If you’re not signed up to sell on Amazon yet, go to sellercentral.amazon.com and sign up! Use your personal or business info. Have these things ready when signing up: everything must be on the same address. Proof of address, Bank statement, Credit card, Phone number, Bank account details. See this article on How to Sell on Amazon as a non-US citizen.
The basic 1-2-3 of Amazon launch is:
- Get your listing optimized
- Get 10 reviews asap
- Activate PPC Ads (Sponsored Placement)
I try not to complicate it! These 3 things are the core of it.
Additionally, you can do giveaways to boost sales velocity, which boosts ranking. Ways to do this:
- Facebook Ads > ManyChat > one-time coupon > Amazon link
- My agency offers this
- Pay ViralLaunch.com to do this for you – they blast your product to their list of thousands of discount-hungry Moms, and they all buy over the course of a few days, and leave a review 1-3 weeks later.
During the first few months, I usually keep the price lower than my target price as per Amazon PPC Management, as this increases sales velocity which leads to hire ranking. After organic search rank gets up there, raise the price by $1-2 every couple weeks until you’re at your target price. Raising the price slowly prevents ranking from tanking. But sales velocity may slow down at your ‘target’ price, I always test different price points for a month or more to see what makes the most profit.
How to make a winning Amazon listing
First, do Keyword Research – The goal here is to gather all the possible relevant words and search terms that shoppers might type in who would be interested in your product. I use MerchantWords.com to see search volume data, and prioritize words / phrases based on this – I type in several obvious keywords, and it will suggest more relevant ones. I save the top 500 relevant words (if there are that many) and put them into the backend Keywords tab where it makes sense.
Main Image – This, the title, the price and the reviews are what gets shoppers to click. I always think about how to make my main image stand out from the competition. The official TOS says only white background with no accessories or graphics, but many don’t follow this as it’s not really enforced.
Title – Write an eye-catching & descriptive Title that helps your product stand out from the crowd. The first 80 chars are the most important as they display on mobile. It’s 200 characters total, and the top obvious keywords should be in there. I try to keyword stuff my titles while still making them as easy to read as possible while standing out from the crowd.
Bullet Points – I write 5 bullet points that are benefit-driven, helps the shopper envision themselves experiencing the benefits of the product, explains in a real way why we’re better than the competition, and entices shoppers to Add to Cart, without being salesy. Many sellers make a TITLE TO EACH BULLET in bold, but it’s not the only way to do.
Description – This is a pure text section. I make this section well-formatted with plenty of white space, bullets and/or numbered lists. It’s a place to include all additional benefits, features, and technical info to help shoppers make their buying decision. You must paste it in the backend HTML formatted – use this tool to do it.
EBC / A+ Content – If your brand is is Brand Registered, this is a section for more images and text. I showcase the most beautiful images and infographics. You will need to resize images to fit, and probably create new infographics just for EBC (Enhanced Brand Content). This is also a great opportunity to tell your brand story – I do this.
Good Title & Bullets Examples:
Good EBC / A+ Examples:
How to get 10 Reviews asap:
See my full Doc on Amazon Review Strategies 2019
- Ask people you know to order one
- I always do this. See my doc above on how I do it.
- Pay for a service to do it for you
- There are websites out there like HonestHippo or Panda boom
- Or my agency will do it for you – AmzElevate.com
How to keep steady reviews coming in long-term
- Have an auto-email followup that drips to all Amazon customers.
- Cash Cow Pro is the best software to set this up with (because it’s also a full profit dashboard)
- My agency will write and set this up for you
- Include an insert in your packaging
- I put a big QR code on it that says ‘DON’T FORGET TO SCAN HERE TO REGISTER YOUR EXTENDED WARRANTY! ?”
- It sends them to a ManyChat flow, where it gathers their email to register the warranty, then adds them to a review follow-up sequence where they get a Message a week later asking how things are going. My Amazon marketing agency will write and set this up for you.
How to best run Amazon PPC
This is basically paying to get higher ranking. It will make your product appear as ‘Sponsored’. Everyone does this pretty much always, and we are running and optimizing our PPC campaigns constantly – and bidding on keywords that we even rank on Page 1 for – so they see you twice.
Ways to do this:
- Pay an agency to run it for you.
- Run it yourself.
Basic PPC strategy:
PPC Activation: I create 1 Auto and 1 Manual campaign to kick it off, and adjust and test bids for a number weeks, depending on sales velocity, until we get significant data on what’s performing best.
PPC Optimization: I adjust bids to maximize profitability and reduce ACOS, trim the fat on all non-performing keywords, and add any new keywords that make sense.
PPC Overdrive: After I have significant data on which keywords are performing best, I double-down on what’s working to drive sales velocity and begin ranking organically for more and more keywords.
See this doc for more on my Amazon PPC strategy for 2019. This is my agency’s core service offering.
Best Amazon tools that I use:
CashCowPro – Best Profit Dashboard & Email Follow-Up
My review: This is the best site I’ve seen for Amazon Sales Analytics, PLUS it’s got Follow-up Emails built-in. The main page breaks down your sales #’s, ROI, Inventory etc. All the stats you need to see in one place. We use CashCowPro for our personal FBA biz daily. We’ve tried others, this seems to be the best and most comprehensive by far. (Update 2019: tried Sellics and FeedbackFive and switched back to CCP). It even includes Auto-Email automation, which is $29/mo alone on other platforms, like Sales Backer which we switched from. So at $99/mo, CashCow is actually a deal. Sign up here for $15 off monthly
MerchantWords – Amazon search volume data for keyword research. This link is a discount like for $9/mo instead of $30/mo (not an aff link tho).
AMZElevate – My Amazon Marketing Agency. See all our services on this contact form.
About me: I’m a full-time Amazon seller since 2015. My personal brand has done multi 7-figures on Amazon. Founder of The Amazon Method academy, keynote speaker at Nomad Summit 2017 and Freedom Summit 2019, 10+ years of copywriting & sales experience, and 4+ years of experience successfully launching products for myself, my students, and my clients on Amazon.
