How to sell on Amazon

Amazon success for startups!

Amazon holds a huge business potential for online sellers. It gives brands access to millions of customers on the world’s largest e-commerce platform.

Given that Amazon is expected to account for 14.6% of the #digitaladvertising market in 2023, its a key platform to get very close and personal with.

Here we’ve blended our team’s Amazon insights with some supplementary guidance from global experts to share all you need to ace your Amazon strategy in 2022.

The impact of 2021

At a recent webinar from @Emarketers, it was predicted that stock control and forecasting will really impact product marketing & sales plans in this first half of 2022. The Suez canal crisis caused over $400m of delayed stock in 2021 and of course many businesses are set on shifting their excess product. But experts at the webinar shared a clear message about how to do this on Amazon. In essence implement a rapid re-pricing strategy to move along older stock and focus on your hero products - even if these hero products are limited in number right now.

Brand .v. Price

A refreshed product and pricing strategy is important but it’s definitely not about double discounting to shift that old stock. A smart nurturing strategy should include ways to engage customers with discount offers whilst maintaining brand quality.

Example tactics include curating product bundles that you might cross promote. Or perhaps develop a VIP customer club to funnel exclusive price reductions.

The key is to maintain brand equity and customer behaviour.

Prepare well and keep agile

From the outset, building a successful growth marketing strategy on Amazon needs exactly the same level of pre-planning, quality content and agility as your other digital marketing platforms. If anything, recent new marketing features on Amazon have been developing even faster than competitors, with some rather familiar sounding channels being launched to optimise brand content like ‘Amazon Brand Stories’ and ‘Amazon Posts’.’

Maintaining stock and inventory is absolutely vital. Remember that Amazon rules are fairly strict. It's crucial to maintain a good seller score and Amazon marketplace standards are unforgiving. Customers have come to expect a high-level of service.

To meet all of those standards, you may need to tighten the reins on your inventory and fulfilment process and this is a hugely important consideration for startups - to ensure enough inventory is available before they take on Amazon.

Say Hello To Halo

One of the first areas to address is your suite of marketing assets. We recommend a HALO approach. In other words, make sure you have ready and prepared a rich mix of digital content including video, imagery and creative copy to really impact and educate your customers.

Amazon wants brands to put the same level of vision, time and investment into their Amazon digital store or ‘shelf’ as they would for their website or bricks and mortar outlets. Enticing visual theatre is key and Amazon tells us that over 70% of purchase decisions are based on the strength of imagery alone. But actually it’s not just about compelling imagery any more. Quality film content is THE big champion asset to harness in 2022.

Video first strategy

So many marketing platforms channels are now recommending that video forms your lead consumer marketing tactic. Forbes Marketing Council rate video in their top 5 marketing tools for 2022 and Cisco predicts that over 80% of internet traffic will be video. In fact Amazon marketplace has it’s own team of video creators and copywriters who are available to optimise click through rates and conversions..

But continual video production costs can spiral and Amazon services are not cheap. The trick is to think about a video first strategy for all your marketing channels and then re-purpose video content across all your channels.

For example, if your brand has collected a series of influencer videos - ask permission to use those videos on Amazon too. Chances are they’ll be flattered and delighted.

Product details

Videos help tell both brand and product stories. And for many consumer products, ‘show and tell’ videos work well. Think about sharing more about product ingredients, perhaps highlighting seasonal trends. Also think about making inspiring videos about how to use the product. According to experts, it’s often the product details that really engage customers on Amazon. Particularly if you match descriptive keywords with your SEO strategy. But really it’s all about a blend. Let your customers explore your brand and products through a whole mix of constantly refreshed creative copy, video and imagery designed for desktop and mobile.

Descriptions and categories

Naturally, there is a huge amount of competition on Amazon with 20 or more sellers often competing on a given listing. Make sure your product descriptions are 100% accurate and keep refreshing the right categories to help make your brand visible.

Regularly re-evaluating categories and descriptions makes a significant sales difference. This is often where experts are invaluable - implementing that ‘always on’ approach, analysing, recommending and creating change strategies.

Measurement and analytics

There’s a huge wealth and many different levels of advertising data and analytics to work with that is served by Amazon. Vendor Central is the invite-only platform for established brands with a strong demand and being part of Vendor Central means you have access to some of the most in-depth insights - but knowing what to look for and how to respond? This may be where you want to bring in some external expertise.

And finally! Remember, once you’ve activated a marketing content feast you are proud of - cross communicate across your customer base. Tell your audience that they can find you on Amazon. Some people are just more comfortable buying on Amazon.

If Amazon is one of your key channels this year - get in touch! We're here to help! #marketing #sales #digital #health