Congratulations! If your inventory is in transit, it means you’ve completed several of the most challenging aspects of launching a business in the physical product industry. You’ve decided which product you want to sell, you found a supplier you can trust, and you successfully navigated the importing process.
Now what?
Many new sellers assume that they can’t do much until their shipment arrives. Others feel like they just need a break — after all, the journey up to this point has required an incredible amount of time and organizational finesse.
But this period of waiting actually provides a great opportunity to ride the momentum you’ve built thus far. Here are three big ways you can maximize this period of waiting and prepare your product for a successful Amazon launch.
- Optimize your Amazon listing
Let’s outline how to fully optimized a product listing so that it’s ready to publish as soon as your shipment lands.
- Title: Think of your target audience and what they will be typing into the Amazon search bar. Be as specific as you can, including targeted keywords to increase your chances of your product showing up in search results.
- Pictures: We live in a visual world — use that to your advantage! Make sure you never post blurry or pixelated photos. Making your product look appealing with high quality images is as equally important as having a long list of 5-star customer reviews. If your listing is missing either element, your sales are sure to suffer.
- Bullet Points: What features and benefits does your product have that make it unique? Use all five bullet points to clearly and persuasively communicate how your product meets your customer’s need. Save product details for the next section.
- Description Section: Your goal should be to create a description that prospective customers can skim easily while gaining a clear understanding of the benefits of your product. Be sure to focus on the benefits your product offers and give direction on how customers can complete a purchase. Use capitalization, special characters and pictures to break it up — do not leave this section as one long block of text.
- Create a FNSKU: Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit’s are the numbers printed directly on your product labels when you’re using Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA). FNSKU’s identify your items so that the correct product is pulled for each sale. If you are warehousing and shipping yourself, you can skip this step.
- Create a plan for cultivating 5 star reviews: Prospective customers may find your product based on keywords but they’ll buy your product based on other people’s reviews. Getting reviews is all about making sales; the more sales you make, the more reviews will come in organically. Remember, the number of reviews and average star rating is one of the first three things your customers will see (after the title and product photos).
- Start thinking about PPC advertising
Once your listing is created and saved in draft mode, it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to get your listing in front of Amazon shoppers. Promoting your listing through an Amazon Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign can be a fantastic way to get your product in front of more people.
In a Google search, you probably know that the vast majority of traffic looks only at the search results on the first page (which is why companies work so hard, using tools like SEO, to get on the first page). But with Amazon, you can be on the first page by simply paying for it. If you buy a PPC ad and bid high enough, you can be on the first page right away — you just have to be willing to spend as much as it takes to get there.
Once your campaign is up and running, be sure to do some testing. For example, run a PPC ad for one week, then pause (so the metrics can catch up), and run a report a few days later. The report will show you what keywords Amazon targeted for your product and the statistics for how those keywords performed — like how many times the ad was displayed, how many people clicked, and how many sales were directly a result of the PPC ad. Your testing should further refine the next PPC ad, as you continually update your keywords, daily ad budget, and cost per click. You may also find that you need to bid higher in the next round of testing so that your ad is getting in front of potential customers.
PPC is a way to invest in your business. Every time someone searches a keyword and clicks on your ad, Amazon will start ranking you for that keyword. Every time someone buys your product after clicking on your ad, Amazon will rank you for that keyword again. Once you get enough sales through ads, you’ll start ranking for those keywords organically and make more sales without paying for PPC ads.
- Register your brand
Amazon’s Brand Registry program is a critical component for any sellers who have manufactured or private labeled a product. By enrolling your brand and registering yourself as the brand owner, you can better protect your brand by having more control over your listing. You can search for the Brand Registry Application in your Sellers Central account. To complete an application, please refer to Amazon’s guidelines. You’ll notice that there are a few categories that are not eligible for Brand Registry, like books, music, DVDs, videos, and entertainment or sports collectibles.
Your inventory will be here in no time! By optimizing your product listing, creating a plan for PPC campaigns, and submitting an application for Amazon’s brand registry, you are doing everything you can to ensure that your product is ready for quick sales.
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