Amazon is the cornerstone of e-commerce, accounting for 37.8 percent of the U.S. e-commerce market in 2022. The reign of Amazon as the e-commerce king doesn't seem like it's ending as the platform keeps registering more visitors every month.
The Amazon algorithm is built around one core belief — customers need to buy. Amazon is interested in making sales just as much as sellers. There is only one key difference; Amazon has loyalty toward one brand — the company itself. So how do you stand out in an ocean of brands, some bigger than you, to generate more sales? You must implement the right Amazon seller strategy to connect with your target audience, drive traffic to your product listings and register more sales.
Read the full article to unlock the best Amazon seller strategy in 2022.
What Is an Amazon Marketing Strategy, and Why Do You Need One?
An Amazon seller strategy refers to a brand's long-term plan for achieving large-scale brand awareness and customer loyalty. An Amazon marketing strategy encompasses products, pricing, marketing, and advertising and should work to transform first-time customers into repeat customers. An Amazon seller strategy helps you market to potential customers and boost your visibility to help you stand out from the competition to generate more sales.
Pro Tip: SmartScout can help you tailor your Amazon seller strategy. Use our tool suite to unlock the best products and keywords and discover important competitor insights. Contact us today for a free demo.
How Do You Develop an Effective Marketing Strategy?
There is no doubt that Amazon is an excellent platform for reaching millions of potential customers. But getting these customers to notice you and actually purchase your product is easier said than done. You can give your brand the best possible chance to succeed with the right marketing strategy. Here’s how:
#1 Optimize Your Product Listing for the Amazon Search Algorithm
Before you get to the optimization stage, you’ll want to ensure you find the best product to generate the most sales and profit at just the right price. Next, you’ll create a stunning product detail page with a compelling description and scroll-stopping images. Once your content is streamlined to articulate your product's best benefits, you’ll need the single most crucial ingredient — Amazon SEO. Otherwise, your products will lack a fair chance of getting discovered on the world’s largest online marketplace.
Amazon SEO involves optimizing your product listings to make it easy for customers to find you. 74% of customers begin their product search on Amazon. A customer types a phrase in the Amazon search box, and Amazon generates relevant search results. If you aren't using the right keywords, your product has almost no chance of being discovered.
A lot goes into creating an SEO Amazon seller strategy, but the most important is ensuring that your product descriptions are well-written and complete with carefully chosen keywords. To do this, you’ll want to ensure that all aspects of your product listing are optimized for the Amazon search algorithm. This includes leveraging the most relevant, highest searched keywords in the title, bullet points, backend search terms, and product description. The images and videos you use in your listings should also be optimized using relevant keywords. Amazon, in the end, is a search engine just like Google, so optimization is non-negotiable. With a large number of consumers flocking to mobile to purchase in 2022, it's worth mentioning that mobile optimization is also crucial to your success.
#2 Boost Your Ranking With Amazon Paid Advertising
Search engine optimization is a proven strategy to generate organic traffic to your product listing. However, with so much competition on Amazon, it's more than likely that you’ll need to boost your efforts through paid advertising. Creating an Amazon ad is easy; making it convert is the hard part. Amazon has a variety of paid advertising avenues for sellers to develop effective marketing strategies. Amazon ads include Amazon sponsored product ads, Amazon display ads, and Amazon sponsored brand ads.
Amazon sponsored product ads refer to paid ads that help drive customers to specific product pages. These ads are keyword-based and pay-per-click. With sponsored product ads, you need to perform thorough keyword research and use keywords that will help you rank higher in search results.
Amazon display ads are displayed when customers search for similar products rather than when they use a specific keyword. For instance, if you sell dog treats and someone searches for ‘BFF biscuits,’ Amazon will display your product in the search results. Like sponsored product ads, display ads are charged on a per-click basis.
The last ad type is the Amazon sponsored brand ad that markets an entire brand rather than a single product. Your logo, headline, and multiple products are displayed on relevant search results and charged per click. When you are developing an Amazon advertising strategy, make use of all three PPC ad types.
If you want to see what your competition is doing, SmartScout has some tools to see what your competitors are bidding on and what competitors are spending on Amazon Ads.
#3 Develop an Effective Social Media Marketing Plan
Most Amazon sellers concentrate so much on optimizing their listings and paid advertising that they forget social media. TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook offer an incredible opportunity to reach potential customers. Social media carries a lot of weight, but you’ll want to fine-tune your marketing strategy for each social platform.
What's even better about social media is that some sites make it easy to create ads targeting a specific group. Facebook ads allow you to create a PPC ad campaign that targets customers you are interested in rather than customers who would never buy your product. And it doesn't stop there; you can directly link your ad to your Amazon product page for increased traffic.
#4 Consider Outsourcing Marketing From an Amazon Marketing Provider
Amazon marketing services consist of experts who walk you through all aspects of Amazon marketing. These specialized agencies create optimized product listings, develop effective advertising campaigns and leverage the power of social media marketing to ensure your marketing efforts pay off in the long term. Working with an Amazon marketing agency will chip into your budget, but it's a worthwhile investment.
#5 Partner With Influencers or Leverage User-Generated Content
Influencing is an age-old advertising strategy brands have used for years to promote their businesses. But an emerging trend consists of brands leveraging user-generated content (UGC) to boost brand awareness and loyalty. Both options are effective, but choosing one over the other may depend on your budget and goals.
We know that consumers tend to connect products to people, and that’s why both options are essential factors in your Amazon seller strategy. UGC can be found on most social media platforms and is far lower in cost. The final benefit of choosing UGC is that it is more trusted. Because influencing has become so widespread, audiences aren’t sure if the products being repped are worthwhile. All of that to say, we suggest leveraging both in your Amazon seller strategy for the best results.
Summary
With millions of products being sold on Amazon and no apparent reason for a customer to pick one over the other, it's paramount that you think about your marketing strategy. An effective Amazon seller strategy can help increase profitability while ensuring that competitors remain at bay. Amazon sellers who learn to use Amazon marketing to their advantage have a higher chance of thriving in today's competitive e-commerce landscape.
What do you think? What does your Amazon marketing strategy entail? Comment below.
Try the SmartScout tool suite to find the best products and brands and build a long-standing effective Amazon seller strategy. Contact us for a free trial.
