Speaker:

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.