Demand forecasting often involves coordinating efforts across departments – from marketing to purchasing to warehouse receiving – making sure you have enough inventory on hand at the right time is a tall task. Our guest contributor, Jeff Leiber with TurnKey Product Management, outlines best practices to ensure that your Amazon listings capture as many buyers as possible. These marketing efforts can be coordinated with purchasing efforts to ensure that sufficient stock is available.
About TurnKey Product Management: With over 12 years of Amazon experience, over 150K products sold, and over 8-figures in revenue made for our clients in the past year alone, we are uniquely positioned to help brands scale their sales on Amazon through a variety of services: full service management, Amazon PPC management, 1-on-1 coaching, standard operating procedures, online trainings and more.
Amazon is the biggest online marketplace in the United States and the second largest worldwide with $239 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV). According to data by Marketplace Pulse, there are 6 million sellers across all Amazon marketplaces. Currently, the e-commerce giant gets roughly 3,203 new sellers every day with a projected 1,132,595 new sellers by the end of the year.
At a glance, Amazon might look like a saturated marketplace with millions of sellers engaging in a cut-throat competition to make sales. However, this is an e-commerce juggernaut with 12 markets and over 100 million Prime customers. From the seller to customer ratio, it’s evident that there’s enough cake to go around. Let’s look at how you can stand out from your competition.
Sales Copy Optimizations
Your listing copy is the first interaction between a potential customer and your product. The quality of your listing copy is a significant determinant whether a possible customer clicks “add to cart” or moves on to the next seller. It’s imperative that your copy is a solid mixture of emotional reasoning, brand information, and of course, product information. Listing out the product specifications alone won’t help your product stand out. Your sales copy should evoke a positive emotional response from a potential customer while also answering any of the questions they might have. Additionally, you can add emojis in the bullet points to give your listing an extra pop.
Enhanced Brand Content Optimizations
Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) is a tool that allows Brand Registered Amazon sellers to use enhanced images and keyword placement. Sellers eligible for Enhanced Brand Content can use backend search terms behind product images to gain an SEO boost for their products. Amazon has a limit of characters on the backend of each image so make those characters count. You should also be sure that you’re using relevant keywords by carefully analyzing your competitors’ keyword choices.
Mobile Listing Optimizations
According to statistics, mobile traffic accounted for 54% of the total traffic on Amazon. Most shoppers browse for products on their mobile devices and purchase on their desktops. Optimizing product listings for mobile should, therefore, be a priority.
Check your listing on mobile. Go through this list of questions to make sure your mobile listing is optimized:
- Is the product title getting cut off?
- What do your images look like on mobile?
- Are your images clear?
- What does your enhanced brand content look like on mobile? What do your EBC images look like, are they clear?
- Where are your bullet points getting cut off?
These factors contribute to your customers getting a smooth mobile shopping experience. Making sure your listing is clear on mobile can be the deciding factor between a purchase or not.
Autoresponder Tip: Provide a Value Add
Autoresponders present sellers with a unique and cost-efficient medium of creating brand loyalty. Amazon allows you to set up an autoresponder and email a customer once they complete an order. Don’t miss this opportunity to create a lasting impression by offering additional value to your customers.
A great way to do this would be to incorporate a PDF value-add to your autoresponder email. It could be an ebook, a detailed product guide, or anything that gives your customers additional value relevant to their purchase. Providing this value-add for your customers will leave a lasting impression with them, setting you apart from your competitors.
Amazon Influencer Program Tip: Sign Up and Become an Influencer
If your brand has a significant following on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube, then you should sign up for the Amazon Influencer Program. With this program, you get a page on Amazon with a unique URL where you can showcase your product recommendations. You can then use the influencer link to promote your products externally. The influencer arrangement helps you earn twice since Amazon pays you a percentage and you get to make a sale and pocket the profits.
Not interested in being an influencer? No worries! Create a social media promo code and elect to share the social media promotion landing page with the Amazon influencer program. Not only can your influencers benefit from it but you can reach new audiences by using Amazon’s influencers.
Promotional Planning Tip
Customers can now combine promotions and coupon clippings if you offer them simultaneously on your product. A content promotional planner is, therefore, necessary to avoid giving double discounts unintentionally.
Our team at TurnKey plan our promotions out at least one month ahead of time, giving us time to set up promotions and create the content that goes along with it. This not only prevents us from overlapping promotions but also helps us ensure all parts are getting completed.
PPC Tip: Amazon Brand Analytics
In early February 2019, Amazon quietly released Amazon Brand Analytics to its Brand Registered sellers. The feature gives brands access to valuable data that’s useful in creating improved marketing strategies. With Brand Analytics, sellers have access to crucial data such as:
- Keywords used by Amazon customers
- Keyword popularity comparison
- Click and conversion share for specific search terms
- Item comparison report
- Demographic report
The data available in Amazon Brand Analytics is a game changer for how brands market their products. With this data, you can create an elaborate marketing strategy by incorporating highly converting keywords in your listings. It can also help you bid on highly converting keywords in your PPC ads to get the biggest bang for your buck in your advertising spend.
TurnKey loves to help clients navigate Amazon and implement all of the above strategies and more. If you’re in need of expertise or are looking for an Amazon coach, apply now at www.TurnKeyProductManagement.com.