There are many benefits to selling your products on Amazon. You gain access to a huge customer base, and Amazon does a lot of the work for you. All you need to do is source good products that people are searching for, and you can start ranking in Amazon searches and gaining a constant flow of traffic to your listings.
However, if you want to be successful, it's important not to depend completely on Amazon and its internal marketing options. It may seem like a good idea to focus on Amazon marketing, with PPC ads and sponsored listings, and these are great tools, but going all-in on Amazon means you're missing out on a lot of other opportunities.
The reality is that most of the big sellers in the FBA program are promoting their products outside of Amazon's site. They understand that in order to become a 6- or 7-figure seller, it's essential to treat selling on Amazon like you would any other ecommerce business, utilizing all relevant marketing strategies, instead of passively waiting for Amazon traffic.
Specialist
“You should always have some kind of brand presence off amazon . We have clients that invest a lot in their presence and reputation on amazon and then you go to their social media and it’s a disaster . What kind of brand trust can we talk about here? It really is all about the brand trust . And off amazon marketing plays an important role in it”
Along with advertising within Amazon, marketing your products offsite is a powerful way to increase your Amazon traffic. There are a lot of options for external Amazon marketing strategies. In this article we'll go over some of the most popular and effective marketing options to send traffic to your Amazon listings.
Amazon Marketing on Facebook
The most basic marketing rule is to go where your target audience is. If you have the best products but no one knows about them, you won't get the sales you're looking for. A good place to start is Facebook, a proven winner for advertising. The precise targeting that their ad platform allows means that every dollar you spend on Facebook ads will be well-spent, serving ads to the exact audience you're looking for.
Specialist
“ Having a social presence really brings your product to life . You can see exactly how to use it , in every single situation it can possibly be used in.”
Million-dollar Amazon sellers have achieved success in no small part due to Facebook ad campaigns. One winning strategy is to use a discount on Amazon along with targeted Facebook ads. This can boost your conversions by huge amounts. Don't ignore the power of this platform.
Amazon Marketing on YouTube
One of the downsides of online shopping is that you can't see the products you're shopping for in person. As a seller, you can mitigate some of that by using videos to show your products in action. It's the same reason that infomercials are effective—people can see the products being used and imagine how they'll fit into their own lives. YouTube videos can be a great way to demonstrate your products.
Blog Content
Blogs may seem a little outdated, with all the action being on social media these days. However, blogs can still be an effective marketing tool. Blog posts serve to inform an audience, providing useful content as well as serving as an advertisement. Posting articles that are related to your products and other topics that your customers will find helpful creates a lasting relationship between you and your audience, making them more likely to turn to you for a purchase.
Working with bloggers is another way to utilize the power of the blog to promote your products. By offering affiliate links, other bloggers can benefit from promoting your products and you can benefit by reaching their audience.
Sponsored Posts and Videos
We discussed partnering with other bloggers, and aside from affiliate links, you can also work with bloggers and YouTube influencers to create sponsored content. These influencers have a built-in audience who might not otherwise find your products, so this can be a great way to find new customers.
You can find bloggers or YouTubers that may like to work with you by searching for product reviews in your niche. If they've reviewed similar products in the past, there's a good chance they may be interested in yours. Look for contact info and reach out to them to get information about their rates and their policies for sponsored posts or videos.
Focus On Your Own Website
You're already aware of the many advantages of selling on Amazon. But there is one major downside: you don't have access to your previous customers. Repeat sales are one of the key components of building a successful ecommerce business, and if your only online presence is through Amazon, you're largely losing out on that opportunity.
Customers don't often pay a lot of attention to the specific seller when they're shopping on Amazon, especially if they're Amazon Prime members, who just want to make sure they'll get Prime shipping. While there are some things you can do to try to build your brand presence on Amazon, you have many more options if you have your own website.
Email marketing
The best thing that you can do with your website is develop a customer email list. This will let you send out information about new products and sales to all your prior customers. Amazon doesn't provide you with this information, so you'll need to develop it on your own.
If you want to run your own blog, as described above, you'll need a website. While there are many factors that go into pricing both on Amazon and on an independent store, you can often be more flexible with your own store.
Even if your website is just a simple landing page with links to your Amazon listings, you'll benefit from having your own domain name and the ability to invite customers to sign up for your email list. Don't overlook the power of branding as well: when you're trying to stand out among all the competition, having a unique brand and style is a huge advantage.
Conclusion
Whether you use all these Amazon marketing strategies or just some of them, you'll get better results if you do some external marketing along with all of your efforts within the Amazon marketplace.