As a seller, you may have often faced the difficult struggle of dividing your time between working on your products, storing them, thinking of new ideas and advertising your creations to the world effectively.
A good advertising campaign can boost the value of your products, increase their general visibility and vastly improve your brand name, all at the same time.
Are you worried about having to manage your advertising campaigns and fear that you might run the risk of ignoring your products if you focus on marketing too much?
You don’t have to worry about a thing! Amazon gives you the option to use their Campaign Manager tool, in their PPC model.
We’re going to help you get started on your way to Amazon stardom!
What to Do Before Launching Your Product on Amazon?
Before you launch your product online, there are some things you can do to ensure that your launch is a huge success. To make this easier for you, we’ve laid out everything you need to do, right here.
The first thing you need to take care of is to build an amazing product listing.
Believe us when we tell you, your initial sales and Amazon average have long-lasting consequences for your future as a seller.
If you’re unprepared when you launch and still haven’t gotten your act together, there’s a good chance that your lack of effort in creating a perfect listing will come back to bite you.
Take care of these things when you’re making a listing:
Clear, coherent and well-researched title.
High quality, relevant images.
Use relevant and specific keywords.
Also, do a market survey before you start. Collect and analyze market trends and opportunities before you start selling online.
Another good strategy is to create a “coming soon” page on social media sites and elsewhere, just to start developing your brand, and ensuring that you get amazing responses from customers by the time you actually start selling.
If you play smart, you can also utilize your launch week to welcome a hoard of customers.
How so? Make an OTO, or a “one-time offer”, where you offer discounts and incentives during your launch week. This can really be huge for your campaign and the subsequent reaction you receive.
Still worried about receiving a lackluster response?
Don’t sweat, because the next thing you can do is to find the right influencers to promote your product for you. Be sure to find people who are genuinely interested in what you are putting out, and by opening day, you’ll be the talk of the town.
Select the Keywords You want to Rank for on Amazon
Keywords can make or break the game for you. This is generally an important step, so you need to take some time to really think about your product label and the keywords that people are most likely to associate your products with.
So firstly, think of all the words and phrases associated with a particular product. We’re going to illustrate this for you with a couple of examples
Let’s say you want to sell a furniture piece, say a table. Now the keywords associated with a table could be words like “furniture”, “wood”, “table”, “household” and so on.
If you’re selling a video game, the keywords could be something like “virtual”, “gaming”, “player”, “video”, “computer games” amongst others.
In this way, choose the keywords you want to rank for on Amazon. If you do this part well, a lot of what you might face later on will get considerably easier!
Pre-Launch Campaigns – What to do Before I Launch My Product?
As a seller, you’ll often have to be very creative with your pursuits. This section highlights some things you should do as a seller, before you launch your product, in order to get the best response when you do launch.
Keyword Research
What’s the volume for each keyword? What’s the competition? What’s the cost per click? Based on all this knowledge, you can run successful PPC campaigns to attract people towards your page.
When you’re choosing your keywords, PPC asks you how much you want to bid for keywords and what your daily budget is for the PPC campaign.
When looking at keywords, look at how competitive the keywords you’re using are. There are a number of different classifications of keywords you can use here, including (but not limited to) brand names, commercial keywords and so on.
Also, keep an eye out for the cost you are incurring per click. Since you only have to pay if a user clicks your advertisement, it can be generally helpful to know exactly how much each click costs you.
Learn about PPC
Time for you to learn about one of the best marketing tools you will ever use!
We’re sure you’ve heard the term and wondered what it was. Today’s the day you find out.
Amazon PPC (Pay-per-click) is a platform for advertising where you, as a seller, can post your advertisement. The good part? On PPC, you only have to pay for the advertisement if a potential customer clicks on your ad and views your product.
There are a couple of things you should know here too. There are a few types of Amazon PPC. These are:
- Sponsored product ads
- Product display ads
- Headline search ads
Sponsored product ads allow you, as a seller, to market your products based on the specific keywords you chose to represent your product.
Product display ads are ads that are shown on the product page, and for customers, are largely a self-service option.
Lastly, headline search ads (also called banner ads) are ads that appear at the top of your search results, along with the brand logo.
Learn Who Your Audiences Are
One of the most crucial things you need to do is to identify the particular demographic of people you are catering to. Who is your target audience?
What age is your target audience? What beliefs do they most commonly hold? How do they respond to various kinds of marketing?
If you get this part right, hopefully you’ll have a clear idea of the people you are pitching your products to. You can then realistically determine the marketing strategies and tricks that can get through to them.
For example, if your primary audience is small children, creating colourful, engaging ads might help attract them to your products.
Alternatively, maybe a detailed advertisement highlighting the pros and cons of your product will get through to older audiences that are looking for a step-by-step breakdown of your product before they are convinced.
So knowing your audience is crucial! If you know your audience, you know how to get them to buy.
Build an Online Hype – Create Facebook Ads & Build up an Email List
The first thing to understand about Facebook ads in order to create an attention-grabbing ad is that they are meant to be interruption ads.
What this means is that you have to create such content that appears on your audience’s feed to make them stop whatever they are doing, and engages them right away.
The trick to do this is a bit more complicated than just using “interesting” content. There are several factors to consider.
You should definitely start by choosing the most enticing images you can. Now they can be enticing in a number of ways.
You can create online hype by choosing images that either present your offer in a way that is too good to let go, images that attempt to gain the viewer’s trust or images that represent your brand in the form of hooks/slogans.
Next, you should definitely work on your ad description. Bear in mind that while writing your description, you have to keep various audiences in mind. These can be familiar customers who have bought from you before, first-time buyers or people looking to learn more about what you’re selling.
Create a good amount of online hype. Promote your brand, give discounts, publish offers, highlight giveaways and just make your product look like something that’s worth all the hype.
How to Have a Successful Product Launch
Afraid you’ll mess up your product launch? Don’t worry, we’ve got you!
If possible, hire a product launch consultant to help you flesh out a solid plan.
You should also definitely go for Amazon PPC! Don’t miss out on a creative advertising opportunity if you see one.
Make your product launch look like something people feel they just can’t miss out on. Discounts, attractive deals, and reasonable pricing coupled with smart advertising, and you’re good to go.
Keep in mind that your goal here is to tell customers how your product is better than what everyone else out there is selling.
If you choose the right keywords, analyze market trends, set up attractive incentives and make everything’s in place before you sell, your launch will be as successful as can be.
1. Set up Amazon PPC
Setting up your Amazon PPC is a very simple process. Here, we’ve outlined everything you need to know!
- First, go to you Seller Central Account and choose “Campaign Manager”.
- The Campaign Manager will ask you to set up your campaign budget and the duration you will be needing the PPC.
- Now you’ll have to give a name to your group of ads
- Then, you select the products that you want to advertise. Bear in mind that you can only choose one product per advertisement
- This is where you’ll decide the amount you want to spend on each keyword. You now decide your bids, both for the keywords and a daily budget. These factors determine how many clicks you get per day, so choose carefully!
- Then, you choose your keywords. As we’ve discussed already, choosing your keywords can be a daunting process. These keywords ultimately determine the amount of clicks and views you’ll get, so choose wisely! Be specific!
Also, Amazon offers a list of suggested keywords. If you can’t think of any yourself, these may help!
- Lastly, after you’re done with all the previous steps, select “Save and Finish” after which you’ll be redirected to your Campaign Manager page.
2. Target the Identified Keywords via PPC Campaigns
Alright, so in the pre-launch phase, we discussed how you should proceed when choosing keywords for your products.
Here’s an important, but very simple step. Once you’ve identified the specific keywords that you think will be most helpful to your campaign, you need to target those keywords when it comes to your PPC campaigns.
One issue you might face otherwise is that if you choose the wrong keywords, you might end up hurting your PPC campaign, and consequently, wasting precious revenue that otherwise, could have been put to good use.
Let’s take a quick look at what types of keywords can be most effective for your PPC.
The first is brand name. Obviously, your brand name is the most vital keyword you can use, because it’s unique!
Another type is long-tail keywords. These are basically phrases which point to your specific product, or a characteristic of your product.
Commercial keywords and competitive keywords each bring their own set of advantages to the table.
Find useful combinations that best display your brand, and then sit back, relax and see your PPC grow like never before!
3. Enroll Your Product in Amazon Early Reviewer Program
Amazon early reviewer program encourages buyers to give honest reviews – regardless of whether they are 1-star or 5-star – about their experience with a product.
Amazon says that it’s a win-win situation for both the seller and the buyer as it “helps (sellers) to acquire early reviews on products that have few or no reviews, helping shoppers make smarter buying decisions.”
In return for submitting their honest opinion within the offer period, Amazon rewards the reviewer with a $1-$3 Amazon gift card.
Suppose you just signed your product up for Amazon early reviewer program.
Say, for instance, 10 people bought this product from you.
Amazon will now randomly reach out to a list of these buyers, ask them to give an honestly authentic review on your product and offer a small reward in return.
You’ll be able to identify an early review by an orange badge titled “Early Reviewer Rewards” that looks like this:
4. Offer Attractive Discounts and Deals
You’ve got to be open about giving deals and discounts to your customers.
At this initial stage in your selling career, you know the best thing you could give your product is a good name, credibility and a ton of exposure.
Try making up deals that sound attractive. For example, deals like buy one, get one free, or discounts like 25 or 50% off can rile up customers and make them feel like they’re missing out on something big.
If you can convince customers that your offer is good, they’ll go for it!
At this point, all you have to do is combine products, maybe couple them together in bundles and then market them effectively. Happy selling!
After You Have Launched a Product
Alright, so you’re done with the launch. Congratulations! Now it’s time for you to look at everything you can do to make sure your products stay relevant, fresh and likable.
There are several things you can now do. You have to sustain a good selling average to keep things good in terms of credibility as a seller. Also, you can take advantage of things like coupons and giveaways!
Give customers good reasons to familiarize themselves with you, and trust us, the returns will be unparalleled!
Sustain a Good Selling Average – No One-Time Massive Hits
There are many buzzwords in the world of online selling, but when it comes to Amazon, the golden word is consistency.
Confused? Nothing to worry about. You see, selling on Amazon is structured so that one big hit or one good day at the office won’t simply turn you into an overnight success.
Far, far more important than a couple of big hits is that you maintain a good, consistent selling average.
The reason why this is so important is that Amazon uses moving averages to determine the organic ranking of your product.
Now we know that as a seller, there’s only a limited amount of content and material that you can use in your launching campaigns.
If you make the rookie mistake of piling everything you have into one launching campaign, chances are you’re not going to be left with much for promotions and campaigns soon.
Here’s what you can do: Spread out your launching campaigns over some time (say two weeks), so that your products keep getting exposure and you maintain a constant stream of visitors and buyers.
At the end of the day, your goal is to be on the front page when someone looks up your category of products.
Since consistency is rewarded heavily on Amazon, try to make strategies that place importance on continual selling and long-term goals, not just big, isolated trades.
With that, you’re good to go!
Amazon Giveaways
Giveaways are fun!
On Amazon, the way giveaways work is that you (the seller) buys the products at full price.
Then, you have several options at your disposal. You can choose a specific number of customers randomly and distribute your products to them, free of cost. You can hold draws that are either free to enter or the customers have to watch a video of your product to enter.
Anyways, giveaways can be a very fun way to attract customers to your brand. You can come up with innovative stuff, like giving non-winners discounts on the product.
Ultimately, you choose how many units to give away. Whether you want to give away 100, 200 or 600 of your units is entirely up to your choosing.
Giveaways after a product launch can facilitate you in many ways: they get the word out about your product, they are enjoyable experiences for customers and they help you gain relevance as a seller!
Amazon Single-use Coupons
Amazon gives you some powerful options to best maneuver your way through the world of selling.
As a seller, you now have the option of giving your customers single-use coupons, usually for discounts.
Their key features, as you might be guessing, is that they can only be used once, by one customer. What this means, is that these coupon codes can’t be shared on other deal sites.
These single-use coupon codes can be a great way of incentivizing your customers, giving them generous discounts and offers that we’re sure they’ll appreciate you for.
All in all, coupons are one of the best ways to keep expanding your customer base after your product launch.
Wrapping it Up
We’ve talked about a lot of stuff in this guide, haven’t we?
By now, you’ll have a good idea of how to manage your campaigns on Amazon, how to get the most out of your advertising experience, how to identify keywords, what to focus on when creating advertisements and how to attract a customer base.
We’ve also looked at some helpful things you can do before you launch your product to get the best response from your customers and how to offer attractive incentives and irresistible discounts to get customers hooked to your brand.
We’re so happy that we were able to help you along your way and guide you towards mastering the Amazon selling experience.
If you have any questions/issues, do reach out to us, and our team will be overjoyed to get back to you.
