Mastering Amazon Marketing: Tips and Best Practices
It may not ever make sense for your brand to sell on Amazon. Or it may, but only after you’ve mastered other sales channels. This post is not going to get into that–let’s assume you’ve already decided to sell on Amazon. How do you make the right marketing plays to ensure success? Here are some effective Amazon marketing strategies we recommend for growing your sales and visibility on the platform:
1. Optimize your product listings
One of the most important factors in ranking highly on Amazon is having a well-optimized product listing. This means including high-quality product images, a detailed product description, and relevant keywords in your product title and bullet points. Generating positive customer reviews and ratings is also critical, as these greatly influence purchase decisions. Use professional grade equipment (or contract a pro) to shoot your product on a white background, and be sure to include lifestyle images of the product in use. You can experiment with video, and add graphics to some images to call out product benefits. Use more detailed, longer product names than you might on your own site or with other retailers. And read on to learn about Brand Registry templates which offer so much more than a basic listing.
2. Use Brand Registry to make your listings pop
Amazon Brand Registry is a program that allows brand owners to register their brand with Amazon and gain additional control over their product listings. You can access additional tools and resources to help protect your IP, improve product discoverability, and enhance the shopping experience. Brand Registry lets you create A+ pages, which add more multimedia content and product information to your product pages, along with creating an attractive storefront for your brand. A+ pages have been shown to improve conversion rates and increase sales for participating products. Pro tip: stores with shoppable images are seeing higher sales, so use them! You’ll need a trademarked brand and to meet other eligibility requirements to enroll, but the tools and visual merchandising options are worth it.
3. Invest in advertising
Amazon has surpassed Google for high-intent product searches, and definitely among Prime subscribers, so Amazon advertising is a great way to increase visibility and sales for your products even if you sell on other channels. But Amazon Ads behave a lot like Google ads, so you can get going pretty quickly if you’re already familiar with Google. Ad products include Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display ads. Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads appear in search results, while Sponsored Display ads appear on product detail pages. Like Google, you’ll need to do quite a bit of keyword research to master Amazon Ads. When researching keywords, look for high-volume, relevant keywords that accurately describe your product. Consider the search terms that customers would use to find your product, and include these in your keyword selection. You can also use negative keywords to exclude irrelevant searches and avoid wasting ad spend. Don’t forget to include common misspellings. And, if your product competes in a particularly competitive category, consider bidding up some lower volume keywords that you can win. Use Amazon’s keyword planner, or try some 3rd party solutions. We like Helium 10 for a full suite of Amazon marketing tools (not just keyword research.)
4. Take advantage of Amazon’s promotions and deals
Amazon offers several promotions and deals that you can tap. Lightning Deals and Deal of the Day promotions can greatly increase visibility and sales for your products. Amazon also offers coupons and promotional codes that you can use to incentivize customers to make a purchase. And with two Prime Days each year, you can offer Amazon-exclusive promotional events that create urgency. See #2, above: Brand Registry will help you get better visibility within these opportunities, and even get more dedicated support from an Amazon rep.
5. Monitor and respond to customer feedback
Monitor customer feedback and respond promptly to any negative reviews. Responding to negative reviews shows that you care about customer satisfaction and can help to mitigate any damage to your brand’s reputation. Nip negative reviews in the bud by encouraging customers to contact you directly with any questions or problems on your packing slips or inserts. Also take care to respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner. Leaving your customers hanging will result in “strikes” from Amazon that will hurt your ranking.
6. Utilize Amazon’s tools and analytics
Amazon offers several tools and analytics that can help you optimize sales and visibility on the platform. Amazon’s Seller Central dashboard provides detailed analytics on sales, traffic, and customer behavior. The platform’s advertising tool is pretty easy to use and provides great insight too. While it’s tricky to attribute sales on Amazon to advertising and marketing you’re doing elsewhere, it’s not impossible. Take advantage of Amazon Attribution, and export Amazon data into your other marketing analytics tools to start analyzing changes in sales.
7. Incorporate Amazon into your other marketing activities
Marketing your Amazon store doesn’t need to live in an Amazon bubble. Try off-Amazon social and search ad campaigns that drive to your Amazon store. Use Prime Day and other promotions as a limited time sales event in your social, email and sms campaigns. Encourage influencers you’re working with to use Amazon Affiliates links. You’ll need to strike a balance when promoting Amazon, however, so as not to cannibalize your other channels unnecessarily.
Getting started on Amazon is the hardest and most time consuming part. There are a lot of boxes to check and a lot of legwork to ensure you’re positioned for success. Monitoring your store, testing new initiatives, and optimizing your ad campaigns are the second hardest parts. We’ve managed several Amazon Brand Registry store and A+ page launches, along with Amazon advertising campaigns for clients, and would love to help you win on the platform.
