How to write product facts shoppers remember

In Know Your Product and In or Out, every piece carries a short fact. With In or Out, shoppers see each fact the moment they answer. With Know Your Product, they see every fact right after the round, next to what they got right and wrong. Either way, the fact lands while the game is fresh, so the words you put there matter more than almost anything else on your store.

Here’s how to write them.

Why a game beats a paragraph

Your product page explains things. A game asks. That difference is bigger than it looks.

In a well-known 2006 study, psychologists Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke had students read short prose passages, then either reread them or take a recall test. A week later, the students who had been tested remembered more. In the first experiment they recalled 56% of the material, against 42% for the students who reread it. Researchers call this the testing effect: pulling an answer out of memory strengthens it in a way that reading it again doesn’t.

A product page is rereading. A round of a game is a test, the friendly kind. When a shopper taps a piece and finds out whether it’s in your bestseller, they’re doing the thing that makes memory last.

Seven rules for a fact that sticks

1. One idea per fact. “Ethiopian beans bring the berry notes” is one idea. Add the farm, the altitude and the roast date, and nothing lands.
2. Start with the thing they tapped. The shopper just looked at the piece. Name it first, then say what’s true about it.
3. Say it in one breath. Facts appear on a small card, often on a phone. If you can’t read one aloud in a single breath, cut it.
4. Make it about them. “Washed cold, so the color stays put” beats “Garment-dyed using a low-temperature process.” Say what the shopper gets.
5. Write it to work either way. The same fact shows whether they got the piece right or wrong. “No robusta here: our blend is all arabica” teaches in both cases.
6. Use decoys people actually believe. A decoy nobody would pick teaches nothing. The best wrong pieces are common assumptions about your category, because those are the ones worth correcting.
7. Keep the voice yours. Write facts the way you’d say them across a counter. They should sound like the rest of your store.

Weak and strong, side by side

Notice that the strong versions are also easier to check. Each one is a plain statement about the product that the store can confirm.

Only write facts you can stand behind

A fact in a game is still marketing. In the US, the FTC’s advertising guide for small businesses says ads must be truthful and not deceptive, and that advertisers need proof before the ad runs. That applies to what an ad implies, not just what it states outright.

A few habits keep you on solid ground.

• Write from your approved claims. If a claim isn’t already on your label or product page, and you couldn’t show the evidence for it, leave it out of the game.
• Take extra care with health and results claims. Supplements, skincare and food are where a cheerful one-liner can turn into a claim you can’t support. When in doubt, describe what’s in the product, not what it does to the body.
• Check the decoys too. “Not in our formula” is a claim. Make sure it’s true.
• Review facts when the product changes. A new recipe or a new supplier can quietly make an old fact wrong.

This is a practical summary, not legal advice. If you sell in a regulated category, have someone who knows the rules read your facts.

Use what they missed

The facts keep working after the round ends. After a Know Your Product round, shoppers see “What you just learned”: every piece with its fact. In Earnaroo, each winner’s Klaviyo profile carries what they knew and what they missed, so your first email can teach the one thing they didn’t know yet. That’s a far better opener than a generic welcome.

Across all your shoppers, the “What shoppers know” report shows, piece by piece, how often people got it, missed it or tapped it by mistake. A piece most people miss is either a fact worth teaching harder or a piece that’s confusing. Either way, you know where to look.

A quick checklist

• Each fact is one idea, readable in one breath.
• It starts with the piece’s name.
• It says what the shopper gets.
• It makes sense whether they got it right or wrong.
• Decoys are things people actually believe.
• Every claim, including “not in our product,” is one you can prove.

Sources

1. Roediger, H. L., and Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
2. Federal Trade Commission. Advertising FAQ’s: A Guide for Small Business. www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business