How to Create Your New Product Launch Strategy For Amazon
If you are getting ready to sell a product, make sure you are doing it online. According to Statista, Amazon generated sales of 108.52 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2021. These sales figures show that the digital domain is slowly taking over conventional product businesses, and Amazon has a huge role in this development.
Launching a product on Amazon is not easy. Besides listing, several other factors make a product launch successful. For instance, incorporating high-quality images, writing SEO-optimized product descriptions, organizing early promotions make your product visible.
These early steps can strengthen your brand and promote your product to a wider audience. Moreover, considering the number of web visitors Amazon has, all your marketing efforts will have an excellent ROI. However, if you don’t have a viable Amazon product launch strategy, you won’t generate expected sales. Therefore, in this blog post, I will share my tips on how to create a new product launch strategy on Amazon. This guide will help you understand the e-commerce giant’s dynamics and improve your existing product launch strategy (if you have one).
What Is a Product Launch?
A product launch is a planned and strategic way to release a new product in the market. Its importance is equal to developing a standalone product. Moreover, a robust product launch strategy allows a brand to stay on top of its competitors. In the case of Amazon, a product launch is made possible by a digital strategy that considers all consumer touchpoints and accounts for SEO.
Why Do You Need To Sell The Right Product on Amazon
Amazon has an overwhelming number of products on its website. As of 2021, Amazon has around 350 million products, and the number is only going to increase. These rising numbers have led people to believe that Amazon is a saturated marketplace. Although the conventional rules of business advise against launching in a market with multiple products and variants, Amazon is a bit different. Amazon facilitates its sellers by boosting its customer base. With well over 2 billion users, Amazon has maintained its demand and supply equilibriums.
However, selling the right product on Amazon has its own benefits. For starters, you will have a unique selling proposition, plus you will be addressing a market need that has fewer suppliers. However, finding a product on Amazon is where things get tricky.
The Amazon Ranking System
Amazon’s ranking algorithm A9 is the most difficult ranking system you can find. It creates a catch-22 situation where one thing is tied to the other. For instance, if you want to improve your rankings, you will need to make more sales, and you need a higher ranking to make sales. Few other metrics go into the A9 algorithm making it as complex as it is. The A9 determines your ranking by tracking your sales velocity, indicated by Click-through-rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR or CR). Both of these metrics are the heart and soul of the Amazon product ranking system.
Your CTR depends on how many people click on your listing, and your CR is the ratio of people who bought your product after clicking on it. So, the first thing you need to improve is your CTR, but to do that, you need to rank higher, which depends on your CR. So how do I rank a new product on Amazon?
Effective Strategies for Amazon Product Launch
If you want to be successful on Amazon, you need to put in hours more than money. This is because Amazon already has an established customer base. All you have to do is convert those customers to buy from you and not from your competitors. The only way you can do this is by working hard and improving your ranking.
But with Amazon’s catch 22 situation, ranking becomes complicated for most people. Here are 3 ways to increase your Amazon CTR and improve your ranking.
1. Start Blogging
The CTR of your product listing depends on exposure, which is nearly impossible to get if you are ranking anywhere after page 2. However, if you expand your horizon and take your marketing efforts to other domains, you can improve your ranking. The best way to do this is by blogging. You can create your own blog or do guest posts. The primary difference between starting your own blog and guest posting is that you save the time and effort of improving your website ranking on Google. Webmasters who offer guests post on their domain have significant web traffic, which you can use to your advantage. By creating compelling content that leads people to click on your links, you can drive traffic to your Amazon product.
Content Style for Amazon
The content you need to be targeting for your Amazon product has specific criteria. For instance, your guest posts won’t be anything like a casual blog or an article. Instead, you will focus on solving your customer’s problems through your content and your product.
Most people that invest in solar technology are either concerned about the environment, looking to save money off electricity bills, or spend most of their time outdoor. So, you can tailor your content according to your customer’s problems. For example: if you are selling solar panels, you need to understand your target audience and their reasons for buying a solar panel. The best way to engage your readers is by writing “Best of” articles.
“Best of” articles are written to inform users about the best product in your industry. For instance, if you are targeting customers who enjoy overlanding, your blog posts should be about “Best Gear for Overlanding.” Such titles attract the right people and amplify their curiosity. Moreover, your content will be shown to your target audience and people who are interested in buying your product.
As you start gaining exposure, your CTR will improve and lead to sales. When you start making sales, you get reviews. These reviews convince customers to purchase your product; therefore, getting good reviews and ranking should be your end goal. When your ranking improves, customers will check your reviews before making a purchase. Don’t assume you will make sales as your rank starts to improve. Instead, you should focus more on generating positive reviews. Keep in mind, not everyone will leave a review even if your product is flawless.
2. Influencer Marketing
If you don’t have good writing skills and believe that blogging won’t have much of an impact, you can try a shorter yet expensive way. Start looking for influencers in your industry. Influencers are people on social media with a substantial following. Your goal is to send your product to them and win a post in return. It’s a common practice ever since social media became mainstream, and influencers are always looking for things to talk about in their content. Your goal here is to win customers and make sales so you can send different offers to influencers, depending on your budget.
Some brands give their product for free in return for a post. Others offer paid partnerships. It all depends on your budget and which option is more economical for you. However, the best way to get the most out of your influencer deal is by offering your product for free and sharing a small percentage over sales. This will motivate influencers to market your product more often. For instance, if you sell make-up products, your partnered influencer can slip in your product and link multiple times to their viewers, and you won’t have to pay anything out of your pocket.
Discount Codes
Most influencer-based Amazon product launch strategies fail because the brand didn’t understand their influencer’s audience. If an influencer markets your products, shares your link and says all the positive things about it, it won’t incentivize their users to buy from you. What you need is to share a discount code with your influencer and have them decide how much they’d like to offer their audience. For example, the 15% discount voucher you shared with your influencer includes their percentage cut of the sale as well. Hence, if your influencer gives 10% of the 15% discount to their viewers, the influencer will only take 5% of each sale made from their discount voucher. This will take the load off your shoulders, and you can focus only on ranking your product.
3. YouTube Marketing
YouTube is the biggest video platform, and it has transitioned into becoming a marketing platform as well. If you are good at video making and editing, you can start a YouTube channel dedicated to your Amazon product. This is one of the best ways to improve your Amazon product ranking and earn a little money on the side. However, most people assume their YouTube channel for Amazon product launch should be dedicated to product uses and features. Although this is a good idea, it will limit your content, and you might run of ideas.
To improve your Amazon product launch results, you need to also market yourself, because you won’t be selling one product for your entire life. With time, you will include more products on your Amazon profile, and for that, you’ll need a different YouTube channel. Many people have found success in sharing their Amazon product launch strategy, and you can do the same.
If you are new to Amazon and still learning the ropes, you can take another route to success through YouTube. By starting vlogging, you can garner views and build a community. Once you have a community of people, you can make them buy anything.
Best Practice for Effective Amazon Product Launch
To make the most out of your Amazon product launch strategy, you should take the below-mentioned factors under consideration.
- Focus On Discoverability: Increasing product discoverability is the first step to a successful Amazon product launch strategy. So make sure all your efforts are directed towards it.
- Work On Getting Reviews: Reviews are an integral part of the Amazon ecosystem. Your efforts should be related to generating more reviews.
- Get Creative: Creativity has an important role in improving your Amazon product launch strategy. If you aren’t getting traffic from regular ads or content, try changing things a bit.
- Create Awareness: Educating your customers about your product is the fundamental principle of Amazon product launch. You can inform your potential customers about your product by creating videos and sharing them on YouTube and other social media channels.
- Focus on Remarketing: A lot of customers view a product and then abandon it. There can be many reasons for it, and you can improve your conversions by reaching out to these people.
Concluding Thoughts
Amazon product launch strategy is the most important aspect of being a successful seller. Without a strategic product launch plan, you can’t expect swift results. The strategies for Amazon product launch mentioned above can be used separately and combined. For instance, you can incorporate your YouTube videos in your Guest posts to improve your content engagements. Furthermore, you can ask an influencer to give you a shout-out in their videos. The possibilities are endless when you are determined to create a strong Amazon product launch strategy. All you need to do is put in the required effort.
If you enjoyed reading this blog post, you could find more tips about Amazon and digital marketing on my website.
