Amazon’s biggest annual members-only shopping event, Prime Day 2018, is fast approaching. Having recently exceeded the 100 million mark for Prime memberships, the 30-hour online promotion extravaganza is one retailers and brands should pay significant attention to. Last year’s Prime Day smashed records with sales booming by more than 60% compared to the year before. Vendors will miss out on a huge opportunity if they don’t prepare and maximise this year.
If brands weren’t already building a dedicated strategy for the online e-tail giant into their core marketing plans, these numbers are a strong call to action. In the UK alone, more people tried Prime during 2017’s event, compared to any other day that year, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016.
Simultaneously, the Prime landscape is evolving to match growing interest, with the e-tailer introducing a number of new features for brands this year. The new tools will help brands and sellers understand and measure their pages’ performance better, optimise and increase their stores’ presence, and gather detailed insight about traffic, sources, pages and sales via comprehensive reporting. A new headline search placements feature and a custom bid adjustment feature for bids of other headline search placements will give vendors more control over how much they’re willing to adjust their bids. All these innovations suggest that Amazon is predicting an even bigger sales opportunity to be maximised or missed this year.
Preparation is key, but vendors must also be ready to manage and maintain their performance during the event itself. Here are our top recommendations for achieving that.
Amazon choice products
There is no shortcut method to getting the ‘Amazon choice’ label on your product’s page, but it is undeniable that this stamp of approval gives an additional appeal to buyers. So, when searching for the ‘best toaster oven’ for example, your product can be pushed up in the results, based on price, availability and rating. Brands must ensure their product pages encompass good reviews, decent prices and fast shipping options which, if not granting them the ‘Amazon choice’ label, will at least get them a step closer to it.
Building compelling A+ content
It’s important to ensure you have the correct, descriptive copy for your product pages, enhancing your product’s visibility. Many vendors still make the obvious mistake of using low resolution or old product images, which hinders performance. The right media choice for your A+ content, like images, video material and comparison charts, can increase sales by an average of 3% to 10%. This helps customers overcome purchase hesitations and make an informed buying decision.
Long and short-term tactics for effective AMS and AMG campaigns
While Prime Day is a short 30-hour burst, it’s important that vendors spend time fine tuning both short-term tactics (for Prime Day) and long-term strategy – whether for product launches, incremental sales or an always-on approach. Maintaining a consistent presence throughout the whole year and optimising stores and product pages in terms of media choice ahead of a product launch or Prime Day is vital to boosting customer confidence in the purchase process. Brands need to be constantly testing their strategies and methods, analysing their products’ performance and undertaking shopper-focused research throughout the whole year to safeguard their potential success.
Many choose to partner with external specialists, who can provide the expertise, skillset, experience and insight needed to complete focused optimisation programmes. Using an external company can also help businesses hold on to increased Prime Day traffic, which often requires a lot more time, attention and work than the rest of the year. This can help build a strong foundation to serve brands from this Prime Day to the next. Ecommerce activity is a cycle that requires considerate maintenance.
Maximising every opportunity to attract and convert shoppers
While Amazon is a huge player in the ecommerce space, physical stores and brands’ websites continue to drive plenty of business. As such, maintaining consistency inside and outside of Amazon’s platform is crucial to upholding a seamless shopper journey that customers increasingly expect and demand. Sustaining consistency in tone of voice, pricing, product description and presentation across all channels can further help cater to their shoppers’ needs.
Yet, some businesses, including consumer electronics brands, have been slow to the party. Better late than never we say. A growing number of businesses are seeing the positive results, and consequentially ROI, they can achieve if they have their own Amazon brand stores, instead of working with distributors. Even if they’re only just starting to use Amazon’s marketing services now, knowing that brands’ sales off of Amazon grew by 30% on Prime Day 2017, means many businesses can already envision the benefits the event’s online shopping holiday brings.
Brands need to be using Amazon’s full suite of features and tools, maximising the e-tail giant’s services in order to build a solid presence that drives sales. The stronger the page, the more it shows up in search, the more it gets clicked on, considered and chosen. Many choose to entrust and work with knowledgeable partners who can support their activity on the platform by adopting the right strategic process for them. Not maximising on Prime Day will be a missed opportunity for brands in the Amazon era.