, and we're gonna figure out how do we apply this to our own products, right?
Speaker:Uh, but before we do.
Speaker:Let me tell you about 400 products and a copywriter named Beth.
Speaker:Oh, yes.
Speaker:Uh, I mentioned, uh, a second ago.
Speaker:That we restructured product descriptions on our own site.
Speaker:And that site at the time was Jersey Beauty Company.
Speaker:Uh, back when I ran it, I no longer do.
Speaker:Uh, but when I ran Jersey, I noticed right at the start, actually early on
Speaker:in the career of me running Jersey, that we seemed to have a problem.
Speaker:And that problem I see actually now consistently on quite a few websites,
Speaker:uh, working with eCommerce founders, uh, and operators, eCommerce like Q and Me.
Speaker:I see this problem all over the place.
Speaker:And we were selling, right, exactly the same products as half
Speaker:a dozen other websites, right?
Speaker:So we had the same products, we had the same images, we had the same sort
Speaker:of descriptions, which came from the manufacturer's copy that every other
Speaker:distributor was using, and we just literally copied and pasted it onto our
Speaker:sites without really thinking twice.
Speaker:Thought about the product copy.
Speaker:So the problem was we looked identical to all of our competitors.
Speaker:We may have had slightly different colored nav bars, but the pictures were the same.
Speaker:The description was the same.
Speaker:What that meant was ultimately we became like a commodity broker.
Speaker:We were selling commodities and I think the only way really to
Speaker:compete when you, when you sort of go down that road is on pricing.
Speaker:So you then have this scenario where you want to be the cheapest
Speaker:or you may glamorize it and say, actually I want to offer the
Speaker:best value as different language.
Speaker:And lemme tell you, I, we, we experienced that at Jersey and I wanted out of
Speaker:that race to the bottom strategy, we'd all just seem to have adopted.
Speaker:And if you guys are anything like me, um, maybe you are, maybe you're not, I dunno.
Speaker:But you have, you looked at your competitors and thought, well, man, alive,
Speaker:there's not much difference between us.
Speaker:Um, well, have you looked at your competitors for what?
Speaker:And if you have, how different are you?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Especially if you are selling the same products as them, you know, you've got
Speaker:the same suppliers, the same products, the same images, the same product copy.
Speaker:In that scenario, you've got to ask what makes a customer choose you,
Speaker:and I think it's a really interesting problem to try and get your head around.
Speaker:And so what we did at Jersey is we made a decision to literally rewrite everything,
Speaker:to rewrite every single product description, which was 400 products.
Speaker:Uh, we also redid the images, but that's probably a story for
Speaker:another podcast episode 'cause we're focusing on product copy now.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:This was, lemme tell you, when we did this years before Chat, GPT existed, right?
Speaker:And this is where Beth comes in.
Speaker:She was our copywriter at the time.
Speaker:Beth is an absolute legend.
Speaker:And Hads actually, and still has, if I'm honest with you, a really good flare for
Speaker:bringing products that we were selling to life with really good descriptive content.
Speaker:We had this brilliant copywriter with Beth, uh, before Beth was Naomi, and
Speaker:we had these 400 products on the site, so you couldn't just do it overnight.
Speaker:You, you couldn't just transform 400 products 'cause
Speaker:it was not possible back then.
Speaker:So we started with our top 20 products.
Speaker:We then went on to, I say we, Beth, started on top 20 products,
Speaker:uh, and then moved on to the next 20 and so on and so forth.
Speaker:And it actually took Beth a fair while to do it, several months to work through
Speaker:them all from memory, because like I said, she was crafting each one properly.
Speaker:She wasn't just churning out words or slop.
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:What was the result of us doing this?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:'cause that's the important question and obviously something good
Speaker:happened otherwise I would not be recording this podcast right now.
Speaker:So the simple answer is we stopped being like everyone else.
Speaker:All of a sudden our sight had personality.
Speaker:We had a brand voice.
Speaker:We had become us.
Speaker:So was it all worth it?
Speaker:Was it worth the time, the energy, the resource, all of those months of work?
Speaker:Well, absolutely it was worth it.
Speaker:And if I'm honest with you, it then became part of a much bigger branding
Speaker:exercise where we wanted to take something in effect that was a commodity
Speaker:website and turn it into something that was really unique and that really
Speaker:connected with our customers and we had some really good successes with that.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:You might be thinking, Matt, that sounds like an awful lot of
Speaker:work, an awful lot of efforts.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:You are right.
Speaker:Especially 'cause we did, I, I cannot emphasize enough,
Speaker:we did not have AI back then.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:We had Beth, who's better than ai.
Speaker:Um, it was hard work, but it mattered.
Speaker:And let me show you why.
Speaker:Um, for example, I was shopping right online for a framing square last weekend.
Speaker:Now, for those of you who don't know, a framing square is a carpenter's tool,
Speaker:which is used for roofing and timber framing, and woodworkers, like me use
Speaker:it to get 90 degree angle marks amongst.
Speaker:Other things.
Speaker:Now, I appreciate this as a niche product.
Speaker:I really do.
Speaker:You might not care about this, but I needed one for a
Speaker:jig that I wanted to build.
Speaker:And I found the Milwaukee one that I wanted.
Speaker:And the reason I wanted this, this specific framing square, because
Speaker:there were cheaper ones out there, was because I watched a YouTube video
Speaker:showing me how to build the exact jig that I wanted to build, and the guy
Speaker:on the YouTube video used a really specific framing square for a very good
Speaker:reason, which I won't bore you with.
Speaker:Why that particular one?
Speaker:You have to watch the video.
Speaker:Um, but this YouTube video.
Speaker:Was a great video, well done, well produced, engaging, had over half
Speaker:a million views, so I was sold.
Speaker:I wanted that exact square.
Speaker:I knew what I wanted and I wanted to go and get it.
Speaker:So then I did what most of us do.
Speaker:When I wanted to buy one, I went to Google and I Googled the framing
Speaker:square, and that took me to the manufacturer's website, to Milwaukee's uk.
Speaker:Website.
Speaker:I found the Framing Square on that site, which then took me to
Speaker:seven different UK distributors, and I did what most people did.
Speaker:I opened all seven distributors in different tabs on my browser to
Speaker:just have a quick view across the seven D different sites to figure
Speaker:out who was I gonna buy from.
Speaker:So site one, they said it was a reinforced frame with laser etched
Speaker:markings, which provided superior visibility, which was great.
Speaker:Site number two said, reinforced frame with laser etched markings, provided
Speaker:superior visibility, and guess what?
Speaker:Sites 3, 4, 5, 6, and seven basically said, right.
Speaker:They all basically said the same thing, copied and pasted
Speaker:from the MA manufacturer.
Speaker:Some of them had tweaked them very slightly.
Speaker:And in some cases it was literally word for word copy, right?
Speaker:Zero differentiation.
Speaker:No one mentioned, not a single one of them mentioned the YouTube
Speaker:video that had convinced me to buy.
Speaker:None of them mentioned the manufacturer's video, which was
Speaker:on the manufacturer's website.
Speaker:No one told me why this square was worth the extra money.
Speaker:No one gave me a reason to choose.
Speaker:Their sites over the other six sites.
Speaker:Not a single site did that.
Speaker:So how did I decide?
Speaker:Well, like everybody, pretty much in that place, it all came down to
Speaker:total price, the sales price, plus the shipping costs, and how easy
Speaker:it was to understand both, right?
Speaker:There was one site super cheap, couldn't figure out the shipping costs until
Speaker:you got all the way to the checkout, and I was just not interested.
Speaker:But anyway, whoever was the cheapest won and it was this race to the bottom
Speaker:again, and I bought my square from one of the cheapest supplier and
Speaker:actually ended up buying a few other bits and bobs, which I needed as well.
Speaker:So they won in the end based on price.
Speaker:Now the product copy, it didn't matter because nobody made it matter.
Speaker:And I wonder how often that's happening on our own websites too.
Speaker:Like are we making product descriptions that give a customer
Speaker:a reason to chewers, uh, chewers?
Speaker:No, they definitely don't wanna do that.
Speaker:Giving our customers a reason to choose us.
Speaker:Over our competitors, or are we also becoming a little bit invisible?
Speaker:Now, I've noticed that there are three default assumptions in e-commerce
Speaker:when it comes to product copy that I absolutely think destroy our conversion.
Speaker:See if any of these apply to you.
Speaker:Assumption number one is that we can just use manufacturer's copy, because
Speaker:that's what everyone does, right?
Speaker:It's been given to us.
Speaker:It's what we did on Jersey.
Speaker:Why do I need to redo it?
Speaker:I don't.
Speaker:They've given it to me.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:It's good.
Speaker:Oh good.
Speaker:I know it's accurate at least.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:It's just so much easier, isn't it, to put that on our website, to copy and to paste.
Speaker:But that's exactly why you look identical to everyone else.
Speaker:And I think then that's why pricing can become such an issue because
Speaker:all we've done is made our websites basically commodity websites and
Speaker:we become really good at that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Which then becomes all about price because we're not standing out in any other way.
Speaker:Assumption number two is that product copy maybe doesn't actually really matter
Speaker:as long as the site look good, right?
Speaker:Does your site look good?
Speaker:And it becomes like the last thing really that we think
Speaker:about an afterthought or worse.
Speaker:And I mean, worse, we just throw it to Jet GPT with a prompt, like write a
Speaker:product description and then we copy and paste whatever generic slop comes out.
Speaker:That's what goes live.
Speaker:Really, really winds me up.
Speaker:You can instantly spot pure AI product descriptions.
Speaker:You really can.
Speaker:Or maybe it's just 'cause I work with AI so much as I can.
Speaker:Anyway, the final assumption, uh, assumption number three.
Speaker:Uh, and I think this one's a little bit sneaky, if I'm honest with you.
Speaker:It's that belief that nobody really reads the product descriptions anyway, and I
Speaker:think that's a very wrong assumption.
Speaker:Very wrong indeed.
Speaker:I think the people who actually decide whether to buy from you and buy
Speaker:from me, I think they do read them.
Speaker:I think they're, they're reading it, looking for a reason to say yes.
Speaker:Or a reason to leave, which is what I did on those seven websites.
Speaker:So what would happen if we gave our visitors something worth reading?
Speaker:Something that was fun, something that was enjoyable, something that was memorable,
Speaker:something that was unique to us.
Speaker:And this is where it starts to get interesting.
Speaker:Like I said, there's actual science behind why some copy works and
Speaker:why other copy gets forgotten.
Speaker:And in my quest to become better at product copy, because I realized early
Speaker:on in Jersey that this was a winner.
Speaker:So I've spent a bit of time looking at it.
Speaker:I came across some research from uc, Davis, um, and found so.
Speaker:Fascinating out about memory, the hippocampus.
Speaker:And I'm not a brain scientist.
Speaker:Uh, let me just preface everything, but I do know this, that the hippocampus,
Speaker:which is our brains memory center, actively binds separated events, right?
Speaker:So these separate events that go on in our heads, it will bind them
Speaker:together into unified narratives.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Narrative binding.
Speaker:And this can go quite deep, right?
Speaker:Uh, it can go really deep.
Speaker:But when it comes to content, basically we need to create a story with causal
Speaker:connections between events, okay?
Speaker:That's what our product descriptions need to do.
Speaker:And if we do that, if we create this story.
Speaker:That's where this magical, 42% more memorable after 30 days compared to
Speaker:distant connected facts comes from 42%.
Speaker:More memorable, how they measured it, I have no idea.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But it's basically more memorable just from restructuring our words,
Speaker:doing it differently, not changing the products, not changing the price, just
Speaker:changing how we describe it, right?
Speaker:So this technical term, which is used in cognitive science, like I
Speaker:said, is called narrative binding.
Speaker:And it's a difference between a customer who forgets you the moment they close
Speaker:the tab, and one who remembers your brand days, weeks, even 30 days later
Speaker:when they're ready to buy, maybe.
Speaker:So there's a UK, uh, homeware retailer called Cox.
Speaker:And Cox.
Speaker:I've never bought from them, but I did discover, uh, in my research that they
Speaker:restructured their product descriptions using a proper narrative framework.
Speaker:The result for them.
Speaker:Was a massive 36.7%.
Speaker:Again, another very precise number, 36.7% increase in revenue per visitor.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:A 36.7% increase in revenue per visitor, not from a website
Speaker:redesign, not from new products, just from better words on the page.
Speaker:And I think this is the power of getting your product copy.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So enough of the theory.
Speaker:How do we actually do this?
Speaker:Well, there are three principles that make narrative binding work, okay?
Speaker:Which we're gonna go through.
Speaker:And don't worry if you are driving or out walking the dog and you can't
Speaker:take notes, just go to the website.
Speaker:There'll be a comprehensive blog post with all of this information in.
Speaker:There's gonna be a freebie, which I'll tell you about at
Speaker:the end, so you don't have to.
Speaker:Make up AI prompts, you can just literally use ours, um, and see our process.
Speaker:I'll talk about that more in a minute.
Speaker:But just wanted to say, we're gonna get into some stuff.
Speaker:If you can't take notes, don't worry.
Speaker:Just literally just go to the website, find the blog post, copy,
Speaker:paste it, put it into Claude, put it into whatever AI platform you
Speaker:use, um, and dissect accordingly.
Speaker:Okay, so principle number one is causal sequencing.
Speaker:So causal sequencing, um, would mean that we don't just list features.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But what we actually want to do is show very specific causal chains.
Speaker:So the features should lead to benefits, which should lead to outcomes.
Speaker:So in a very simple way, how would we do this?
Speaker:For example, going back to my framing square where all the websites were saying
Speaker:the exact same thing, like reinforced aluminum frame, what would we do?
Speaker:Well, that's an interesting question.
Speaker:So we could say something like, it has a reinforced frame.
Speaker:Or a reinforced aluminum frame, should I say, because that was important to me.
Speaker:It has a reinforced aluminum frame, which means it won't bend mid cut.
Speaker:So your measurements stay true even after years of heavy use.
Speaker:Can you see the difference between the two?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because a reinforced aluminum frame is a feature, but a reinforced aluminum
Speaker:frame where we take that feature.
Speaker:Then look at the benefit, which is it won't bend, mint cut, and then we throw
Speaker:in the outcome, which is your measurements will stay true even for years to come.
Speaker:Now we've got a story.
Speaker:Now we've just, within one or two words, we've gone beyond
Speaker:a spec sheet, haven't we?
Speaker:So principle number two is character continuity.
Speaker:And this is where we want to include people in our descriptions because we
Speaker:just vibe better with people, don't we?
Speaker:Like, we wanna include maybe the maker or a typical customer, or even the reader
Speaker:as the protagonist in their own story.
Speaker:So with the Framing Square, just a simple sentence like.
Speaker:It's popular with professionals, which is written on most sites,
Speaker:is dull and dreary, isn't it?
Speaker:So how do we take that, throw in this idea of character continuity
Speaker:and jazz that up a little bit, right?
Speaker:Uh, like Hannibal from the A team, if you're a person of a certain age, you will
Speaker:know that Hannibal is on the jazz, right?
Speaker:This is what we're doing with our product descriptions.
Speaker:I appreciate half of you, like Matt, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:We'll get back to back to the story character continuity.
Speaker:So what, what about us changing it to something simple like join the
Speaker:2000 plus carpenters who've made this their go-to Framing Square.
Speaker:Simple.
Speaker:But now what we've done is create a tribe.
Speaker:We've introduced people and there's a sense of belonging and a story
Speaker:the customer wants to be part of.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So that's principle number two.
Speaker:Principle number three is thematic consistency.
Speaker:I love these names.
Speaker:I really do.
Speaker:It's brain science, isn't it?
Speaker:Uh, it's definitely not Matt's naming of things.
Speaker:Uh, so we've got, uh, causal sequencing.
Speaker:We've got character continuity.
Speaker:And finally we've got this idea of thematic consistency.
Speaker:And this is where we basically weave like a golden thread.
Speaker:Throughout the description, it could be something simple like craftsmanship
Speaker:or adventure or self-care or provision, whatever fits your brand or product.
Speaker:And we put that in all in our descriptions with the other principles.
Speaker:So when we add all three principles together, our product descriptions
Speaker:become like a mini story instead of just a boring specification sheet.
Speaker:So let me show you what this looks like when you put all three principles
Speaker:together on a single product.
Speaker:Now I'm a big fan of fountain pens.
Speaker:In fact, I have this one from Tom's studio right in front of me.
Speaker:Love this fountain pen.
Speaker:Can highly recommend it.
Speaker:Um, how would I, how would I use narrative binding for something like a fountain pen?
Speaker:Now most websites would describe a fountain pen in a very typical way.
Speaker:So let's say it's called the artisan fountain pen.
Speaker:So we've got the artisan fountain pen.
Speaker:It's 95 pounds.
Speaker:It's handcrafted stainless steel nib for smooth writing.
Speaker:It's got a premium resin body, provides perfect balance and comfort available in
Speaker:midnight, blue, burgundy, or forest green.
Speaker:It's a medium nib size a.
Speaker:Cartridge converter is available and the weight is just 28 grams now.
Speaker:I mean, okay.
Speaker:It's an interest.
Speaker:It tells me what I need to know, and we've tried to jazz it up by
Speaker:introducing the word, um, premium.
Speaker:Describe the resin board.
Speaker:Basically, it's expensive.
Speaker:We start throwing the word premium about right.
Speaker:Uh.
Speaker:Or we throw in handcrafted to try and jazz it up a little bit.
Speaker:I'm, we're talking about something a bit more than that.
Speaker:So, because it's, you know, it's accurate, isn't it?
Speaker:It's informative, but it's, it's completely forgettable.
Speaker:How many of you can re just recall what I just said, right?
Speaker:Not many.
Speaker:So, what would happen if we take that same description, the same pen, the same
Speaker:fountain pen, and use narrative binding principles when creating the product?
Speaker:Uh, the product copy.
Speaker:What about something like this?
Speaker:The Artisan's journey turns a blank page into a written legacy.
Speaker:Every writer knows that moment, staring at the blank page, waiting
Speaker:for inspiration to strike, and that's where the Artisan Phantom Pen.
Speaker:Begins its work crafted by Master Penn Smith, Thomas Fletcher, who spent 20 years
Speaker:perfecting his technique in Florence.
Speaker:The artisan transforms the simple act of writing into something utterly profound.
Speaker:As your hand grips the balanced resin body, you'll feel the same
Speaker:connection to your words that Thomas felt when creating the pen.
Speaker:Many of our customers report that their writing changes when using the artisan.
Speaker:I started writing letters again, says Rebecca from Bath.
Speaker:The pen became a bridge between my thoughts and the page.
Speaker:Choose your companion in midnight blue for professional correspondence or burgundy
Speaker:for that creative writing or forest green for personal journeying, uh, journaling.
Speaker:Each color carries its own story and it's waiting to become a part of yours.
Speaker:Now, I dunno what you think about that.
Speaker:I felt a little bit like Jack, you know, again, I'm showing my age
Speaker:reading the story on a podcast.
Speaker:Um, but it's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker:How the two different descriptions have a very different feel and how
Speaker:one provokes emotion and you are getting carried into the story.
Speaker:It's the same pen, it's the same features, but there's just
Speaker:a story attached to it Now.
Speaker:And you can see how it works, can't you?
Speaker:So you've got casual, uh, sorry, casual, causal, causal sequencing.
Speaker:Um, so the feature becomes the benefit, which becomes the outcome.
Speaker:You know, the sort of the handcrafted becomes this beautiful, handwritten
Speaker:legacy at the end of it, and it affects how it feels, which
Speaker:influences the writing experience.
Speaker:Which changes how customers approach writing fundamentally.
Speaker:And then we've got character continuity.
Speaker:So you've got Thomas Fletcher the craftsman, Rebecca the customer, and her
Speaker:testimonial, and you as the protagonist reading this on your own writing journey.
Speaker:And then we've got thematic consistency.
Speaker:So the from blank page to written Legacy, this golden thread runs
Speaker:through the entire description and it was just two paragraphs, right?
Speaker:So the reader isn't just buying a pen anymore, they're buying an experience.
Speaker:They're buying the beginning of countless pages that will
Speaker:carry their legacy forward.
Speaker:You might think it's OTT, but let me tell you, this stuff works because
Speaker:this is narrative binding in action.
Speaker:Now, some of you may know that I recently acquired a company called Seven Yays.
Speaker:I've talked about this before on the podcast.
Speaker:It's a gift company.
Speaker:And whilst, uh, gifts are, well, they're a competitive industry, um, I think what
Speaker:Seven Yays does with its packaging is actually really clever and really smart.
Speaker:They've got a lot of fun gift products.
Speaker:I think it's a really great concept.
Speaker:I think the guys that started it did a great job.
Speaker:Um, but again, one of the things that I've noticed, um.
Speaker:Now we've started to work through the site and we're starting to
Speaker:use our framework, jazz, things that we always start at product.
Speaker:Um, started to look at product copy, right?
Speaker:And we have a problem with the product copy on the website,
Speaker:which we need to work on.
Speaker:And this is really interesting because this is a, a gift.
Speaker:So we're gonna talk more about this a little bit in the next episode,
Speaker:uh, of the eCommerce Podcast when we jump into brand story.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:But what I see on quite a lot of gift sites, like seven years, like the
Speaker:one which we now have, is that the descriptions of product copy are written
Speaker:for the person buying the gift, right?
Speaker:They are in effect, the gift giver.
Speaker:Like this is a fun gift that makes people smile.
Speaker:It's perfect for birthdays and Christmas, and whilst that might
Speaker:be technically accurate, it's.
Speaker:Utterly forgettable, isn't it really?
Speaker:And there's one blindingly obvious problem that we have to think about.
Speaker:The description is written for entirely the wrong person.
Speaker:'cause on a gift site, the copy shouldn't necessarily be directly
Speaker:written for the person buying the gift.
Speaker:It should be written in a way that includes the story of the recipients.
Speaker:They're the person that they're buying the gift for.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So let me show you what I mean.
Speaker:One of the, I wish I had one on my desk, but I don't.
Speaker:Um, but one of our popular gifts, believe it or not, is a
Speaker:little USB disco light, right?
Speaker:You, uh, you stick it into the bottom of your phone, and when you play music,
Speaker:the LED light creates like a little disco ball effect in time to the music.
Speaker:It's quite a fun little gift.
Speaker:And so the standard copy would say it's a fun little disco light
Speaker:that plugs into any USB port and creates colorful light effects.
Speaker:Great for parties, right?
Speaker:I mean, it's a tiny light.
Speaker:I'm not sure how big that potty is, but anyway, let's move on.
Speaker:It's fine, isn't it?
Speaker:It's generic, but it's utterly forgettable.
Speaker:So what if we changed it?
Speaker:What if we thought about the person that the.
Speaker:Gift giver is buying for What if we help them see that person in the story?
Speaker:Character continuity, right?
Speaker:So what if we changed it to something like for the friend who turns every kitchen
Speaker:into a dance floor, the one who puts on ABBA while making pasta and doesn't care.
Speaker:Who's watching this tiny disco ball plugs into any USB port on any
Speaker:phone and says, yes, you should.
Speaker:Absolutely have a spontaneous Tuesday night dance party.
Speaker:So the gift giver, right, reads that and thinks, that's my friend.
Speaker:That's exactly her right.
Speaker:So that's when they click add to cart.
Speaker:And so we're actually running a project right now on seven Yays,
Speaker:transforming all of our product copy amongst a whole bunch of other things.
Speaker:Like I said, taking it through our framework and over the coming
Speaker:months, 'cause it's gonna be a big project, you will see us extracting
Speaker:a lot of these principles and implementing them on the site.
Speaker:Stay tuned to EP and uh, if you're not yet a member of Cohort.
Speaker:Can I encourage you, come and join the Cohort groups.
Speaker:Um, we'd love to see you in there.
Speaker:Uh, I was talking to Mike the other day.
Speaker:He is one of the Cohort members.
Speaker:Mike, if you're listening, legend, good to see you, man.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:And he was saying that before he joined, he was like, what,
Speaker:what does Matt get out of this?
Speaker:Is this just like some fancy sales pitch and, and genuinely it's not.
Speaker:Um, I just love getting together with other e-commerce and we just
Speaker:shoot the breeze about e-commerce.
Speaker:I will be totally straight.
Speaker:I do get work out of it, that's fine, but I don't pitch anything
Speaker:and we just have a great time and everyone thoroughly enjoys it.
Speaker:And the reason I'm mentioning Cohort is because if you're
Speaker:in there, I will be sharing.
Speaker:Uh, in much more detail, the stuff that we're doing on the seven Yay
Speaker:site as we go forward, getting your opinion on it, getting your
Speaker:thoughts on all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:So, um, yeah, come follow us in Cohort if you wanna find out all the juicy details.
Speaker:But let me give you one more example and it was, uh, back in a podcast
Speaker:episode 2 36 where I was chatting with Matt Anderson from Dragonfly ai.
Speaker:And I, I gave the example of someone who approached me about their Airsoft website.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I remember sitting down and talking, uh, with that chap, Matt, his name is,
Speaker:and I took one of, I, I, I took a look at one of the product descriptions.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:The bestselling product, and I just read through the product description and
Speaker:it was just the manufacturer's specs.
Speaker:It was their copy, it was bullet points, and it was fundamentally boring, right?
Speaker:And so we were like, you've gotta think about who your customer is.
Speaker:Again, something we'll get into much more in the next, um, solo episode of EP.
Speaker:So the one towards the end of February.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:But you gotta think about your customer rights.
Speaker:So they're 30 somethings who secretly want to feel like they're international spies.
Speaker:That's who does Airsoft, right?
Speaker:They're not just buying tactical gear because they need it.
Speaker:They're playing airsoft.
Speaker:They're not going to war for crying out loud.
Speaker:But they wanna do something which is fun and exhilarating.
Speaker:Exhilarating, and something that makes them feel like James Bond.
Speaker:In fact, I think we use that in the podcast title.
Speaker:Um, so I showed him.
Speaker:Uh, the chapter on the site, a simple way to transform that
Speaker:tactical vest description into what I called a mission briefing.
Speaker:Okay, so before the product description, read X tac 500 tactical vest.
Speaker:Constructed with 600 D polyester.
Speaker:It's got a webbing system, six magazine pouches.
Speaker:It's available in black olive and desert.
Speaker:10. I mean, I don't even know what half of that stuff means, but
Speaker:it's, it sounds really dull, right?
Speaker:So happens if we sort of throw that into the mix, the whole idea of, well, what
Speaker:would we write to someone who wants to be James Bond or Jason Bourne, or you
Speaker:know, like a Navy Seals platoon leader.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:Which is probably, again, you know, not stereotype, but when I
Speaker:go play paintball in, in Airsoft, this is who I am in my head, right?
Speaker:I'm, I'm a kid.
Speaker:It's in essence.
Speaker:So why was, if we change it, something like mission briefing, the X TAC 500 field
Speaker:operative vest, agent status, eyes only.
Speaker:Your upcoming extraction into hostile territory requires specialist equipment
Speaker:intelligence has secured the X TAC 500.
Speaker:The same vest relied upon.
Speaker:By our operatives in the Stan operation last winter.
Speaker:Choose your configuration wisely agent, all of a sudden, right?
Speaker:We've got the same product, the same features, but a very different
Speaker:emotional response and I'm, I'm getting sucked into this, right?
Speaker:The reader goes from, that's a vest with pouches to I'm Jason Bourne, which.
Speaker:Let me ask you, which version version do you think is gonna sell better?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And here's the good news, and this is genuinely good news, guys.
Speaker:You do not need to write 400.
Speaker:Product descriptions, or you certainly don't need to rewrite them, which is
Speaker:what I had to do at Jersey by, well by hand, by somebody sitting down and
Speaker:rewriting them because I think this is where AI has completely changed the game.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And we can use that.
Speaker:But, and this is crucial, and we've said this a lot on.
Speaker:EP AI without direction produces generic slop.
Speaker:We all know it's true, yet we all take the generic slop, right?
Speaker:The reality of it is we've got to invest time and energy into those prompts.
Speaker:The prompts matter.
Speaker:The framework matters.
Speaker:And so all I've done is I've put together something which I should really run
Speaker:through some kind of title generator.
Speaker:'cause the title just defies everything that I've just sold you.
Speaker:Uh, it's called the product description AI Prompt Pact.
Speaker:Ah, Matt, take your own medicine fella.
Speaker:Um, but it, I mean, as boring as it sounds, it's got the
Speaker:exact prompts that I use.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So it's got the narrative binding master prompt there.
Speaker:Um, that applies.
Speaker:All three principles automatically.
Speaker:It's got a specific prompt, like the, the prompts that I use for the gift site that
Speaker:we're gonna be using on the gift site.
Speaker:You'll see those.
Speaker:They may change.
Speaker:They're what they are right now.
Speaker:Um, we've got star variations for different types of brands.
Speaker:There's a mission briefing for technical gear, Origin stories,
Speaker:maybe for handcrafted products and prompts we use for the problem.
Speaker:Uh, the PAS problem aware solution problem, agitate solution.
Speaker:Structure, sorry.
Speaker:PAS structures for practical items as well.
Speaker:So that's all in the freebie, right?
Speaker:And there's obviously a little checklist in there which you can
Speaker:use as well to make sure you've got your product descriptions nailed.
Speaker:It is completely free and the link is in the description below.
Speaker:If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening to this on the
Speaker:podcast, that's also in the show notes.
Speaker:Um, but honestly, the easiest way to do it is go to eCommerce Podcast dot
Speaker:net and hit the resources link on the top and you'll see it in there.
Speaker:No problem at all.
Speaker:Or just find this episode on the EP website.
Speaker:There'll be a link, uh, to the download at the bottom of that episode.
Speaker:Um, but it's free.
Speaker:Totally get it and use the AI prompts that we've spent ages figuring out.
Speaker:Start with your top 20 products, right?
Speaker:The ones that drive your revenue the most.
Speaker:You know, the 80 20 rule, transform those first.
Speaker:See what happens.
Speaker:Do a bit of AB testing as is Matt talking nonsense.
Speaker:Go figure it out, right?
Speaker:Don't just take my word for it.
Speaker:Tweak, find, and figure out what tone of voice, how it works
Speaker:best for you and your brand.
Speaker:And like I said, I'm doing exactly the same project, um, on the seven years.
Speaker:Sites I say I, I genuinely, I need to stop doing that.
Speaker:It's the team, the team and I will be doing this predominantly the team.
Speaker:Uh, and we'll be sharing the results as we go in e-commerce Cohort.
Speaker:Um, and I'll be talking about it in coming and episodes, like
Speaker:I say, over the coming months.
Speaker:But if you wanna know more details, do come join us in Cohort and you get
Speaker:to say exactly what happens when you.
Speaker:Or when we implement, uh, this whole strategy.
Speaker:But that's it.
Speaker:Hopefully this has inspired you to go and rewrite your product descriptions.
Speaker:There really is a lot of goodness in there that we can use.
Speaker:And with AI now with the right prompts, there's no reason at all.
Speaker:We have no excuse to have rubbish product descriptions.
Speaker:Um, we genuinely don't.
Speaker:So, uh, hopefully this has inspired you or challenged you
Speaker:or both to go and sort that out.
Speaker:And of course, if no one's told you today.
Speaker:Lemme be the first.
Speaker:You are awesome.
Speaker:Yes, you are created.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:It's just a burden you have got to bear.
Speaker:So let's just make sure our product copy is also awesome and we'll kill it.
Speaker:Let me know how you get on, make sure you can connect with me on
Speaker:social media at Matt Edmundson.
Speaker:Love to see you on there.
Speaker:Uh, let know how you're getting on.
Speaker:Love to hear your stories.
Speaker:But that's it from me.
Speaker:I'll see you next time.
Speaker:Bye for now.