Writing Descriptive Copy

Here's how it's done -

Descriptive prose: illustrative, expressive, graphic, detailed, lively, vivid, striking; explanatory, explicative.


Steve

I forgot to mention that I have heard the same concept about being more descriptive while watching a video relating to creating websites in Adobe Dreamweaver.

I first got the idea from the world of seduction and attraction. Until I heard the person in the Dreamweaver training video talking about being descriptive I never really thought much about it before.

Maybe I've been confusing descriptive writing with hypnotic writing and maybe I haven't. I can't say for sure at the moment. I can say for sure that I do have a lot more to learn when it comes to being more descriptive.

If u want to learn how to write descriptive copy then u have to copy good ads.

Gary Halbert

Those are some long form copy ads but those should help - copy them all by hand to this day i copy a great ad by hand at least once a week. Ur never to good to study the greats so get to it

Edit:
Here are some more ads that are right up ur alley
http://weddingdressguy.com/original_...aylisting.html
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wesley-Crush...-/190761682495

Check out this site. They buy ordinary objects at flea markets and then have writers create a story around the object. They resell the same object with the new story and get a hefty mark-up.

Significant Objects | …and how they got that way

It shows the power of a story connected to a product. But it also has a lot of examples of descriptive writing. Take a look at this stapler:

Small Stapler | Significant Objects

Here are some of the passages:

"So over to Dr. Marjorie Grimstone’s I went, on the cross-town bus, wearing my three-button dove-gray cashmere gloves with my navy suit. Dr. Grimstone showed me her office as if I were a mental defective (“This is my office”). There was a small desk (“This is where you would sit and do your work on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons”), bare except for a telephone, a plastic-hooded adding machine, a large, gun-metal tape dispenser, and a tiny stapler (“I prefer the smaller staples for my patient notes and billing files; if operated precisely it won’t jam”). Next to the desk loomed a massive IBM Selectric typewriter, shrouded in plastic, on its own typing table."

"The shredding of patient records we had done together once she had become deaf as a post and couldn’t keep asking patients to repeat their deepest secrets, to shout them out from that scratchy olive green couch under the Durer woodcuts which had been her father’s, which she left to the great-niece she liked best."

The bolded phrases are short, and give a lot more depth and background on the object than a flat description. In sales writing you'll use a lot more power words than shown here, but the principle is similar.

Here are some excellent resources to write more powerful and descriptive ads: Richard Bayan's books, Words That Sell and More Words That Sell. You should also read John Caples' Tested Advertising Methods (4th ed.) and How To Make Your Advertising Make Money.

Here's what I would suggest. Look at the thing you're selling. Look it over really well. Then ask yourself. What would I need to know about this thing to make a buying decision without being able to see it? Then write down all the flaws and all the good points. Then explain what you have as you list each point.

Two things, if I might. Be wary of following advice from random people. Secondly, I'd just give yourself a crash course in copywriting. As opposed to following said advice. It's probably meant well, but... unhelpful. . . in terms of real word results. Here's the kind of crash course I'd recommend:

The Gary Halbert Letter

Are you sure that "what you've been told" is accurate? You may be chasing down the wrong mousehole. Why not post your ads here and see what the smart, experienced copywriters here say?

A sale may not happen for any one of a number of reasons. In my opinion, "not being descriptive enough" is not usually all that close to the top of the list.


"For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn"
(Attributed to Hemingway)