So often, a product is just ticking along quite nicely on Amazon when it could be a real barnstormer. Or it’s not doing anything much, when it could be selling steadily. The difference is in the detail – so tweaking your sales listing and advertising could do the trick and help it achieve its potential.
First of all, look at your listing title. You have up to 250 characters there, so if all you’re saying is “tea towel”, you’ve given up prime real estate with nothing to show for it. Have a think about what tea towel buyers want – they want to know what color, is it cotton, will it fit their interior design style? So take up some of those 250 characters and let them know, it’s blue and white striped, 100% cotton, French cottage or farmhouse style – zap! You’re selling!
The same way, “lucky horseshoe charm” doesn’t convey nearly as much information as “SweetiePie brand lucky horseshoe charm for bracelet – hallmarked sterling silver jewelry” which gives your brand, what the charm is intended for, and the fact that it’s real sterling silver (or “925” – that is, 92.5% pure silver).
Look at the terms people use when they’re looking for similar products. For instance, a lot of searches for baby products include the words ‘comfortable’ and ‘easy to clean’, so if you’re selling baby products you should definitely include those words if your product fits the bill.
Secondly, look at your images. Your main image has to fit Amazon’s regulations, but do the others fit the bill? They need to be both visually and emotionally congruent. That is, the visual style should be the same, and fit your branding. If you have light, colorful photos but your infographics look like corporate Powerpoint, you need to change them!
And emotionally, all your images need to feel the same, too. If some of them say “cuddly” and some say “funky” and one says “serious”, you’re giving mixed messages, and that will cut your conversion rate. If you have pictures of your cookware in use, but shot in an industrial kitchen with stainless steel everywhere, you might consider re-shooting in a nice friendly home kitchen – unless, of course, you’re selling quality cookware to chefs, in which case your photos are on point.
Now let’s look at the bullet points. Are your bullets hitting the target? You should be stressing the product’s benefits and most important features – including any money back guarantees or extras that come with the product. Describe the benefit to the customer, not the technical feature (eg ‘non-stick’ rather than ‘Teflon-coated’).
But it’s not just the message, it’s also the medium that is important – are you using short paragraphs? Are you emphasizing the key point in all caps, such as IRRESISTIBLE TO CATS or KEEPS COFFEE HOT FOR HOURS?
You may actually have missed one of the key benefits and only found out about it from reviews – so it’s time for an update!
Look at your product description. Remember this is one place Amazon lets you use HTML markup, so you can use bold, italics, line breaks, to highlight the most important points and keep each paragraph short and readable.
And check the Q&A section. What are the things people don’t understand about your product? Or the things that could cause confusion? Or the differences compared with other products? Ask a colleague or friend to ‘seed’ the section with the right questions: “How do I know what size do I need?”, “Do I need to order the stand separately?”
Think about long-tail keywords. They’re cheaper to advertise than short tail keywords but relate to a more specific user need, so have better conversion rates. For instance, “lightweight hammock for camping” is so much better than ‘hammock’ where you’ll be competing with home and garden products.
And finally – where is your Call To Action? Put one in your product listing now!
(I hope you see what we did there!)
