Selling on Amazon is all about advantages. As an established brand, expanding your reach on Amazon is a vital step in your digital growth. One of the drawbacks from selling on a platform like Amazon is losing some of the personalized styles your consumers typically connect with. Even the statistics paint the picture that Amazon is a product-selling platform, not a branding platform.
So why consider branding when evaluating your Amazon growth strategies? Well, the hidden truth is that sellers who incorporate branding the most are the ones that tend to see higher profit values from their catalog. When looking at each listing one by one, considering overall branding on your detail pages can seem like a strange thing to assess. When it comes to a higher-level view of your overall catalog, lackluster branding can lock you out from major growth opportunities.
Amazon put out a survey amongst its consumer base to see how often their users chose to frequent its platform. Almost half of the respondents claimed they would browse Amazon daily, while almost 90% indicated they shopped on Amazon at least once a month. This increase in repeat consumers has presented a major customer retention opportunity for sellers. Fortunately, Amazon has curated a few tools to help sellers capitalize on these opportunities.
Content Features
Branding your Amazon business is an important part of any growth strategy. Proper branding has been shown to drive conversion rates, increase average sales per order, and improve customer review ratings. If you’re looking for the best ways to brand your catalog then we’ve got you covered, with three vital Amazon features you can’t afford to underutilize.
1. A+ Content
You’re no doubt aware that content is king when building out eye-catching listings. But just because you feel your content is A+ doesn’t mean you’re taking advantage of A+ features. A+ Content is branded content with customizable design layouts that can be paired with any listing in your catalog. Amazon totes that listings paired with A+ content benefit from a 10% increase in sales.
The main advantage of this content is that it allows business owners to craft personalized product descriptions of branded listings. With A+ templates, you can illustrate your unique brand story, upload enhanced brand imagery, and benefit from precise text placements. Ultimately these templates, placed below your product images, are a sleek way of adding professionalism to your listing as well as giving consumers a chance to better resonate with your offering.
The biggest issue that may arise from this feature is the sheer density of customization options. Depending on your brand, and more importantly your listing, you can design your A+ content around a variety of focuses. Perhaps you’re looking to highlight superior product benefits, maybe you want to build brand awareness, or perhaps you’re trying to highlight the ease of use for your product.
There are many ways of approaching these strategies but ultimately you’re going to need to put in the research to understand how best to resonate with your in-market shoppers. Of course, having an Amazon design expert equipped with the knowledge of Amazon’s growing trends and best practices is always a surefire way to get the most out of your A+ graphic.
2. Brand Stores
The brandless aspects of Amazon’s market can be a major dissuader for sellers big and small. This is only the case when sellers don’t properly do their research. Amazon does in fact encourage branding in many aspects of its platform, from imagery to paid advertising. Though, no greater tool may be effective in Amazon branding than Amazon Brand Stores.
Stores give Professional Sellers the power to craft a personalized shopping experience for their business on Amazon. These stores function as immersive multi-page shopping destinations where in-market shoppers can browse through a seller’s entire catalog in one convenient location.
The capabilities of a function like this are vast but may not clearly present themselves at first. Throughout our years exploring the usage of Brand Store implementation, our experts have discovered a number of strategic advantages. Stores permit you to cross-sell to your customers, highlighting products that heavily complement your top-sellers or accessories that pair great with what your shoppers may be initially interested in.
With the endless cross-selling and upselling opportunities Brand Stores offer, you can almost view them as your virtual sales team. From features like shoppable images, product grids, background videos, and more, you have everything you need to position your entire catalog for success.
With proper design implementation, you can lay out a user experience that funnels your consumer base to conversions and higher average per order sales numbers. Imagine the way Ikea funnels its shoppers through a maze of home products before they can leave with their initial interest. Expert UX design allows you to perform the same strategies with your Amazon Brand Store.
Overall a Brand Store functions as a great centerpiece to all your content marketing. It can help elevate all other aspects of your brand presence. Even just linking your paid marketing efforts to an Amazon Brand Store has been shown to boost ROAS by as much as 22%. Outcomes like this persist across the board, making Brand Stores a huge value for your strategic initiatives and more importantly for your bottom line.
Brand Registry
Establishing brand presence is key to expanding your Amazon reach. But no matter how much end growth your Amazon business achieves, it’s important to keep in mind the fluctuating landscape of Amazon. From frequent policy updates and algorithm curveballs to the always rising number of competitors, you must cover your tracks to ensure no seller can garner an edge over your brand presence. Luckily, Amazon has prepared for such cases.
One of the biggest get-rich-quick tactics new sellers try to capitalize on with Amazon is knock-off brand recognition. There’s nothing worse than putting in the work to establish a reputation of quality products just for some cheap manufacturer to try to stake their claim on your market with a cheaper knock-off offering. You can protect your catalog and more importantly your consumer base from cases such as this through Brand Registry.
In fact, none of the features described above are even accessible if your account isn’t brand registered. Registered accounts gain access to many other Amazon branding tools such as Sponsored Brands, Brand Analytics, and more. As a registered brand, you can report violations and benefit from automated brand protection. This means anything infringing on your property can be quickly removed and keep your reputation intact.
It takes a lot of work to establish a name on Amazon, and once you do everyone from foreign manufacturers to Doug in his mom’s basement will be looking to get in on the profits. Brand Registry opens the doors to a new world of profits and keeping your growth locked in on the right path.
Many businesses fail to even realize this feature exists and thus never experience the profit-driving tools exclusive to it. Having an experienced account manager really makes a difference with features like this because once you’re enrolled you’re going to want to be on top of your brand to ensure no violators sneak through the cracks.
Rely on Experience
Utilizing these content tools will get you caught up to speed with the competition. Consumers will be drawn to the more professional standing of your listing pages and catalog. But again, nothing will truly drive you ahead of the pack without proper strategies put in place.
It takes experience to build out the capabilities that drive these initiatives and allow you to be able to adapt to the growing trends of the market. You’re going to need designers who understand which best practices to rely on with your content curation; brand strategists dedicated to digging deep into your catalog to develop the knowledge needed to properly position your catalog for maximum profitability; and as always, Amazon expertise to guide your brand through all the waves of nuance.
At Nectar, we recognize the growing importance of establishing a path to Amazon growth and we’ve experienced first-hand what it takes to get there. Our strategies and methodologies have already been worked out to maximize profits and increase brand reach no matter what stage your Amazon account is at. We do more than just offer consulting guidance or advice. We dig into the dirty work and do the heavy lifting needed to help your Amazon business rise to the top.
Ready to find out more about how Nectar can increase your Amazon profits? Just take a minute to fill out our . We look forward to connecting!
