Jeff Lieber and his team from TurnKey Product Management provided this article. TurnKey is an Amazon consulting company that sells over 8-figures in revenue for its clients each year. Whether you're just starting or are an Amazon expert, TurnKey can help take your sales to the next level. Click here to visit TurnKey's website where you'll find free resources and training on how to scale to 7+ figures on Amazon. Plus, you can contact TurnKey there to help scale your business.
Overwhelm. It’s the most common sentiment we hear from Amazon sellers, who know they need to make changes, know there is money being left on the table, have a laundry list of to-dos that are a mile long, and yet, they haven’t made changes to their Amazon listings or strategy in months. And still, they wonder why they aren’t growing? The level of both opportunity and competition on Amazon is at an all-time high, and for a brand to really make it on this platform, it’s going to take a lot of intention and expertise to do so. As we work with our clients to help them achieve massive success, we help them implement what we’ve coined as the Amazon Bullseye Traffic System, and you can get started on doing this yourself today!
Not only is it smart business to think outside the box when it comes to external marketing strategies, Amazon recently made changes to their A10 Algorithm which rewards sellers for sending traffic from outside of Amazon to their listings. It’s a win-win for them because obviously, it can result in a sale for you, but also it gets the customer shopping on their platform.
So, remember that list of to-dos that was a mile long that I mentioned earlier? This is where you start to whittle it down to have more focus and ability to execute in your business. I want you to take the long list of external traffic sources that you’ve been considering (ie… social media ads, Google ads, email lists, SEO organic rankings, traditional PR, Amazon ads, Amazon DSP, etc…) and I want you to pick your top 5 you want to test out in the short-term. This bullseye approach comes from the book “Traction”, and the idea is to move an infinite number of choices from the outside of the ring, and select a few choices to an inner ring. Then from there, select 2-3 of those that you believe will be the most critical to moving the needle on your business, and move them to the innermost bullseye of your circle. You might choose one that is low hanging fruit when it comes to acquiring new customers. You might choose another that is getting a lot of buzz from other sellers and you want to give it a shot. Think about the assets you already have, and leverage those in a more intentional way. The important thing is we’re only going to focus in the short-term on 2-3 traffic sources for the next little while, and let all the rest sit idle, so your energy can be fully focused on these 2-3 strategies.
While there is no one size fits all marketing strategy, there are definitely some we view as critical to building upon your Amazon success. The first is Amazon PPC. How skilled are you at managing your Amazon PPC? Do you know your conversion rates? Are your most successful campaigns fully funded throughout the day, or are they running out midday? Do you have the time to monitor them on a daily basis or are you checking in sporadically? Managing Amazon PPC can literally feel like a full-time job in and of itself, that’s why it’s often something that a seller likes to outsource ASAP, something we can do for you here at TurnKey Product Management, so they can focus on other aspects of their business. But if you are still committed to keeping it in-house, we recommend creating a daily checklist related to PPC, so you are staying on top of PPC, but not expensing unnecessary effort in this area when the tasks tend to be quite repetitive.
Going along with that, another traffic channel we highly recommend you test out is Amazon DSP. Similar to Amazon PPC, these DSP ads market to Amazon customers in a way that is impression-based, and it is also highly successful for consumable products where you want to re-target customers who are ready to repurchase. Through DSP we can target:
- Customers that landed on your listing that never purchased
- Past purchasers of your products that are ready to re-stock
- Your competitor's past purchasers and listing visitors (time to pounce!)
Amazon DSP can feel out of reach for many brands, because to run these ads directly through Amazon, they have an extremely high budget threshold to enroll ($35k+ over two months on DSP alone). However, there are other options to access running these ads. TurnKey Product Management is an approved DSP manager, and we can offer DSP management to our clients for as little as $1k-$5k/month. The results we are seeing, especially for repeat purchase clients like supplements, have been unbelievable! We had one successful client come to us doing $300k/month in sales. With some listing optimization, PPC management, and by adding DSP ads, they hit $1,000,000/month sales in 90-days! If you have yet to give DSP a try, this traffic source should definitely be in the middle of your bullseye for 2021.
And as a third focus, again, think about the assets you have already been acquiring. For some, their email is quite robust but it’s underutilized as a traffic source for Amazon. These are primed customers who are already interested in your brand, and you better believe that you can leverage this list as you run promotions, provide education, encourage reviews, and launch new products. Let them know you appreciate them and take care of that list! Not sure how to get started providing content to your list or even growing an email list for that matter? Our team can help create that plan and also make sure you have a steady stream of Amazon customer emails coming in.
For each of these traffic channels that you’ve selected, I would recommend making a short but specific action plan as to how you are going to test out new strategies in these areas. For PPC, maybe you need to make that daily checklist. For DSP ads (or just for traditional Amazon PPC ads), if you’re ready to see if it’s a good fit for your brand, sign up for a call with www.turnkeyproductmanagement.com/talk/ and find out if you’re a fit and we’ll get to work on testing out these ads for you. If you’re going to test out new things with your email list, create a calendar with the types of content you’re going to be rolling out with them. You can literally knock this out TODAY! The longer you wait to take action on making critical changes to your Amazon approach, the longer you’re stalling your growth. And no business owner would ever admit to being okay slowing their sales, am I right? But that’s what you are doing by not creating your bullseye, scheduling your call with Turnkey, making your checklist, etc… This is your year to totally crush on Amazon. Let’s do this!
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