Behind every successful consumer product is a powerful product story. Dyson makes excellent vacuum cleaners but the reason they’re able to charge a price premium is because they tell excellent product stories.

Definition

A product story is a special type of story that’s designed to connect with visitors and make them fall in love with your creation. The job of the product story is to educate and convert new visitors.

Why product stories matter

We’re living in a world of abundance.

Google the problem your creation solves and Google will show a scary number of ads competing for your customers.

You know your product is the best but your site visitors don’t, yet.

You’ve spent countless hours fine-tuning and developing your breakthrough invention. It’s literally the result of sleepless nights. You’ve made so many sacrifices, risked so much to bring it to life.

Don’t rely on product features and benefits alone.

In the last 11 12 years of relentless A/B split testing, we’ve seen the awesome power of product stories; this article is a how-to guide for developing the perfect product story.

There is a very specific product story development process we use at Frictionless Commerce.

Important note: it’s really important to manage scope. You don’t want to go too deep into something that will cause issues down the road.

My preferred style is to work in 2-hour increments.

I work on a problem for 2 hours. Then I assess my situation. Am I feeling good about what we have? If I’m feeling good, I stop.

My goal isn’t to create the world’s best product story, just one that’ll comfortably outperform the Control❓ .

If I’m not feeling great I spend another 2 hours digging.

Ok, so here is our actual step-by-step process:

— Step 1: Make sense of current content

Read the current product story to understand how the client is currently selling their creation. Note your observations.

— Step 2: Extract the soul of the story

Overview video:

There are 2 fundamental aspects of a great product story: “why we exist” and “why our product must exist.”

“Why we exist“: this story aligns the visitor with the creator’s journey.

Next comes “why this product must exist.” Here we are letting our visitor know that for a very specific type of buyer, there is no better product.

In our experience working with clients, we find that while they have a really compelling story, they are often just too shy to talk about it.

To overcome this natural hesitation we have a role-play exercise.

Role-play exercise

— Step 3: Note hidden assets

These are site elements that convert well but are seen by few visitors. We call these hidden assets.

Examples:

• A video that does a good job demonstrating the product but isn’t clicked on much. I shared a solution for this problem on LinkedIn.
• An important sales angle that’s not even mentioned on the product page; it’s hidden away somewhere on your FAQ page.
• A really compelling point that’s buried deep in the product description.
• A sales element that has potential but could be dramatized better.

These are examples of hidden assets. You need to note all of them down.

— Step 4: educate yourself

When we start a client project, be it dog wheelchairs, a gourmet truffle hot sauce, or room air purifiers, we don’t really know their target audience (even if we think we do). So we start by educating ourselves about the product category.

Find news articles about this problem. Understand the nuances of the category. Note your thoughts.

— Step 5: check out the competition

You need to zoom out for a better bird’s eye view. For example, if you’re working for a site whose USP❓ is giving instant price quotes for selling a car online, go to Google and search for a term like “car selling quote” and see what paid ads show up.

Study those paid landing pages to see what your target audience is seeing online. Walk in their shoes.

What are these competing sites emphasizing? Study and note them down.

— Step 6: Ask questions

One shortcut is to email questions to customer service. Questions like:

• I was looking between brand X and Y and I really like feature B on your product. What else makes your product stand out?
• I see you talk about feature B. How did you achieve this?

— Step 7: start guessing

In order to craft a product story, we need to think like our buyer. We explain that process in this article: Making Guesses About Your Buyer.

— Step 8: write the first draft

All the foundational work has been done. Now we shift gears to crafting the product story. Don’t think too much about the final version at this time. I like to just free write my ideas. We’re looking for flow. It needs to feel natural. Keep writing until you’ve run out of inspiration.

— Step 9: shape your story using 9 conversion copywriting principles

There is a reason why conversion rates of ecommerce sites are a measly 2.3% (source). Here is the reality: the shopper on your site doesn’t want to part with their hard-earned money. They’ve been disappointed too many times. Their buyer psychology has evolved to protect them from bad decisions.

Buying your product isn’t a bad decision. It’s a good one. But how do we convince the sceptical buyer? This is why a deep understanding of 9 core aspects of buyer psychology comes into play.

Your job now is to organize your product story around these 9 core conversion copywriting principles.

— Step 10: take a 24-hour break

Now let the work marinate in your head. Give it time to breathe. Add a reminder to look at the copy the next day. I like to do it first thing in the morning when my brain is fresh.

Reread the copy and make tweaks.

— Step 11: the art of the start

Obviously, our entire sales pitch matters but the opening really matters. If you can get the reader to read the first few sentences of your pitch you’ve won the bulk of the battle. The process is explained in more detail here: The Art of The Start.

— Step 12: organize

How the product story is structured massively affects impact. We want our hero to stay engaged from start to finish.

— Step 13: edit ruthlessly

Editing is the most important part of the process. Here is where we chisel away anything that doesn’t add to our copy.

One editing trick is to take a printout of the copy and edit it with a pen. Reading printed copy slightly changes our mental context, which leads to new insights.

To explore the topic of editing read this definitive post: Conversion Copywriting: Let’s Talk Editing.

And then?

A/B test your idea on your product page.

About Frictionless Commerce

Product pages matter because that’s where our prospects make the crucial buy / no-buy decision. Shopify product pages are all we do. Watch your bestseller convert 20% better in 90 days. Our process.

If you like doing the hard work yourself, our founder Rishi shares ecommerce conversion ideas on LinkedIn every day. Connect with him here.

If you want to make your life easier and still increase conversions, jump on a call.