Will Amazon kill your brand or is it actually a big opportunity?
Transcript
Hi I’m Duncan Jones from digital agency Webprofits and I lead our multi-channel Fluid Marketing service.
Today I’m going to talk about how Amazon’s launch is a big opportunity for brands in Australia and the 7 key tactics they should focus on to take advantage of it.
Do you remember the early days of Search Engine Optimisation, back when smaller brands could more easily compete with bigger companies using speed, better optimisation and crafty tactics?
Well with the launch of Amazon into Australia – that exact same opportunity exists right now and for companies selling their own branded products who move fast this could be a goldmine.
Lets start with an example
First, I’ll start with an example of a small Australian brand based in Perth that is starting to dominate its big competitors over in the US using the exact same tactics that I’ll run you through shortly.
You’ve probably never heard of them, but the brand name “Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce” is pretty memorable.
Despite being relatively unknown they’ve managed to optimise their way to being one of the top ranked and best-selling hot sauces on Amazon and their revenue is already at $8,000 per day and growing fast.
Now, they’ve done this despite having the most expensive product and being based in another country on the other side of the world.
That’s pretty impressive stuff and it shows you what’s possible with the right strategy.
So how does this all work?
Amazon Marketplace for those that don’t know is a service, which allows brands to list their products alongside Amazon’s for a fee and sell direct to consumers.
Thousands of Australian brands have already signed up with each brand organising shipping, returns and customer service themselves.
Soon a service called Fulfilment by Amazon will launch and this will allow brands to ship their items in bulk direct to Amazon and for a fee have them take care of everything – something that is very popular in the US.
The opportunity to outperform big brands that would generally dominate lies in the fact that Amazon uses advanced algorithms with thousands of data points to determine which products to rank in search results and categories.
This ensures they show customers the most relevant products that are priced correctly and are likely to deliver the best customer experience.
Like SEO, these rankings can be optimised allowing smaller brands with the right strategy to outrank bigger ones and therefore get more traffic and sales.
How do I get started?
To signup for Amazon Marketplace click here.
Once you’ve been approved and can start listing products here are the 7 key things you should focus on to maximise the sales you generate:
1. Create an attractive brand that stands out
Even the power of Amazon won’t help a poorly thought out brand so it’s important to invest time into improving it and into making sure it stands out compared to your competitors.
You should also make sure your products are high quality, that they’ve got the best packaging and that you’re selling products that people actually want.
If you can nail this, then every other element in your Amazon marketing campaign will be maximised.
2. Give them an offer that they can’t refuse
Amazon is a marketplace and in every category there are hundreds of competitors so you need to give your target market an offer they can’t refuse.
Along with ensuring your pricing is correct and that your product has the best shipping, guarantees and returns policy think about what more you can do to entice the purchase.
A good example of this is what the TV Shopping channel is famous for –
“the free gift” and this is a tactic, which can work well on Amazon and help set you apart from competitors.
You could offer an extended warranty, a complementary item, or if you offered a skincare product for example you could offer free eBook featuring a skin care guide.
3. Optimise your product pages
Like optimising and improving your eCommerce website your actual product listings will have a big impact on your overall results with high converting products being favoured by Amazon.
You can optimise your product titles, images, bullet points, product descriptions, and even the categories they appear in and a lot of other elements.
Once you’ve optimised your listings it doesn’t stop there – you can use your Amazon Marketplace statistics to continually improve every aspect of your product listings.
4. Generate positive reviews
Amazon prides itself on customer service and ensuring a great shopping experience and thus it favours products that have a lot of good reviews.
Firstly, ensure the quality of your products is high and your customer experience is top notch then you want to setup an automated review generation system that will increase the number of positive reviews you are getting.
Not only will this improve your product rankings, but it will also maximise your conversion rate.
If you do get any negative reviews it’s worthwhile contacting the customer and spending time to solve the issue and then asking them to edit their review later.
5. Market your product listings
Although your first instinct will be to send marketing to your own website and avoid any fees, Amazon favours products that are making them more money.
If you advertise your product listings you’ll get more traction, better rankings, and you’ll build reviews faster.
To do this you should take advantage of Amazon’s own marketing options such as their sponsored product ads and their dynamic display ads.
You should also utilise offsite advertising such as Adwords, Bing, Facebook Ads, Email Marketing, and you can even build SEO links to your product listings, which will help them rank in Google.
6. Take advantage of Amazon’s features
Amazon’s sole objective is to give customers the best service possible and to do this they’re frequently launching new features, for example Fulfilment by Amazon, which I mentioned earlier.
Because of the customer service focus they have, they then prioritise products with these features enabled knowing that the infrastructure Amazon has invested in is the best possible solution for their customers.
If you take advantage of these features and implement them quickly you’ll get a big head start on your competitors.
7. Broaden your product range
Once some of your products are succeeding on Amazon you can also start broadening your product range as you’ll find future products take off much faster this is because of cross-selling, bundling of products plus Amazon’s personalised recommendations which will favour your brand to past customers.
One thing you should remember is to build an email list of all your past Amazon purchasers this will enable you to generate repeat purchases, but it will also kick start sales of any new product you launch.
If you implement your Amazon strategy correctly you’ll be able to compete with the big brands who have outbid you for supermarket and department store shelves for years.
With persistence and a bit of creativity it could grow to be one of your biggest digital marketing channels just don’t forget to keep optimising and innovating as those big brands may catch you up eventually.
That’s it for now, thanks for watching.
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From my point of view, Amazon is just another channel. I mean, you have different ways to get potential clients. But you have other ones like: SEO, socialmedias like youtube, APP store, etc.