How to Write a Good File Description

Designers aren’t sales people. If they were, we probably wouldn’t have the famous “feast or famine” quote associated to how we make money. If a designer worked on their sales technique as much as they work on improving their design skills, one could probably double their own income. If that is the case, why do we write sub par sales letters, put off calling potential clients, and do a poor job with our website copy?

As I browse through all the files on GraphicRiver, I can’t help but notice that a majority of files on here have nothing more than a few word description on their file.

This my friends, is poor sales copy.

Make a Mini Squeeze Page

While the text box you fill in when submitting your files may be titled “description”, that doesn’t mean you are limited to only filling it with basic information about your file. Heck, some people don’t even do that. My suggestion is to fill that are with as much information as possible.

You know those hideous web pages you see for information products? The ones that are miles and miles long, filled with tons of copy, testimonials, and other information? They may be butt ugly, but they work. Why do they work? Because they appeal to the two main types of shoppers out there. For those who need to be assured that their buying choice is the right one, there is plenty of copy to prove to them that they need to buy said product. For those who don’t actually read the copy, the massive amount of it gives this type of buyer the perception that the product must be good.

What does all this have to do with writing a description for your files? To over simply, it means that the more information you can include, the better.

What Information to Include

I am not suggesting that you create miles of sales copy and testimonials. What I am suggestion though, is that you add more than just a simple description of your file. Buyers can see whats in your file by looking at your picture, so a basic description is just a bit redundant.

Here are my suggestions:

Detailed Description
Be as detailed as possible with out getting overly technical. Most people whoa re going to be buying these files are designers who have a good understanding of design applications. Give them specs and information about the files. For example, if you are selling a set of icons; are the icons individual files or do they all come on a single PSD? Are the icon colors editable? Are vectors included as well? What dimensions are included?

The best thing to do when writing this portion is to think of what you would want to know about the file before buying it. What questions would you ask?

Give Examples
This area is your real “sales copy.” Use it to suggest uses of your file. Many of the pricing tables and banner sets here on GraphicRiver do a great job of this. The make suggestions of how you could use said file for web hosting, selling apps, advertising information products, etc.

Another good thing you could do with this area is link to websites that are wither using your files or are using something similar. This not only gives the buyer and idea of what your file looks liek in use, but may give them ideas of how they could use it, that they might not have thought about.

Link to Related Files
If you sell other files on any of the marketplaces, why not link to them in the description? That said, don’t do like some authors and just link to everything you sell. Rather, just link to related files to the main one. If people are search for icons, it is highly unlikely that they also want an audio file. But, they may be interested in seeing more icons from you, some buttons, and maybe some background images.

List Resources
Many of you do this in your read me file, and a few of you do it in your description already. But, for those of you who don’t, include links to any fonts or other resources the buyer may need to download in order to use your file accordingly.

Your Suggestions

Now I would like to hear from some of the GraphicRiver authors. Can you share some of your thoughts about writing a good description? Do you think its a worth while endeavor or just a waste of time? Have you done any experimentation with your description and keywords or better sales copy?