michaelbrookscomm

How to improve paid media campaign conversion rates

Posted by michaelbrookscommon June 19, 2020December 9, 2021in How To:1 Comment

The likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have honed the art of targeting and content delivery to near perfection. For brands it’s never been easier to utilise these digital advertising tools to reach, inform and persuade potential customers to click through to their website.

However, the decision of where to direct the consumer has the greatest impact on the cost-effectiveness of campaigns. This is where a campaign flourishes or flounders, no matter how good the marketing mix of product, price, promotion and placement is.

Simply put, if the destination webpage does not continue the same smooth user journey from social media it will likely result in a costly, wasted click. So, what can be done to improve conversion rates?

Consider a situation where the consumer is directed to a conventional product webpage. The user journey changes from micro to macro in an instant. The distinct message or image they originally engaged with is now one thread of a much wider range of information.

The end is the most important part of the journey

A product webpage displays a navigation menu to the rest of the website, allowing a visitor to find out more about other products, the company, its history, its social media channels, etc. This is useful content which has its place in digital marketing, but from an e-commerce perspective, this provides too much choice which then undermines your conversion rates. A product page is for everybody and to a larger extent converts nobody.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a custom configured webpage that serves the fulfilment objective of the campaign. They are more effective than webpages for digital advertising because they are focused on a single goal. A product web page provides a wealth of information to a range of visitors, whereas a landing page is aligned with the message or offer made in the advertisement, tailored for those that click on it.

The landing page gives digital marketers greater scope to fine tune page elements such as copy, visuals and layout. Using analytics to monitor user behaviour, they can adopt a test, measure and adjust approach to improve conversion rate optimisation (CRO) during the campaign. This is hard to emulate with a general product web page as the profile and needs of users will be much broader.

Here are five defining characteristics of an effective e-commerce landing page:

It delivers on the promise: The messaging describes how the product fulfils the need outlined in the advert, leaving the consumer with the logical outcome to purchase.
It keeps it simple: The page displays a clear checkout process; it’s not cluttered with off-topic content or other products.
It restricts choice: There are no distracting menu options; the page focuses on the product and how to order it. If they do not buy there and then, a voucher could appear if someone moves the cursor towards the close browser button. Alternatively, retargeting could be used to offer visitors a discount, providing an incentive to return.
It champions robust delivery and returns processes: Digital advertising drastically speeds up the sales funnel process. A consumer could go from having never heard of a brand to being asked to hand over payment details in the space of one click. A good landing page anticipates any consumer concerns on payment security, and any delivery concerns by offering reputable third-party payment methods such as PayPal as well as secure, tracked, speedy delivery and return options.
It includes customer reviews and testimonials: To help assure customers on quality, short positive comments from other customers are prominently placed.

To reduce churn, wasted clicks and achieve a better return on digital advertising, why not consider using a landing page approach on your next e-commerce campaign?

5 ways for Amazon sellers to cash in on Black Friday

Posted by michaelbrookscommon November 20, 2019December 10, 2021in How To:, Uncategorized1 Comment

This November sees the return of Black Friday. The annual event is now firmly established in Europe. Its American origins based on the premise that after an entire year of operating at a loss (“in the red”) stores would supposedly earn a profit (“went into the black”) on the day after Thanksgiving, because holiday shoppers spent so much money on discounted merchandise.

Black Friday offers tremendous potential to companies currently selling on Amazon. But as a seller, how can you make sure you’re getting the most out of the Black Friday extravaganza?

Here are our five top tips for seller success.

1. Optimise your listing title for searches

Making sure your product is as visible as possible in searches needs to be your priority (visibility within Black Friday deals comes later). Make sure you include a generic product description of what your product is within the title. Even if people haven’t heard of your brand, this will ensure that they know what type of product you are offering.

2. Seal the deal with bullet points

The five bullet points are arguably the most important feature of an Amazon listing. Listing features is not enough to persuade buyers; you need to motivate the viewer to buy by setting an expectation of what benefits they will get out of using the product. This is why Amazon places the customer buy-box next to the bullet points – more often than not, it’s the bullet points describing the benefits of the features that convince buyers.

3. Participate in Black Friday Lightning Deals

The main concept around Amazon’s Black Friday is to offer hundreds of exclusive discount deals on popular, quality products. To be able to be a part of this, your product(s) need to have a certain number of positive reviews and a three-star rating or higher. You must also reduce the price of the item by at least 40% to be considered.

You need to choose the quantity of stock you want to sell and submit the deal in advance of Black Friday to Amazon. Amazon then decides when to schedule it. Lightning Deals are tremendously popular due to their high visibility on the homepage, and huge volumes of stock can be sold in a very short time period.

4. Increase your keyword bid strategy throughout Black Friday promotion

If you already use Amazon’s display and brand keyword advertising tools in seller central, make sure you allocate extra budget for the duration of Black Friday to ensure your products are promoted above organic search results.

You’ll reap the benefits of a low advertising cost of sale (ACOS) as your customers’ intention now will be to buy rather than browse.

5. Use vendor powered money-off coupons

Amazon customers use the ‘wish list’ function to keep track of products they’ll be looking to buy at discount during Black Friday. Sellers can make their products more attractive during the sale by buy adding a money off coupon onto the listing. A glance at the wish list will display the discount on offer to the customer.

Couponed listings also stand out in search results. As a seller, you are in control of offering a percentage discount or a monetary amount off the list price, making this a very useful sales strategy instead of Lightning Deals.

As Black Friday’s popularity continues to grow every year, missing out on the opportunity for increased sales around the shopping event could see your brand suffer. Following these tips puts you in good stead to maximise the opportunity Black Friday offers to sellers.

Want to find out more? Get in touch!

If you have any questions about how to make Amazon an effective channel for your business, please check out our Amazon Marketing services or get in touch. We’ve helped several brands launch and establish themselves on Amazon in Europe. Call us on 01483 537 890 or email hello@brookscomm.com

How sellers can make a success of Amazon Prime Day

Posted by michaelbrookscommon July 3, 2019December 10, 2021in How To:Leave a comment

With Amazon Prime membership continuing to see double-digit growth, its annual Amazon Prime Day, held every July, is due to set new records for online sales.

The event is a huge opportunity for any companies currently selling on Amazon. Traffic to Amazon increases exponentially over the two days, with Amazon Prime and regular Amazon customers all searching for great deals.

As a seller, how can you make the most out of Amazon Prime Day?

Here are our top tips:

Check your listing title includes a generic product description

Prime Day customers are experienced buyers and know that not all the products they want will be in Prime Day Deals. Buyers often fill up their shopping carts with a variety of deal and non-deal items throughout the event.

With this in mind, making sure your product is as visible as possible in searches needs to be your first priority (visibility within Prime Day deals comes later). Make sure you include a generic product description of what your product is within the title. Even if people haven’t heard of your brand, they will know what type of product they are looking for!

Use the bullet points to sell

The five bullet points are arguably the most important feature of an Amazon listing. Make the most of them by telling your customers the benefits they’ll get from the key attributes of the product.

And remember: simply listing product features is not enough. You need to sell the product. This is why Amazon places the customer buy-box next to the bullet points – more often than not, it’s the bullet points that close the deal.

Participate in Amazon Prime Day Lightning Deals

The concept of Amazon Prime Day is to offer Amazon Prime customers hundreds of exclusive discount deals on popular, quality products. To be able to do so, your product(s) need to have a certain number of positive reviews and a three-star rating or higher. You must also reduce the price of the item by at least 40%.

If you meet the criteria, you can then choose the quantity of stock you want to sell and submit the deal in advance of Prime Day to Amazon. Amazon then reviews the deal and decides when to schedule it during the sales event.

Increase keyword bid strategy throughout Prime Day promotion

If you already use Amazon’s display and brand keyword advertising tools in seller central, make sure you allocate extra budget for the two-day duration to ensure your products are promoted above organic search results.

You’ll reap the benefits of a low advertising cost of sale (ACOS) as customer intention will be to buy, not browse, during Prime Day.

Use vendor powered money-off coupons to attract Prime and non-Prime customers

Regular Amazon and Prime Day customers use the wish list to keep track of products they’ll be looking to buy at discount during Prime Day. As an alternative to Prime Day deals, sellers can make their products more attractive during the sale by buy adding a money off coupon onto the listing. A glance at the wish list will display the discount on offer to the customer.

Couponed listings stand out in search results making them a great way for non-Prime day customers to take advantage of discounted products. As a seller, you are in control of offering a % discount or a flat £5, £10, £20 etc off the list price, making this a very useful sales strategy.

Utilise Enhanced Brand Content to improve the buyer experience

Registering your brand with Amazon unlocks a range of Amazon Marketing Service tools. One of these is the ability to publish your own customised content in your listing.

If you’ve ever scrolled down an Amazon listing and seen polished, detailed, aspirational imagery of a product with detailed text, you’re looking at Enhanced Brand Content. Expanded marketing reinforces the sales messages outlined in the bullet points further up on your listing. You can build and publish your own content in Amazon seller central.

Use online channels to drive sales

Amazon’s massive marketing campaign for Prime Day has a ripple effect that stimulates online shopping in general. Other online retailers are now running their own versions of Amazon Prime Day. For instance, eBay now runs hugely discounted deals during Amazon Prime Day.

Other online retailers are joining in too, so make sure you don’t miss out by driving demand to Amazon and eBay during the promotions using your social media channels.

Alternatively, if you sell directly to consumers, prepare and promote your own website sales event during Amazon Prime Day.

How to get the most out of Amazon’s mega sales events

Posted by michaelbrookscommon August 23, 2018August 23, 2018in How To:Leave a comment

In 2015, Amazon told Black Friday to step aside and make way for their own brand new sales event. By offering exclusive discounts to Prime members only and holding the event during a traditionally quiet time of year for shoppers, Amazon were about to disrupt the retail industry once more.

Amazon Prime Day has been a staggering success so far. Each year the event has grown by over 60% in terms of sales and Amazon prime membership uptake. Last month’s Prime Day was the biggest ever online shopping event. It took place in 17 different countries, where over 100 million products were bought by Amazon’s 100 million Prime customers.

The cost of success

Prime Day 2018 was a bittersweet affair for many sellers on Amazon. Reports of a years’ worth of sales in a few hours were not uncommon, with some discounted product lines selling out in just a matter of minutes.

This left some to question what if they had more stock available and for those who don’t sell on Amazon what they are missing out on.

If you can’t beat them…

If you aren’t selling on Amazon it might be worth reconsidering your strategy to include it as a sales channel. The margins might be less than selling directly via your website or via another reseller, but the sheer volume of sales made possible by Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday make it hard to exclude.

We have worked with several clients over the last two years, helping them to achieve record sales on Amazon, especially during Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, here are our tips to any business looking to sell on Amazon:

Test the water with Amazon FBA

If you are already trading on Amazon, compare selling as a trader with selling directly from Amazon. “Fulfilled by Amazon” (FBA) means Amazon hold the stock and handle the delivery themselves. FBA listings are favoured over non-FBA in search results and generate more sales as Prime customers can get the products via next-day delivery. FBA also provides you with easy access to other countries with Amazon shopping portals, such as France and Germany, helping support your business growth aspirations.

Use Lightning Deals and Deal of the Day to measure demand

If your product earns good reviews then you can qualify for time-limited exclusive Amazon promotions. Lightning Deals are flash sales of limited quantities of products, Deal of the Day, as its name suggests, is an all-day unlimited quantity sale. Both promotions are very useful to gauge how popular your products are, which is essential when trying to predict sales during Amazon’s three major annual sales events. They’re also very effective in selling off surplus stock at discount (typically 25% off RRP).

Use Enhanced Brand Content to maximise appeal

Registering your brand with Amazon and meeting certain seller criteria unlocks a range of marketing features for your brand and your product listings. Visual aids, video and other media can all be used to make your listing stand out from the competition, appearing slicker and more attractive to buyers.

Use Amazon Sponsored search to refine your listing

The main difference between Google and Amazon is that people on Amazon are searching in relation to making a purchasing decision. In the same way a Google ad works, you can sponsor certain keywords, phrases or even other products, so that your listing appears before your competitors.

In addition to boosting sales, sponsored search provides rich insight into buyer search behaviour, which you can use to further optimise your listing, helping boost the organic performance of your listing.

Sponsored search also includes the option to run Dynamic ads, where Amazon uses its own algorithms and keyword ideas to target shoppers it thinks would be likely customers.

Plan your integrated PR, Social and Digital Marketing around Amazon major sales events

Assuming your participation in these events, where you need to agree with Amazon’s discount (circa 30% off the RRP) and FBA stock availability, its vital to augment Amazon’s marketing with your own comms plan.

In the build up to Prime Day, Black Friday or Cyber Monday get in-touch with the online and traditional retail press and let them know about what products and discounts are available. You can embargo the news so that it’s only released just before the start of the sale. If you have a customer mailing list, let them know they could buy more of your products via this special sale. Perhaps they make an ideal gift?

Promote the sale on your social media platforms using yours and Amazon’s branding to show your association. If you advertise on the likes of Facebook, Twitter or Google, target likely buyers with messages during the promotion.

If you work with an integrated PR, social and digital marketing agency, ask them about taking responsibility for this.

Remember that Black Friday and Cyber Monday soon follow

With three consecutive years of 60% growth its very likely Amazon Prime Day 2019 will be bigger than 2018. Sales forecasting will be challenging, but if you use your sales data from the other Amazon promotions and understand what an average week or month’s sales looks like you’ll be in a better position to predict. Bear in mind that there is five months of regular sales activity to meet after Prime Day and that you could run an additional Deal of the Day to help clear stock. Finally, with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Xmas build-up coming just five months later, there will be more opportunities to sell large quantities.

At brookscomm we have over 20 years of PR & marketing expertise and a proven track record of providing an integrated, measurable PR and digital marketing strategy. We can help you boost your business. Email michael@brookscomm.com or call us on 01483 537 890.

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Audience targeting: Walking the ethical tightrope

Posted by michaelbrookscommon March 28, 2018March 28, 2018in Marketing, News: Company UpdatesLeave a comment

Recent news has been dominated by stories which highlight the questionable tactics of some companies, in covertly harvesting user data from social media channels which informs their approach, enables them to target their communications based on profiling and, ultimately, influences opinion.

All of this is especially pertinent as we approach the looming GDPR deadline – in a timeframe where ethics, privacy and data protection are all issues of paramount concern to business.

The brookscomm approach
In our role as trusted counsel to a diverse client-base, we develop and deliver clear messaging to support each client’s value statement and inform their customers’ decision-making. Furthermore, we conduct thorough research to ensure we are targeting end-users and new business prospects as effectively, appropriately and ethically as possible. This approach enables us to deliver consistency, add maximum value to the audience, whilst attaining optimal reach.
Whether in our PR, marketing or social media execution, our steps toward the most positive outcome are clearly defined and structured:

identify each clients’ target audience/s (WHO do we want to attract?)
determine their reading and influencer touchpoints (WHERE can we reach them?)
develop clear messaging and information which illustrates the value proposition (WHY should they engage?)
provide clear direction, highlighting the call-to-action (HOW do we meet our end-goal? e.g. sales / subscribers / etc in a GDPR compliant process.)

The methods we use to achieve these steps follow a careful and considered ethical pathway, with the utmost care and consideration to ensure compliance, authenticity and integrity – building a sense of trust with our clients and their audiences throughout the journey.

A recent example of this being the counsel we’re currently providing to both US, UK and EU clients on how to ensure that their business communication systems and processes are compliant with the incoming GDPR legislation.

Businesses must always question their data collection methods to meet their governance and compliance responsibilities and respect customer privacy. Hopefully this week’s news will only serve to improve data collection and analysis approaches, protecting the privacy rights of the end-user and strengthening ethical practice within organisations.

Get in touch on 01483 537 890 to discuss how we could help improve your business communications.