Whether you’re a new brand with a new product, or an existing brand that has developed a new product, there are four key elements to keep in mind when it comes to launching your new product on Amazon. By properly implementing these elements you will be able to create a great looking page with the maximum number of reviews that tempt customers to buy, and ultimately will drive the success of your product on Amazon.
What Brands Miss When Launching Products On Amazon
Launching and growing a consumer brand is tough. You have to manufacture, produce, quality assurance, market the product, and get it into the right channels for sell-through. You have to create a new website, or a new page for your website. You have to do photography for your product. When prioritizing all of these things that need to be completed for the product it’s possible that Amazon may not get the attention it needs to thrive.
The Amazon platform is very self-service. For brands using Seller Central, they have to handle it all, and that can lead to putting too much focus in other areas rather than pushing themselves on Amazon as best they can. When launching your product on Amazon there are four “pillars” to focus on to maximize your products’ success on the platform.
The Four Pillars
- Page Content
- Prime Eligibility
- Advertising
- Reviews
Page Content
Page content simply refers to what is displayed on your page that the customer sees. Titles, keywords, secondary images, infographics, all of those things that are what we like to call “explainer images”. All of that has to be well put together and look amazing. Most importantly, though, it has to look like, and match your brand.
Prime Eligibility
To be eligible for Amazon’s Prime service you have to have inventory at an Amazon warehouse.
Advertising
A product launch without proper advertising is a missed opportunity. Making sure that you are advertising well and driving qualified traffic to your page is key to powering Amazon’s flywheel and growing that product’s sales.
Reviews
Reviews are an integral part of the Amazon ecosystem. They are one of the main ways that you can build trust and confidence in your product with buyers, and prospective buyers alike.
Those are the four main pillars for launching your brand on Amazon. When it comes to prioritization of the four pillars, we always suggest making sure that content and reviews get the highest priority followed by advertising next, and finally Prime eligibility. Having your page content and reviews in order will help you avoid overspending on advertising before you’re truly ready.
While it may seem like a massive undertaking, putting it all together to present the total package isn’t as difficult as you may believe.
Optimizing Your Product Launch On Amazon
As mentioned previously, the best way to get your product ready for an Amazon launch is to create a page with great content on the platform. Then you need to make sure the product goes into stock at Amazon warehouses.
Content
The look and feel of your Amazon page should have the same look and feel that a customer would get from your product on a store shelf, or when they visit your product’s website or social media. It should have the same logos, colors, and fonts.
One of the most common mistakes that brands make is creating fantastic branding content on their website or across social media channels, but they don’t translate those assets for the Amazon channel.
Prime Eligibility
When you have enough stock in the Amazon warehouse your product will be fulfilled by Amazon. This makes it eligible for the Amazon Prime service. Having a product with the Prime badge next to it is shown to make it stand out to customers in search results.
As your brand continues to grow, Amazon can become an all-encompassing logistics solution with their Multi-Channel Fulfillment allowing you to send all of your stock to, and have it shipped directly from Amazon. We’ve previously written an in-depth guide on Fulfillment By Amazon, check it out directly below for more!
Read More: Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment: Should Amazon Fulfill All Your Brand’s eCommerce Orders?
Advertising
Once your products are being Fulfilled By Amazon, you’ll be ready to begin advertising. We’ve previously taken a deep dive on how to better advertise your brand on Amazon, so be sure to give that guide directly below a look to maximize your advertising dollar on the platform!
Watch More: Optimizing Your Amazon Advertising
Reviews
Once your product is fulfilled by Amazon, and you’re in Amazon Brand Registry (link to our video on Brand Registry) you’ll be able to take advantage of a program called Vine. Vine is an Amazon review program. It allows you to get up to 30 initial reviews per SKU. All you have to do is give away the product, and pay a small fee to Amazon. Your product will go out to professional Vine reviewers and in turn they will leave reviews of your product on Amazon. It’s still a new program, rolling out for the first time in the fall of 2021, and it doesn’t make sense for all products, but for the ones it does, it’s essentially just a cost of Marketing that drives review (key for successful launches).
How Launching On Amazon Has Changed Recently
There have been some significant changes made to policies for new accounts and products on Amazon in recent years. At one point in time you could open your account, set up your Seller Central, create your product page, and even begin selling the product all on the same day. In recent years Amazon has moved away from this model to help combat instances of fraud, and some products (groceries, and health/personal care for instance,) even have to be approved by Amazon to be sold under their proper category.
Another big change that has taken over is Amazon Brand Registry. Brand registry opens up access to tools to help grow your brand. The Vine reviews tool mentioned previously requires Amazon Brand Registry. To apply for Brand Registry your product needs to have an active registered trademark with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office. If that’s something you don’t yet have, Amazon can help even with that through their IP Accelerator program. Amazon will help connect you with a law firm that they have vetted for the process, and as soon as you turn your application in to the U.S PTO you will be eligible for Brand Registry.
Important! Keep in mind that if you file for a trademark outside of the IP Accelerator program your application can take anywhere from six to 12 months for it to be activated, and you won’t be able to access Brand Registry with that product until that is done.
Pro Tip: Other retailers potentially interested in your product will very likely “scout” your Amazon page. They will look through reviews to see that it’s selling, and that buyers are happy with the product. They will use third-party tools that are designed to estimate your Amazon sales. If they like what they see, they may reach out about selling the product through their channel if they like what they see.
What Does Success Look Like?
The backbone of a successful launch on Amazon comes from a great looking Amazon page that checks all the boxes. Having the right title, with the right keywords. Bullet points that also feature benefit-rich statements, and keyword phrases that your target customer would be looking for.
As far as images on your page go, make sure to have a high quality main image that fills up as much of the white space as possible. Use secondary images and infographics to tell viewers about the features and benefits of your product. A healthy mix of icons, colors, graphics, and images will help your page achieve the “A+” page rating, which is something you’ll need to do for Brand Registry,
After that you’ll send the initial order to Amazon for your Vine reviews. You can either send only the products meats to go out for Vine, or you can begin stocking the warehouse with stock for orders.
After that you’re finally ready to begin your advertising. I always suggest that brands start slowly with automatic and branded campaigns. It is paramount to make sure everything about your product is in order when you begin to advertise. If your page isn’t ready, or doesn’t look professional it could be wasting any leads generated if customers opt against purchasing your product for that reason.
How A Healthy Snack Brand Launched New Flavors On Amazon
One of the companies we have worked with recently is a brand that sells healthy snacks through Amazon. They were looking to add to their brand with new flavors, and new pack sizes. We took their page over from another provider who was reselling the product for them, and we set out to get them ready to launch the new flavors.
The brand had just recently gone through a rebranding, so we cleaned up the older Amazon pages that featured old packaging and branding on it to prevent confusing customers shopping for the product. We also created new pages with great content, some of which they already had for us to plug in and use. Next we sent their initial inventory to Amazon for the Vine program. Once those reviews started to come in we began sending stock to Amazon for full FBA services, and the customers couldn’t wait to try out all the new flavors they were launching.
The best way to help your brand launch on Amazon is, to borrow an old phrase, “have all your ducks in a row”. Making sure the presentation to your end customer is professional and uniform. Make sure to have things like reviews that can help turn customers on the fence into conversions. These things will make the money you spend in advertising go farther and lead to higher sales. By following the tips and tools we’ve outlined in this post you should have no trouble launching successfully and taking your brand to the next level.
