Accuracy vs. Emotion with Technical Product Pages

1. The importance of your product detail page

If you sell technical products, you want to showcase your product information in an easy-to-digest manner. Because your pages include a host of specific product information, it’s important to ensure customers understand the main features and benefits to help them make their purchase decisions.

The ultimate product detail page should feel like a hands-on shopping experience, so the customer can see the product and learn everything they need effortlessly. Think of your product descriptions as that smiling shop assistant, ready with all the answers that typically lead a customer to the sales counter. The product detail page is the discovery leg of the customer journey and, when well done, becomes your top salesperson on the sales floor.

However, there’s also the risk of your product information becoming the uncomfortably aggressive or overly technical salesperson who shares too much information and chases away customers who are just trying to learn. The balance lies between the accuracy and emotional area of technical product pages to trigger your desired reaction. That is how you ultimately make a sale.

2. The pros and cons of accurate technical product pages

When it comes to technical products, people need accurate product pages that make it clear how a product works. They also want to understand how your product resolves their problems. Your product information is designed to meet customers’ needs yet remain compliant with marketplace information criteria. When selling in marketplaces, you have a responsibility to provide accurate information that can in no way mislead customers.

However, because you have so much information to share, it can be difficult to decide how to lay it all out, so customers see what they need, understand it, and don’t get bogged down by minutia. You don’t want to leave them guessing, but also don’t want them to leave the page because they got tired of digging for information.

Overall, your goal is to provide accurate information that isn’t overly busy and difficult to sift through. In other words, you need to combine information and ease of use.

3. The pros and cons of emotional technical product pages

Technical product pages built from an emotional standpoint present the main highlights of the product, so people see the benefits immediately. However, if the highlights you choose aren’t what the customer expects, finding more information falls on their shoulders. As long as you have easy-to-use navigation that makes it clear where they need to click, this can work out just fine.

When you use this approach, you risk customers not seeing what they need and feeling they have to work too hard to get to it. Without enough information, you’re failing to create a more responsive customer experience so they see what they need during the discovery leg of their buyer’s journey. At this moment, when a customer desires a more feature-heavy, accurate site, that emotional trigger is lost in the frustration of not seeing the information they need.

4. Using accuracy and emotion together for technical product pages

To create the perfect technical product pages, you need to combine all the components in a user-friendly way. That includes a quick overview of what a product offers and more in-depth, accurate information that answers customer questions. Therefore, the perfect page uses accuracy and emotion together, including:

• Description: Offer them a short list of highlights to meet emotional needs with an extended version outlining all the complex product data for their technical needs.
• Products: Provide a high-quality product image as an emotional trigger and the ability for users to view the product from all angles and zoom in to appreciate more of the technical details.
• Video: Video offers the best of both worlds, meeting emotional needs using an easy-to-understand media and meeting technical needs due to a video’s higher educational value.
• Sustainability credentials: This tends to be more emotional as it appeals to customers concerned with ethically made, sustainable materials in the products they purchase.
• Reviews and ratings: Providing social proof confirms the technical capabilities of the product as well as customer satisfaction to help seal the deal from an emotional standpoint.

Including these elements in your product pages strikes the perfect balance between emotion and accuracy for quick and easy sales.