Have you ever wondered how some products on Amazon seem to take off while others struggle to gain traction?
On the world’s largest ecommerce platform, where millions of sellers vie for consumers’ attention, having a great product just isn’t enough. Achieving success is about launching products to capture — and retain — customers’ interest.
A successful Amazon product launch can make or break your business. To ensure a winning product launch, you need a well-planned strategy that includes research, marketing, and optimization.
Here are five key product launch strategies that not only meet the needs of your target market, but also generate revenue and growth for your business.
1. Learn About Your Market
A surefire way to create a lackluster launch?
Not conducting marketing research.
Without knowing how to meet customer needs or stand out in a crowded marketplace, businesses can launch products that result in low sales, negative reviews, or even a damaged reputation that can be difficult to recover from.
By conducting thorough market research, identifying market gaps, and pinpointing potential demand before launching a product, on the other hand, you can ensure that your product fills a specific need.
Analyzing fundamental aspects, such as market demand, profitability, suppliers, delivery, and target audience, plays a crucial role in validating the potential success of a product.
Amazon provides several tools for market research, including the Best Sellers listings, the Movers and Shakers list, and the ability to browse Amazon storefronts.
Tools like ManageByStats and D8aDriven can also help you find profitable products by analyzing metrics such as sales volume, keyword search volume, and pricing. By utilizing these tools, you can identify products with high demand and low competition and track your competitors' sales trends, pricing strategies, and marketing tactics.
2. Conduct Keyword Research
Keyword research is an essential aspect of any new Amazon product launch strategy.
The process enables you to identify the most relevant keywords and phrases that potential customers use when searching for products similar to yours.
After you’ve found the right keywords, incorporating them into your pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns to improve your search ranking and increase your visibility to customers is easy with management software like PPC Entourage or an Amazon PPC agency like Trivium.
The result: a big revenue boost.
Amazon provides a wealth of information that sellers can use for keyword research, such as the search bar autocomplete feature and the suggested search terms that appear at the bottom of the search results page.
Analyzing your competitors’ listings can also give you valuable insights into the keywords they’re targeting and the language they’re using to describe their products.
You can also use third-party tools to identify keywords relevant to your products and gain insights into each keyword’s search volume and competition level.
By using a combination of Amazon, competitor listings, and third-party tools, you can create a comprehensive list of targeted keywords that will help you optimize your product listings, give you maximum visibility into your products’ performance, and increase your chances of success on Amazon.
3. Optimize Your Product Listing
Keywords are essential, but if they’re not connected to a compelling product listing, an Amazon product launch can fall flat.
As you craft your product listing, ensure you incorporate SEO elements, engaging A+ content, and a captivating brand story. When you leverage quality research and insights into products and your competitors with SellerTools, you can make sure you’re maximizing your listing.
By optimizing the product listing with relevant keywords and providing valuable information about your brand, you can enhance the visibility of your products and establish a strong online presence.
Here are a few areas to pay attention to.
Product Images
Today’s consumers expect an enhanced experience when they visit your product pages.
Incorporating high-quality images and videos that showcase your product's use, features, and benefits is crucial for creating an exceptional customer experience and boosting conversion rates. By providing visual aids, you can present information in a more engaging and interactive way, allowing customers to quickly discover your product’s unique benefits and features.
Title and Bullet Points
Two must-have features of your Amazon product listing: a compelling title and bullet points.
Your product title should be clear, concise, and attention-grabbing. A well-crafted title accurately reflects the product and includes relevant keywords that enable customers to quickly find it in search.
Bullet points should highlight the product's key features and benefits, making it easy for customers to understand what they're getting. They should be short, straightforward, and easy to read and understand. Similarly to the title, including relevant keywords in the bullet points can improve the product's visibility and help it rank higher in search results.
Brand Story, Product Descriptions, and A+ Content
Your brand story is your opportunity to connect with potential customers on a deeper level and differentiate your product from competitors. This section should be authentic and compelling, providing insight into your brand's values, mission, and history. Use storytelling techniques to engage potential customers and create an emotional connection. A strong brand story can increase brand loyalty and create brand advocates who will spread the word about your product.
The product description should be clear, concise, and engaging, providing potential customers with all the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. Use bullet points and short paragraphs to craft an accessible description, and incorporate relevant keywords to increase search visibility. Most importantly, ensure that the product description accurately reflects the product and explains how the product can benefit a user.
A+ content is an additional opportunity to showcase your product's key features and benefits by using enhanced images, videos, and additional text to provide a more immersive customer experience. Because A+ content offers a more comprehensive view of the product, it can improve conversion rates and increase customer satisfaction.
Pricing, Reviews, and FBA
When launching a new product on Amazon, you need to consider pricing.
To maximize your sales potential, it's essential to price your product competitively. Conduct thorough research on your competitors' prices, and adjust your pricing strategy accordingly.
Customers are always looking for the best deal, so offering a lower price than your competition can give you a significant advantage. But you also need to ensure your pricing is profitable long-term. For more sustainable results, consider offering one-time or limited discounts.
The real Amazon MVP? Reviews.
Positive product reviews provide social proof, build trust with potential customers, and improve your product's ranking in search results. Encourage customers to leave positive reviews. Respond to any negative reviews promptly and professionally to show that you care about your customers' experiences. Remember that customer feedback is valuable and can help you identify areas for improvement.
Staying on top of potential negative reviews is easier with automated notifications. AMZAlert monitors your listings around the clock to keep you up to date with any alerts about inventory, listings, or negative reviews, and more.
Fast and reliable shipping is another top priority for customers, and by utilizing fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you can beat your competitors’ shipping speed. FBA offers benefits such as Prime eligibility, which can increase your product's visibility and appeal. Increased customer satisfaction means more and better customer reviews — which means more revenue-generating business.
4. Validate Your Product Listing
Why is validating a product listing beneficial to an Amazon product launch?
Because it helps tailor the product to better suit the needs of the target audience and identify potential issues.
Validating your product with real people can be a valuable process that enables you to refine and improve your Amazon product offering. By seeking feedback from your target audience, you can gain insight into their pain points, preferences, and expectations, which can help you customize your product listing to better suit their needs.
Consider asking these questions when validating your product:
- Which product design do you prefer?
- Which product title is more appealing?
- Which product packaging do you find more enticing?
- Which product images stand out to you?
- Which product feature or benefit is most important to you?
Services such as ProductPinion and PickFu offer easy, cost-effective ways to gather feedback from potential customers about your product before it goes live.
With ProductPinion, you can create surveys that are targeted to specific Amazon customers based on their purchase histories. This means that you can get valuable feedback from people who are more likely to buy your product. PickFu, on the other hand, offers a broader range of survey options, including A/B testing and the ability to get feedback from a larger pool of respondents.
By using these services, you can gain insights into your product's strengths and weaknesses and optimize your product before launching it on Amazon.
5. Launch Aggressively
It can be challenging to launch a product on a platform as fiercely competitive as Amazon’s. But it can pay to be aggressive.
The most effective way to get your product out there is to launch PPC campaigns that use a combination of targeted advertising and a deep understanding of the platform's algorithms and marketing strategies.
Over at PixelMe, they specialize in optimizing ads and retargeting customers to boost organic growth on Amazon, making the most of your ad spend and increasing the success of your launches.
High Bids and High Budget
To start, target high-traffic keywords with high bids and budgets. Identify the most relevant and popular search terms that customers are using to find similar products, and then bid aggressively on those keywords to ensure your product appears at the top of the search results.
This aggressive tactic can help you quickly increase your sales velocity — the rate at which your product is selling — and improve your product's ranking. The more quickly your product sells, the higher it will rank in search results, which can lead to more sales and even higher rankings.
Campaign Types
Using various ad types, campaign match types, and targeting strategies can help you achieve an aggressive, successful launch. Branded search terms and campaign match types enable you to target specific keywords, improve relevance, and increase reach.
Branded search term campaigns can help you reach customers who are already familiar with your brand — and target them with ads that are tailored to their interests.
By using all match types, you can use targeted relevant search terms to reach a wider audience, which will increase your reach and drive more traffic to your product listing.
Reviews
Amazon’s policies place limitations on the tactics you can use to generate product reviews. But there are actions you can take to quickly drive positive reviews — and stay compliant:
- Activate influencers. Reach a wider audience by promoting your product to influencers’ followers and encouraging them to leave reviews.
- Use the Amazon Vine program. Offer free products to a select group of trusted reviewers in exchange for honest and unbiased feedback.
- Emphasize the “Request a Review” button. Use this Amazon feature to request a review from a customer who has purchased your product.
Combine these strategies to increase your chances of generating more reviews and driving more sales on Amazon.
Strategize for Success
Like most sellers know, launching a new product on Amazon can be challenging.
But it doesn’t have to be impossible.
With the right product launch strategies and approach, you can make your product launch a success. Conduct thorough product and keyword research, optimize your product listing, validate your product, and launch aggressively with Amazon PPC ads.
Armed with the right tools and tactics, your next product launch might just cause your business to skyrocket.