8 Ways to Craft Enticing Product Descriptions in the ChatGPT Era 

How a business owner describes his or her company, along with their products or services, is a pivotal choice—one that can help or hinder a brand as it tries to stand out on shelves, online, and increasingly in the responses that generative AI spurts out.  Inc. spoke to nearly a dozen founders of fast-growing startups to ask how they approach product descriptions. Here are their most effective strategies. 

1. Stay simple.  This principle is especially true for consumer packaged goods.  “People don’t have a lot of capacity to read anymore,” says Carter, whose company is based in Hillsdale, New Jersey. “The front of the pack has to communicate really quickly, really clearly.”  Focus on the two most important selling points.
2. Avoid jargon.   Bulletproof Coffee was built on on the idea of biohacking, but the functional coffee brand, which is sold in more than 10,000 stores nationwide, including Whole Foods, Kroger, Target and Sprouts, recently dropped the word from its product descriptions and labels, because chief commercial officer Andy Van Ark says that target audience was too niche. “We knew it wasn’t working,” says Van Ark. “A lot of terminology went right over the heads of your average consumer.” His team underwent a six-month process of data analysis and consumer surveys before settling on a more simplified message around great-tasting, functional coffee aimed at everyday coffee drinkers, not the biohacking community.
3. Tailor different descriptions to different platforms.  Omnichannel brands should not limit themselves to one set product description, founders say.  Prime Roots co-founder and CEO Kimberlie Le says how she describes her plant-based deli meat company varies, depending on the platform. “If someone’s coming to our website versus shopping online on Instacart, in-store, all those descriptions for us have to differ and to optimize for various metrics,” she says.
4. Counter against incumbents.  For startups entering crowded categories, founders advise using product descriptions to explicitly counterprogram against the competition.
5. Play with tone.  Don’t be afraid to experiment with tone as well.  Still, that tone needs to feel authentic to the brand and the founders behind it. Consumers can “sniff out” when a brand is “trying a little too much.
6. Keep iterating as you grow.  Don’t be afraid to keep reiterating and refining product descriptions. Bubble Skincare founder and CEO Shai Eisenman says her company’s language has grown up with its consumers over the past five years. The New York company originally launched as a Gen Z-focused brand in Walmart, but Eisenman kept hearing the same questions from older shoppers: Can I use these products if I’m not a teenager? “Our community just started getting broader,” says Eisenman.  Bubble changed how it spoke to consumers. The brand dropped all its teen language and references. Speaking with “a much more broader perspective, versus just targeting a specific cohort” helped the brand double revenue last year, says Eisenman.
7. Don’t forget regulations.   When thinking about wording, some founders will need to keep regulation in mind. That’s the case for startups in the growing functional food industry, like Essential Candy, which manufactures functional hard candies infused with organic plant botanicals. To keep up with changing regulations, the Easley, South Carolina business, which sells its functional candies in about 300 stores, has revised its product descriptions about ten times since launching in 2018.  “It’s a constant evolution,” says co-owner Dean Ernst. “It’s hard to keep up.”  Still, regulations can be turned into an advantage.
8. Keep Gen AI top of mind.  Entrepreneur Francesca Pittaluga is helping consumers save time by having generative AI read and analyze the product descriptions. The founder of Los Angeles-based marinara sauce brand Ciao Pappy built a Pappy bot on her website that can tell customers which of the company’s red sauces are best for them. Prefer spicy? Allergic to garlic? Picky eaters? Looking for a healthier option? The AI agent, built by fellow startup L.A. startup Pickaxe, can tell that customer without them having to click through each sauce’s specific landing page.