You chose to start or expand your ecommerce business on the Amazon marketplace because you know how popular it is among online shoppers. Just in the recently concluded Prime Day 2022, Amazon reported that customers bought items from small businesses that amounted to more than $3 billion.
So, it is understandable why many business owners like you continue to look for and test out various ways to market their products effectively and reach more customers, new or otherwise. While it is not easy for your business to thrive in the marketplace because of the existing competition, you can still succeed by implementing the right strategies.
This blog elaborates on five major keys you need and how they can help you build a perfect Amazon marketing strategy.
1. Setting SMART Goals
When you first thought of starting an online business, you must have had your business goals set. After all, these goals do not only motivate you to pursue success but also give direction for other parts of your business, like fulfillment, product development, or marketing.
So to think of a solid marketing plan, you must establish your SMART goals first. The acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. By making goals that show all these attributes and following through with this plan, you will stay focused on what you want to achieve.
This is a good example of a SMART goal: “Within three months, I want to reach a 10% increase in traffic on the listing of our newly-launched product by spending $1,500 per month on Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display.”
2. Understanding Your Customers
As an entrepreneur, you understand how vital customers are to almost every aspect of your business. Even when choosing what to sell on Amazon FBA, you still consider their needs and wants. Therefore, it is also best for you to understand your customers while building your marketing strategies, which are catered to them anyway.
A way to better understand your customers is by looking into their purchasing habits, like what deals they look for and how much they are willing to pay for a certain product. Once you have gathered sufficient information or identified a pattern in their purchasing habits, you can start testing out whether this will work for your business or not. So if you find out that your target customers often purchase Buy One Get One deals, consider offering them as well.
Moreover, it would help for you to know and understand what kind of influences affect their purchasing decisions. For example, if your target market is Gen Z, you must understand that they are most likely to buy products that famous influencers and celebrities endorse. Therefore, collaborating with influencers would be best for your business.
3. Determining Your Budget for Your Marketing Efforts
There are several ways to market your products online, such as content, email, and social media marketing. And if you want to shell out money on advertisements, you can also run paid ads within and outside the Amazon marketplace. So if you are still not using any of these strategies, you are losing several opportunities to attract customers and boost your sales.
But no matter how beneficial these strategies are in increasing your traffic, you must take other areas that can cost money, such as paying for e-commerce sales tax or settling fulfillment services. Once you have budgeted your resources well and identified how much your marketing budget is, you can finally start planning your strategies for your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns on Amazon or social media sites.
4. Learning about the Latest SEO Algorithms
Change is constant even in the business world. So as a business owner, you must always be updated with the changes not only in Amazon’s selling guidelines but also in their search engine optimization (SEO) algorithms. This way, you are prepared to adjust your strategies accordingly so that you will not be left behind.
Like Google, Amazon uses its search engine with different algorithms to better help customers find the products they need. Even though Amazon did not officially announce that they made changes to the A9 algorithm, experts noticed some changes, which they later claimed to be the A10 algorithm.
This shows that you must be constantly updated with news and changes on Amazon to optimize your product listings accordingly. If not, you will miss out on a lot of sales and potential customers.
5. Observing Your Competitors’ Strategies
Because Amazon continues to bring new customers into its marketplace, more and more third-party sellers want to join in the ride and gain more sales through this platform. As a result, there are now almost 2 million active sellers on Amazon, which can be intimidating for new sellers.
But instead of focusing on achievements they have acquired for a long time, you must learn from them by observing their marketing strategies. For example, if you want to find out which keywords they use, it would be best for you to use advanced keyword research tools.
For example, they can show data on how your and your competitors’ keywords fare on Amazon, which can help you decide the keywords you should use on your product listing and campaign advertisements.
Or, if you want to gain more insights into how your competitors succeed in their product launches, you should check out all strategies they implemented before, during, and after the launch. Then on your next product launch, you can try out these strategies to see if they would also benefit you.
Final Thoughts
Indeed, building an effective Amazon marketing strategy is not easy because you have to consider several things beforehand. These things include your SMART goals, customers, marketing budget, SEO algorithms, and your competitors. However, by aligning your strategies with these crucial factors, you can improve your sales and thrive on the Amazon marketplace.
