The surest way to have a successful Amazon product launch is to be prepared. In this article, we'll show you how to do that in order to get any guesswork out of the way.
The truth is that launching a new product can be challenging especially when you're new to selling on Amazon. So, in addition to having an amazing product launch strategy, you still need to have the patience and resilience to pull off the process.
This means preparing yourself to put in a lot of work without necessarily seeing results the next day.
Something to Keep In Mind
When launching a new product, your wish is to rank well and make sales as soon as possible. However, there's a catch 22 to a successful product launch. Here's how.
For your products to rank, you have to make some sales. And for you to make sales, your product must rank. So, therefore, you'll have to do both of these at the same time. This is what this catch 22 is about.
As we look at the ways to have a successful Amazon product launch, we'll be sure to arm you with important information on how to do this.
However, take note that you may need to focus more on ranking than making a profit during your Amazon product launch.
This does not mean that making profits is not on the agenda. It is. However, you should be prepared to work at a break-even point (BEP) as you're getting started. Or even accept some losses as you work towards the greater good.
Amazon Product Launch Strategy
Our strategy for launching a new product involves three major steps. These are:
- Generating sales
- Reviews (social proof)
- Amazon PPC campaigns
We'll look at these three steps in detail, along with other sub-steps within them.
Let's get started.
1. Generating Sales
Generating the first few sales is crucial for your product launch. Because without this crucial step, you won't be able to go ahead with the other two steps, which include encouraging your customers to leave reviews and driving paid traffic to your product.
Let's look at some cool and easy ways you can generate organic sales.
a). Giveaways and Discounts (US Only)
One of the ways you can encourage your early customers to buy from you is by reducing the price of your product. This is a good product launch strategy because it makes your customers feel like they're getting a very good deal.
One way to creatively do this is by having giveaways on Amazon. The winner of the giveaway gets the product for free in these giveaways, while the other contestants get your product at a discounted rate.
However, one thing to note with this launch strategy is that it will require you to create an incredible product video that will lure people in and encourage them to be a part of the giveaway. This also means that you'll have to create a budget for this because you need a high-quality video.
b). Exclusive Discounts to Your Email List
Here's another discount tip that will allow you to drive traffic to your newly launched product. This is especially for you if you've been collecting email addresses from your off-Amazon online store. If you haven't, this is the best time to start as it will greatly improve your business.
The good thing about introducing your newly launched product to these people is that they've already interacted with your business. This means that these people are more likely to convert compared to new prospects.
Therefore, offering them exclusive discounts on your new product via your monthly newsletter will increase your chances of generating sales on Amazon. After all, you've put in the work to create an email list from scratch. So the least you can do is benefit from it.
If you haven't started creating an email list yet, this is the time to do it. You can collect emails from your online store, landing page, social media channels, and any other channel.
c). Discounts to Facebook Audience
There's a lot you can do with access to Facebook's 2.89 billion monthly active users. Whether you have your own loyal following or want to use relevant Facebook Groups, you can gain a lot from marketing your product through Facebook.
If you want to use Facebook Groups, the first step is to identify relevant groups with your target audience in them. You can then proceed to message the Group Admin for permission to link to your Amazon product and the discount code.
Another way you can use Facebook is Facebook Advertising. You can either do this separately or as part of your marketing campaign for your product launch. The advantage of using Facebook advertising is that you can specifically target your desired audience.
d). Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is another effective way to market to your target audience. First, identify reliable and trustworthy influencers in your niche and ask them to partner with you. Once the relationship is established, assign them a discount code and tell them to link to your listing.
This is an especially effective strategy if you don't have many product reviews. This is because it offers social proof that your Amazon product is worth investing in.
Remember that you'll need to add the influencer's fee into your product launch campaign budget if you wish to take this route.
e). Piggybacking on High-Ranking Products
Although giving discounts on your newly launched products is a good way to go, it doesn't help if your product doesn't get noticed. This is where this strategy comes in when launching products.
As your product launches, it won't rank well initially. Therefore, if you have other high-ranking Amazon products on the Amazon site, you can make use of these. This will allow your new product to be found easily.
So, how do you do this? First, go and log in to your Seller Central account and set up a discount structure that ties your newly launched product to your high-ranking one. You'll find this information under 'Manage Promotions' found in the 'Inventory' tab of your account.
When using this strategy, a little word of caution is that you should use it only if your new product complements your best seller. The main reason for this is that your customers won't buy your new product if it doesn't align with the problem they want to solve with the high-ranking product.
Now that we've covered some of the ways you can generate sales, let's look at how you can get Amazon reviews and get some social proof.
2. Amazon Reviews and Social Proof
The chances of Amazon customers buying a product with zero reviews are very slim. Therefore, as you generate new sales, try as much as possible to encourage your buyers to leave reviews.
Why Are Amazon Reviews Important?
Here are two reasons why you need to focus on reviews.
i). Increase conversion
Like we mentioned earlier, it's hard for people to buy products that have no reviews. This is because these products look suspicious and don't necessarily invoke trust tp prospective buyers.
Therefore, encouraging your new buyers to leave Amazon reviews helps create the social proof you need to increase your sales velocity. It shows other potential buyers that other buyers have bought and tried the product, and this is what they think of it.
ii). Succeed with Amazon PPC campaigns
Before you jump into the Amazon PPC campaign step, we encourage you to have at least 3-5 reviews on your product listing.
This will allow you to get the most out of your Amazon advertising efforts within the Amazon marketplace. For example, you may have the best PPC campaign for your products, but without reviews, the chance of failure is high.
Now that we've carefully got that out of the way let's look at some ways you can collect your first few reviews.
a). Amazon Early Reviewer Program (US only)
The Amazon Early Reviewer Program is an Amazon initiative for Amazon sellers in the US. If you are a vendor in the US, the equivalent of this is the Amazon Vine.
This reviewer program was created because Amazon understands the value of reviews and how hard it can be to generate these reviews.
So, how does the Amazon Early Reviewer Program work?
After your initial sales, Amazon sends follow-up emails to your customers and offers them a small reward to leave a review. This reward can be a $1-$3 Amazon.com Gift Card to the customer. Also, customers who submit a review within this offer period are also rewarded.
These customers are rewarded for helping future buyers through their honest feedback. You will need to pay a fee of $60 (per SKU) for this service. Only products that have less than 5 reviews are eligible for this program.
This program will end when your product gets more than 5 reviews or after one year has passed. You can check on the Amazon platform if this program is still available.
For the Amazon Vine reviews for vendors, customers are invited to participate in 'Vine Voices.' These are customers who have a record of leaving honest reviews that are perceived as trustworthy. As part of the 'Vine Voices' program, these customers receive free products to test and offer their honest feedback.
b). Add Unexpected Value
Delivering the bare minimum will hardly get you a review from your first few customers. Therefore, you also need to add more value than what the customers feel they've paid for.
For example, you can give them a discount on their next purchase, offer an online resource or any kind of freebie that will win you points with the customer. Once your customers feel the love, they will likely leave an honest review.
The truth is that it may not really matter how many units you sell if you don't have reviews to back up your product. You may have an amazing product detail page, but most buyers will shy away from getting your product if there are no reviews.
3. Amazon PPC Campaigns
Here's our final step to follow once you're armed with at least 3-5 positive reviews under your belt. So, why are PPC campaigns important? Because they enable you to place your new product in front of your customers.
Here, you'll need to do some keyword research to find the top-performing keywords that will boost your rankings. You can also target your competitor's brand or product to allow you to reach a wider audience.
However, even as you look for the relevant keywords, ensure that your initial Amazon PPC efforts are very aggressive. This is because you don't want any dollar wasted as the rubber hits the road.
Here are some points to keep in mind as you work with your sponsored ads.
a). Stick to Fixed Bids
Although Amazon brought dynamic bidding into the game, you should stick to fixed bids. This is because you want to generate as many sales as possible with your Amazon advertising efforts.
b). Focus on Visibility
The goal of your Amazon advertising efforts at this stage is to get your new product out there. Therefore, ensure that you bid aggressively to increase your visibility.
Before we wind up, we remind you to set a specific budget for your advertising campaigns to avoid running out of money. Therefore, whether you're using sponsored brands campaigns or any other advertising campaigns, ensure that you're working within your budget.
Let's now look at an Amazon product launch checklist that will fail-proof your launching process.
Successful Amazon Product Launch Checklist
We've covered the steps to follow for a successful Amazon product launch. Now let's look at some of the things that you must incorporate into your process to ensure everything runs smoothly.
1. Keyword Research
Keyword research is a major must-do when it comes to a successful launch. However, this doesn't mean that you have to do numerous spreadsheets filled with keywords. Proper research is consistent and relevant.
As you're doing your product research, think of all possible keywords and keyword phrases related to your product. Once you have them, list them in order of importance and pick out the major ones.
If you need a ballpark figure of how many keywords you need, you can use the 50-100 keyword range. These specific keywords will cover everything you need. In addition, if you're in a niche that isn't very crowded, you can work with around 50 specific keywords.
You should pay special attention to relevancy as you do your product research and keyword research. Although search volume is a factor you should consider, relevancy comes first in product launching. Why?
Because during the first few weeks of your product listing being up, you're telling the Amazon algorithm what your product is about. This will allow your product to show up to your target market on the Amazon search results.
Another thing to keep in mind with this Amazon keyword research process is the use of phrase-form keywords. This will allow you to target a specific keyword in phrase form and increase the chances of your product being found.
2. Keyword Optimization
The next step after keyword research is ensuring that your product listing is properly optimized. Use these relevant keywords on the product listing title, description, bullet points, and even image alt.
However, ensure that you're also considering the buyer's intent as you do this. Your product listings should make sense to the customer to increase the chances of organic sales in the Amazon marketplace. Avoid keyword stuffing, which can annoy the buyer and increase your bounce rates.
3. Keyword Tracking
This is a follow-up to the other two points above. Once you have your keywords and you've optimized for them, you now need to track how well they're doing. Some of the performance metrics you can monitor include the number of clicks, number of conversions, and the Click-Through-Rate (CTR).
Once you know which keywords are working and which ones aren't, you can eliminate the non-performers and use more of the ones that are converting. You can also use this information to target specific keywords in your advertising campaigns.
4. High-Quality Photos
A picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, you want your photos to do the talking for you and convince prospective buyers to buy from you. Although you may not be ready with everything you want to launch your product at the beginning, photos are a must-have.
Get a professional who knows Amazon to take around 5-7 high-quality of your products to add to your listing. You can also successfully do this on your own if you have a high-quality camera with you.
As you do this, ensure that you're paying attention to the best practices for Amazon listing photos. You want your product images to align with what's best and meet the required standards.
Moving along, you can always replace your photos with new ones once the launch period is over.
5. High-Quality Video
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. In this era where we're so used to seeing videos everywhere from Netflix to TikTok, having a product video can give you an edge in the Amazon marketplace as you launch your product.
A 60-90-second video showcasing how your product is used is a great place to start. You can also create a 15-20-second video for your PPC campaigns. In addition, having a Sponsored Brand Video Ad on your campaign can help your ad perform better.
6. External Traffic
Driving external traffic to your listing is another thing to tick off from your checklist. A good example of this is offering exclusive discounts to your email list, as discussed above.
You should start working on this point before your product launch by creating brand awareness for best practices. Some of the ways you can do this include marketing on your social media platforms, driving traffic from your brand store, creating a blog post aimed at driving traffic to your listing, working with influencers on external sites, and so on.
However, as you put in the effort to drive external traffic to your listing, don't forget about working with the other Amazon ideas we're talking about today.
7. Quality Content for Product Detail Page
Ensuring that the information on your product detail page is top-notch is vital to the success of your product launch. This information is important because it informs the potential buyer what your product is about and how it will benefit them.
Another reason why you should pay special attention to this part is that it can help you rank for the keywords you want. Therefore, as you're coming up with this content, ensure that you have your keywords in hand ready to be used.
For the product title, ensure that it is easy to read, keyword-optimized, and grabs the reader's attention. The title is very important because it is the first thing that your buyers see when they land on your listing.
The product highlights or the bullet points contain your unique sales propositions (USPs) and the most important aspects of your product. Again, it would be best to optimize these for keywords to increase sales momentum.
Use this bullet points section to tell your buyer what your product will do for them in a short but informative way.
If you are not so sure what you should write, go through your competitors' listings and read the reviews to find out what the customers are focussing on. You can also reference the questions & answers section for more insights.
Frequently Asked Questions About Amazon Product Launch
1. What does search volume mean in the Amazon marketplace?
The search volume is also known as the average monthly search volume. This is the average number of times Amazon users have searched for a particular keyword per month.
The higher the search volume, the more traffic listings that have this keyword get.
2. How long will it take to launch a new product on Amazon?
The process of getting an ASIN for your product and having it up and running can take about 4-8 weeks. Therefore, ensure that your product listing is all set and that your product is ready to be launched before starting the process.
Amazon FBA Product Launch Strategy
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