How to Get Your Brand 100% Ready for Amazon Prime Day
If you’ve noticed a certain excited buzz starting to grow among your fellow Amazon marketplace brands, you’re not imagining things… The word on the e-commerce street is that Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner.
After the disruptions of the peak-pandemic years, Prime Day has been shifted to June and even to October in 2021. Now, we’re pretty sure that 2022 heralds the reinstatement of its traditional July date, so it’s the perfect time for sellers and brands to get their houses in order to take advantage of a phenomenal sales opportunity.
With global events affecting supply chains and hitting consumers’ spending power, e-commerce brands preparing for this year’s Prime Day will have to make doubly sure they’re properly armed with a full toolkit to get the most out of this massive shopping day.
So how can you best prepare for a successful Amazon Prime Day and what do you need to know beforehand in order to boost traffic & conversion? BRANDED’s global e-commerce operations team have put together this must-read guide to everything Amazon Prime Day to help you get the most out of your strategy.
Amazon Prime Day 101 – How Can it Boost My Brand?
So, why is Amazon Prime Day so important for brands? In a nutshell, it’s pretty much the Superbowl of the e-commerce world. Prime Day is one of the best opportunities for high-quality promotion of your products, unlimited potential for new customers and a fantastic brand-building window.
Did you know that in 2021, Amazon Prime Day saw $11.2 billion worth of sales? There’s no question that 2022 promises to be another bumper year for brands as customers are increasingly sensitive to finding bargains.
It’s vital that you get the most out of this super event by making sure you’ve got the right tactics to optimize your online listings to maximize your sales. However, your success doesn’t just have to be for Prime Day; look beyond the event and consider what you can put in place to encourage long term customers and repeat sales.
Before you start planning, think about what Prime Day means for your brand. What are your targets? Are you trying to move some slow-selling stock or promote your bestsellers? Do you want to encourage more reviews to boost your Amazon rankings or widen your customer base? Make sure your team understands what your motivations are so you are all pulling together as one.
Whatever your strategy, the headline benefits of participating in Prime day are twofold: eyeballs on your products and customer acquisition. So, how to begin?
What are key considerations in prepping for Amazon Prime Day?
The first point to note about Prime Day is that your preparation needs to start much earlier than you might think. In fact, you’ll probably need to get the ball rolling pretty much as soon as you’ve finished reading this article, if you haven’t already begun!
Promotional Strategy
What will your offers look like? Will you offer promotion codes, or woo your buyers with Amazon Lightning Deals? Whichever strategy you choose, remember that your customers are on the hunt for something that exceeds their expectations and makes them feel like they’ve got a real bargain.
To achieve this, consider offering multiple ways in which your customers can save money – variety can be a potent marketing tool. Let’s take a look at a few of the options:
Lightning Deals:
Quick, easy and clear for customers to see – your deal is presented right up front for buyers. Even though your deal will only be promoted for a few hours, a sense of urgency is created as the deal timecounter runs down and Amazon displays how fast a product is selling.
Lightning deals are best used for your new products and short-term sales. Only one product is included per deal, but you can include multiple variations. Your offer will run until your stock is sold, or your time runs out.
Coupons:
These allow you to offer a discount on your listings that can last up to a year – BUT they do require you to have your product content up at least 3 weeks before Prime Day.
Coupons are best used to advertise groups of products and are a highly visible option that lets you easily track and monitor your campaign’s performance within a set advertising budget. If you want to use coupons as part of your strategy, you’ll want to start building these out now. Note also that coupons are best received by buyers if you’re offering over 30% off the original price.
Deal of the Day:
These are 24-hour offers, running for one day only. These are best used to boost visibility for your newest products, or slow-moving listings. You have control over where ads for your offers are placed and which day they’re shown on.
Think about offering bundles – not only will it offer a variety of your products to your buyers and introduce them to products they may not have considered buying before, but it will seem like a great and generous deal and give your customers a positive impression of your brand.
Optimize Your Amazon Listings Way Ahead of Time
If you haven’t already started doing this, it’s time to get on it! Optimizing your product listings will increase your ratings and visibility on Amazon’s search pages and ramp up your organic growth. Review your keywords, your descriptions and make sure that you’ve answered all questions regarding variables such as size and shape before they become a conversion blocker for your customers.
Don’t neglect your product images when optimizing – on Prime Day there is a serious amount of competition and you will need to make sure your images are top-notch and practically sell your products for you. Customers look at images before reading any listing text, and this is your chance to hook them before they move on to a competitor.
On Prime Day there is a larger audience shopping on Amazon than most days and presents an opportunity for customer acquisition across a larger audience. For example last year there was an uptick in Gen Z shoppers and we know they put a greater value on content and branding. If you want to add an extra layer of pizazz – consider amping up your listing by using videos or 360° images. This is a great time to use A+ content and really double down on your creative to portray what your brand is all about.
It’s a wise move to scrutinize everything about your listings, looking at them from a customer perspective and making sure your products and pages fit the user experience of Amazon’s Prime Day pages.
What’s the Best Way to Drive Traffic to My Amazon Listings?
If you’re offering some awesome deals on Prime Day – let your customers know about them! Promote your sale across your usual marketing channels, on social media and anywhere you normally advertise.
Start boosting your listing visibility on and off Amazon through pay-per-click campaigns. Review your bidding strategy on your most important keywords to enhance your organic ranking in time for Prime Day. If you’re brand registered – well, great! Use your access to Amazon’s advanced advertising tools to really put some rockets on your campaign.
Top tip: on Prime Day, divert some of your off-market ad spend to Amazon to really take advantage of a captive buying audience – make full use of Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands Video ads.
Don’t neglect your social media channels on Prime Day – create a buzz and promote your products and brand. Let your customers know that you’re taking part with engaging content and high-quality images. Inform buyers how much they could save with your Amazon Prime Day deals and create a sense of community and anticipation.
What else?
It should go without saying that you need to make sure you have enough stock to meet your customer’s demands. You will be (hopefully!) facing a rush on your products so increase your stock thresholds in anticipation and monitor your inventory closely before and during Prime Day.
Once your stock levels are assured, it’s vital that you have the capacity to fulfill your orders! If you use FBA, make sure you have sent sufficient stock to Amazon so they can pick, pack, and ship your products.
If you ship privately, consider whether you have enough resources and staff to get your items out in a timely manner. Contact your shipping partner and talk through the potential surge in orders. Communication with your shipping provider is key!
Planning ahead on these matters will ensure that you won’t be facing any delays or mistakes – your reviews and ratings during and after Prime Day are just as important as those during the normal sales year!
Afterwards, make sure you take full advantage of all your new customers by asking for reviews. And why not try automating your review requests? Your product reviews and ratings are essential for you to rank highly in Amazon’s search results and should form a key part of your marketing strategy. By fixing it so your customers are automatically asked for a review, you streamline this aspect of your tactics for an easy win.
Closing Thoughts
It’s inevitable, as an Amazon e-commerce seller, Prime Day is one of the most important events in your e-commerce business. You have fantastic access to new customers and a crucial window to accumulate great ratings and reviews. Not only can you boost your sales, it’s also an incredible opportunity for building invaluable brand recognition and awareness – so prepare well and take advantage of it!
Katherine Bakotic is a Director of Marketing & Community Engagement at BRANDED. She is a retail management professional with 10 years of expertise in strategy, marketing, and customer experience at premium brands. By leading strategic projects across topics and functions for brands like Kate Spade and Nike, Katherine excels in operationalizing consumer insights into tangible go-to-market strategies. At BRANDED, she is responsible for defining the corporate brand, raising brand awareness, leading the referral program, and engaging with e-commerce seller communities.