Note From Tongal: “10 Tips for Writing Awesome Copy for Boring Products” is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tell Us About It Tongal Blog Project. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and then Pitch us a topic you'd like to write about for the Tongal Blog!
---
It's a fact of life for copywriters: not every product you write about is going to be video games, fashion lines, or the hottest new restaurant. They may not even be products for which you’re the target market (ever seen a male writer try to sell tampons?). No — unless you live on Planet Lucky, more often than not you’re writing for brands that make a product that you wouldn’t look twice at in a store — financial software, driveway sealant, or anti-diarrheal medication. But that's okay! Being a good copywriter means being able to make anything — even driveway sealant — engaging. By getting inside the consumer's head and embracing the brand's voice, your copy can inform, entertain, and convert readers to customers.
Here are 10 tips for engaging readers on those most boring of products:
1. Get Consumer Insight
The company is making this product for someone. Maybe not you, but someone. Who are they? What are they trying to solve? What circumstance makes them susceptible to this brand’s messaging? You may walk right by the anti-diarrheal medication at the pharmacy, but to the mom with a sick kid at home, that product is the Holy Grail. What do people who have bought the product wish they had known or done before they made the purchase? Maybe that mom wishes she had kept a bottle of anti-diarrheal medication at home for just in case. Maybe all the brands looked the same to her and she wishes she had known more about the benefits of any one brand over the others. In other words, get in the consumer’s head.
2. Find the Problem
Some products have a very clear problem that they solve: A lightbulb burns out, you buy a replacement. Your lawnmower can’t mow close enough to the fences, you buy a weed wacker. Others require some digging: Why do people who live in the city buy big trucks designed for off-road driving? Why do people spend $6 on coffee from a coffee shop when their office has a pot of free coffee available? Sometimes the problem isn’t so much a problem as it is a desire to be seen — or to see yourself — a certain way. Look at your product from all angles, and you might just find that it solves even more problems than you thought.
3. Use Action Language
This is true for almost all copywriting, but especially so for products that need some extra help in the engagement department. What does it do? Or, more importantly, what does it allow the user to do? Avoid the passive voice, and make your product the protagonist of its own story. That financial software might sound boring, but it’s a hero to the small business owner who needs an efficient way to do their own bookkeeping.
4. Write Upward
Sometimes a product itself won’t be inherently difficult to write about, but differentiating among a line of very similar models will be. Say you’re writing about a line of air conditioners that are identical except that each one is successively more powerful. Start at the bottom of the line and work your way upward. Write first about the smallest, cheapest model, selling your reader on its benefits, and then move up to the next more powerful one. Then you can focus on that slight power difference as a significant selling point. Writing upward makes each succession exciting and advantageous, instead of a step down from its bigger sibling.
5. Get to Know the Product
If possible, experience the product yourself. Sure, it may seem boring, but you may find that there’s an appeal to it that you never would have anticipated. Is it easier to use than its competitors? Does it make a better final product? Is it higher quality? Is it surprisingly fun to use? To whatever extent you can, have the experience a customer would and see what insights you can glean.
6. Have Some Fun — But Not Too Much
Just because the product seems boring doesn’t mean the copy has to be! Have some fun with it, within the confines of the brand’s voice and tone. Is there opportunity to be a little bit glib about the least interesting aspects of the product? Is there a way to explain nitty-gritty details in a way that’s approachable and compelling? Batteries don’t seem all that interesting, but the fact that they power everything from the remote control to your new drone is pretty neat. Light bulbs aren’t too exciting, but when your bathroom light burns out in the middle of a midnight bathroom trip, you’ll be wishing you had a spare on hand.
7. Broaden Your Scope
Copy serves a lot of different purposes — it can inform, persuade, entertain, or just remind an audience that your brand exists. If you’re only thinking of copy as “words that convince a person to buy this widget” in all contexts, you’re thinking too narrowly. Sure, persuasion is always the ultimate goal, but some copy does it in a more roundabout way. Say you’re writing about ladders. There’s all the usual stuff about product features, model differences, specifications, etc., but you can also tell people about home projects they should be doing that just so happen to require a ladder (cleaning gutters, checking smoke detector batteries, cleaning windows, pruning trees, etc.), and even produce a yearly home maintenance schedule. You can talk about ladder safety, establishing your expertise and commitment to safe practices. And a well-placed ladder pun couldn’t hurt either.
8. Build an Experience
A product is more than just a thing that does a thing. It’s an experience. Sometimes the experience is nothing to write home about (like using an enema), but sometimes it’s a great way to capture the product’s benefits and engage your audience. Consider lawn mowing. Sure, it’s a chore that takes valuable time out of your weekend, but it can also be a relaxing and almost meditative experience. You smell the freshly-cut grass, you feel the sunshine on your face, you get some exercise, and at the end, you get the satisfaction of seeing your perfectly manicured lawn.
9. Focus on Benefits, Not Features
This should be a rule for all copywriters no matter what they’re writing about, but it’s especially pertinent for dull or not-widely-known products. Instead of telling readers that your brush mower has a lockable differential, tell them that it allows them to transition easily from smooth to rough terrain as they mow. Lockable differential: boring and technical. Transitioning easily between terrains: helpful and widely understandable.
10. Just Say It
This will only work in some circumstances and won’t be appropriate for all brands, but it’s worth considering. Just be up-front that you know it’s a boring product that’s not fun to shop for. Maybe you can do it in a funny way. Maybe you can frame it as a necessary evil that your brand can help them get through as easily as possible. Maybe you can offer to make the process less dull. Once in a while, acknowledging the boring-ness can be the path directly into your readers’ hearts.
