A few months ago, I teamed up with the awesome guys at Sellbrite to launch a series of posts called #AmazonDomination, in which I hoped to take you through all the steps you needed to follow to successfully research, launch, and promote a product on Amazon’s marketplace.
The road to launch was amazing. I dug deep, found a nice niche product, did all my research, and crafted a masterful product listing. If you were to follow the same steps I took, you too would have a great product listing that would blow everyone else out of the water.
But there was the problem – the water is so deep, and the marketplace so crowded, that you need an enormous amount of energy to be able to push through – and the Amazonian currents are not strong enough to pull you up by themselves.
When it came to promotion, I fell a little short. I didn’t have as many sales as I had hoped – not even close, actually.
Amazon’s system is kind of like a paradox. Their logic is that the more sales you have, the higher your listing should be in their results. That’s pretty fair. But reaching the tipping point of having a certain number of sales (and reviews) to reach the top is difficult, and often times there is no clear path to follow.
Most of the promotion, it seems, lies on your shoulders.
I suppose the biggest mistake I made was relying on SEO alone to try and drive traffic to my listing – I wasn’t even close to page 1 for my targeted keyword. I did some pretty basic SEO – I built a Tumblr blog and linked to the listing from it.
I also purchased an expired domain that had some decent links pointing to it and I did a 301 redirect from it to my listing. Naively, I assumed that this handful of links would be enough to push the listing where I wanted it to be.
Google has changed
While I do believe that backlinks are still very important, I feel that generating buzz by doing PR and social media marketing is even more important – because these things lend to good backlinks, too.
One other mistake I made with SEO is that the product I chose was pretty boring and straightforward. It wasn’t exciting or revolutionary. Sure, it was functional and looked sharp – but that was about it.
To really blast it off, I should have done way more promoting – approaching blogs, social influencers, and the like to inform them about my new product.
That would have brought me enough sales and reviews to propel my listing to the top – and from then on, it would be running pretty much on autopilot.
So for this closing chapter on #AmazonDomination, let’s talk a little bit about how to properly launch a product – by doing good PR.
When you launch, you want to make sure you do it with a bang. This means that you’ll send hundreds of emails to hundreds of bloggers and websites – you’ll build a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest – and for the first few weeks of your launch, you’ll eat, sleep, and breathe your product.
Doing outreach
The amount of quality traffic a couple of high-tier blogs can drive to your listing is phenomenal. It’s every startup’s dream to be featured on TechCrunch or Mashable – and while these are mostly technology sites, nearly every industry and niche has its own TechCrunch and Mashable, too.
Check out some of your competitors and see where they’ve been getting press. Once you’ve identified influencers, it’s time to get your foot in the door.
I highly recommend you check out this excellent post on Shopify on how to land a guest post. Even if you want to generate buzz for a product and not necessarily guest post, the steps that are outlined in the post are the same.
When you pitch your product, make sure you don’t sound too salesy or cheesy. Be sincere, and remember to focus on what’s in it for the blogger (besides getting a free sample). Why is your product so awesome? What makes it so good? Why will their readers have to get one for themselves?
A plus point of using Amazon is that they are almost guaranteed to make money if they are part of Amazon’s affiliates program – since they will get a commission on anything the viewer buys within 24 hours of clicking the link from their site.
If your product isn’t too expensive (and even if it is a little pricey), the next step in outreach is to do a few reviews/giveaways. A lot of sites have information on their About Us pages or Contact pages regarding their giveaway policies.
Remember, do a review/giveaway only if you are sure that you are the only person selling the product – otherwise you are spending time and money getting free publicity for other people.
I’ve found that reviews work best for slightly complex and feature-rich products, and giveaways work best for visual, impulsive products. One thing you can do to guarantee some sales from a giveaway is to send everyone that didn’t win a coupon code for 20-40% off.
What to expect
Doing outreach is tough – and requires patience and perseverance. Don’t expect that everyone you send an email to will reply eagerly. Most of your emails will be ignored, and the few that get replies will probably make you jump through hoops to get what you need.
Don’t worry about it – even the best bloggers don’t receive replies for every outreach effort. I wish I could give you a percentage of how many replies you will get, but unfortunately, there is no way to tell. You just have to keep doing it.
If you feel your email template is the problem, then you can use a handy tool called Yesware that hooks up to your Gmail account. Yesware tracks whether or not your recipient opened the message, so if you are seeing lots of opens but no replies, you may need to adjust your email’s copy.
For more information on how to effectively write outreach emails, check out this excellent guide by Gregory Ciotti.
Final words
The last bit of advice I can give you is HUSTLE. Don’t dawdle, procrastinate, or decide to walk the dog every time you sit down to work. Apply the principle of B2C (backside-to-chair), and see your project through. You’ll be surprised at how much you can achieve.
