Winning on Amazon is a simple equation
Traffic plus Conversion minus Defects equals Growth
For every business on Amazon, there is the question – what should I focus on this year to grow my business to the goals I want to achieve? We all know what the goal is: sell a lot and make money! But, the details on how to get there can be a bit more murky as we zero in on that goal.
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Driving Traffic
Traffic comes from advertising, primary image, the product title, and keyword content.
If you’re new:
Get all of your products on an automatic advertisement – even if it’s only $5/day. The value of the customer search term information alone is worth the cost.
If you’re growing:
Test your primary image conversion by using one image for a week, then a different image for a week while changing nothing else and evaluate whether the conversion rate changes (unit session percentage in the Business Reports, Detail Page Sales and Traffic by Child Item).
Take customer search term data from your advertising report, and sort only the items that have had sales. Use the converting keyword search terms to insert the highest converting keywords into the title, and throughout the bullets and into the backend search terms.
Use a research tool to find what your competitors are ranking for, and then bid against those in a manual keyword based advertisement.
Driving Conversion
Conversion comes from convincing copy, appealing secondary images or video, price, and delivery times.
If you’re new:
Research the questions and answers on your top competitor’s page. Catalog the most commonly asked questions with the highest quantity of upvotes and answers.
For example, a question with 4 updates and 4 answers would have 8 points. Once you’ve sorted them, re-organize your bullets in the same order as the questions that were asked – and of course, make sure you’ve answered those questions!
If you’re growing:
Lifestyle images are absolutely critical for increasing conversion over time – but sometimes, we forget to think about how our secondary images are perceived on mobile devices. When you swipe right, are the pictures engaging enough not to lose your customer?
Try reordering your pictures on the same basis as the above process for creating customer focused bullets.
If you haven’t thought about using coupons, start thinking about it! It can be a great way to increase your overall rank and visibility by using a coupon combined with increased advertising spend. This is the Amazon approved method of increasing rank – not only do they make money, but ultimately customers are choosing winners and losers which they much prefer.
If you’ve been holding off on FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), test it out! You can always change your prices to reflect the higher shipping cost if your product isn’t the right size/weight for optimal FBA cost. The prime badge is so important to conversion.
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Reduce Your Defects
Defects come from poor packaging, poor customer service management, and poor in-stock management.
If you’re new:
Familiarize yourself with the restock inventory page under Inventory Planning. It’s not perfect – none of Amazon’s tools are – but it’s pretty darn convenient.
Try adding a promotion code to your automated follow-up emails. Please be careful of this – as with any “gray areas,” marketing emails are not permitted, but Amazon does like emails to customers that add value and they certainly like getting additional sales.
If you’re growing:
Be careful not to oversupply on Amazon – but use the cheaper version of replenishment where possible. Even if you are growing and don’t have a warehouse or a life gate, you can manually create pallets in your storage unit area, home, or rented office and ship at pallet rates.
Make sure to call the trucking company to explain your situation so they bring the right equipment! Pallet shipments can be sometimes 10% of the cost per unit of small parcel shipments.
Carefully and objectively evaluate your customer complaints. If they’re consistent, don’t write them off as being “stupid customers.”
I have found that some customers just don’t understand written words as well as others, so having a video is absolutely critical to fixing defects related to customer misunderstandings.
Here’s to a prosperous 2019!
Don’t forget to prepare for special events, like Prime Day – usually mid July – and Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend – usually end of November.
If you’re already confident about your business on Amazon, perhaps it’s time to launch your website, a new social media channel, start pitching to wholesale vendors, or launch on a new channel!
Not sure what you need to prepare for? Take our Prime Day or Black Friday 30 day Bootcamp and be 100% ready! Contact us to learn more.
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Learn what you're missing to grow your Amazon Business
Click the button below to build your Amazon business with your FREE revenue growth guide.
