# Do you read product blurbs?



## DMX911 (Dec 2, 2016)

I'm helping a lighting manufacturer redo their website, and we've been debating how we should approach the blurbs for each product page - you know, the written "Introduction" or review before you click over to the specs, photometrics etc.

Do you guys read those at all? It seems like we can't forego them completely, but what would you like to see or not see in that part, when you're learning about a (new) product?


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## Amiers (Dec 2, 2016)

Specs, Reviews and Video Demo/Review. Personally the rest is just a sales pitch.


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## MNicolai (Dec 2, 2016)

If I'm familiar with the product then I'll zip straight to the spec sheet. If I'm not yet familiar with it, then I want the 15-second version of what it is and what's different about it from your other products.

The most annoying timesuck I encounter is when there are multiple similar products with no obvious unique characteristics given in the part name/number or the summary text. Then I have to click into multiple spec sheets and flip between each of them back and forth to determine what their differences are.

If you want to appeal to both types of users, you could do all of the blurbs but then have a one-click page for spec sheets, dimension drawings, and downloads like Middle Atlantic has. Don't give much attention to any other part of their website though. When it comes to actual product pages you sometimes need a decoder ring to guide you through the wide array of similar products.


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## Pie4Weebl (Dec 3, 2016)

I really like it when I can see info about a product in context to other products. Every light looks good in a dark room by itself, but I wanna see how it plays with other fixtures I am familiar with.


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## Colin (Dec 4, 2016)

It seems to me those product blurbs would be most important for prospective new customers who still need to be sold on a product or service. I bet your client would like to keep pulling those customers in. 

I read the blurb if I don't know the product. I also like to see some photos of the product, but almost never click on a video intro that is usually a long-winded, boring cheerleading session for the product. I want to quickly scan for features important to me and skip the rest. I want to know in a few brief bullet points what the product does and how it is different than others. I don't want to open and click between a bunch of separate and perhaps differently formatted datasheets to find out the basics. 

Otherwise, if I'm fairly familiar with the product and am not interested in alternatives I have probably just typed "[product] datasheet" or similar into Google and bypassed the rest of the website.

If the company isn't offering a lot of similar products, then I'm probably comparing their product to someone else's. In that case I mostly just want easy-to-find access to a spec sheet, but am still interested in any special design traits that affect value in terms of usability or durability but might not be apparent in the cold hard specs. I especially like to know any feature that streamlines integration with existing or future equipment acquisitions. So, for instance, among other reasons it used to be that we'd buy a fully ETC fixture inventory because we could stock a single lamp. With the proliferation of networked devices now, I'm often interested in things like how robust an app is, whether or not I have to pay extra for it, and what platforms it runs on. In my scene shop I need a few new portable tools with dust extraction and have been mulling the advantages of Festool's product system versus a combination of other quality manufacturers at lower cost and with more awkward interfacing. If the company has that system thread running through all their designs, that's added value or premium price justification, and it can be communicated with a quick mention in a blurb plus links to the other products that work in that ecosystem (or better yet, a single page mapping out the whole system).

So I think you have to have good blurbs to attract new business, as well as direct, high-visibility access to the details to avoid pissing off returning customers.


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## JohnD (Dec 4, 2016)

I prefer the KISS principle, the really glitzy websites are nice, if the designer is primarily trying to win a design award. Please just show me a picture or 2 and a few lines of text telling me what it does.
Then quick links to the spec sheet and manual and photometrics. I also loathe product videos wherein the director is a wannabe avant garde film artiste. Enough with the out of focus, shaky cam, film scratches stuff, just show me the product. As far as @Pie4Weebl 's desire to see a comparitive demo, I bet there are legal issues, (Here's a really popular light which _inspired_ us to create this much cheaper item.) ((According to ULI, Behringer was not a clone shop, they simply did market research.))
As far as demo vids, something that really shows of a product is this one from 4Wall for the Martin Mac Quantum Profile:

You can see what the beam looks like head on and on the wall and the floor.
An example of a demo setup I mostly like is this from Elation:
http://www.elationlighting.com/showroom
What is missing for me is ummmmm, exactly what lights are these????? It would have been nice if they included a cookbook for this rig, listing how may of what they are showing.
What would really be super fabulous is a demo setup which was shot in 360degree, so you could actually move around in it.


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## ruinexplorer (Dec 5, 2016)

When you do your product specs, please keep it uniform. Recently I was making a purchase from a company and comparing units based on specific needs. Looking at the specs from one unit to the next, they were not stating the same specs. It made it near impossible to find the specific traits between units that I needed.
So, in other words, yes, making sure that you talk tech about your product is essential. It may be beyond someone from a house of worship or a DJ service that may be looking at your product, but you will likely lose more savvy customers by not doing so.


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## bdkdesigns (Dec 5, 2016)

In terms of how it should be done, I've always found myself watching those 4Wall videos. They do a really good job and just showing how the things work. In fact, I just watched that Quantum Profile video this morning because an upcoming project is using those. For instance, yes the fixture says it does a zoom, but I want to see that in action. How smooth is it? When it does it live, does the image maintain a good quality? They always run the fixture through the items that I care about. In terms of the blurb, I absolutely read them for products that I am unfamiliar with. However more important to me are the blurbs on the main page with all of the product listings. Do you have 4 similar products? Please tell me what makes them different before I click onto the product page. If I'm looking for an RGBWA fixture, I don't want to click on three different fixtures before finding the one with the layout I want. The key here is making the blurb quick and clear enough that I can tell the difference before clicking. Now obviously this isn't as big of a deal if the product line is: Moving Head Spot, Moving Head Wash, LED Fresnel, LED ERS. However if you have three difference flavors of Moving Head Spots, what makes each spot unique? I want to know that before I even click on the product page.


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