The Client
The client is an elderly couple who invested their retirement money in an Amazon business with the goal of earning passive income from home. To learn how to sell effectively on Amazon, the couple joined webinars, tried different tools, and joined groups. Nothing worked.
In desperation, the couple scoured the internet to look for an Amazon specialist whom they could outsource for a couple of hours and who could help them improve their listings on the e-commerce platform.
For 18 months, the client worked with an American company only to find that their business needs were still not being met. Apparently, the company was “consistently slow to act upon [their] Skype discussions and emails” to the point that the client was left to deal with most of the work. It also didn’t understand that the client, being a new seller on Amazon, does not really have a background in e-commerce jargons and technicalities.
Seeing that the American company wasn’t delivering their end of the deal, the client decided to seek experience and expertise elsewhere. The client learned about Shore360 Agency and immediately got in touch. On the same day, a meeting was set up with Shore360 Agency’s Amazon specialist.
The Challenge
The client’s product listings and paid ads were not driving enough conversions. One of their products was selling but had a low profit margin, while another with a higher margin wasn’t selling much at all.
With their business in the red, the client knew they needed the help of a virtual assistant to optimize, market, and advertise their products on Amazon.
Our Recommendation
Amazon’s A9 search engine algorithm was developed to rate the relevancy of every item in the Amazon catalogue against customer queries. Neglecting the optimisation of product pages or sponsored ads compromises visibility and sales potential.
The client clarified that they only required short-term assistance from a specialist and would eventually manage their Amazon marketing themselves once they gained more experience.
With that in mind, Shore360 Agency advised the client to outsource Joyce, our mid-level Amazon technician, for 16 hours. As soon as the number of hours was settled, Joyce began coordinating with the client to lay out the strategy and time frame for the short project. The strategies that were implemented are as follows:
Keyword Research with Efficiency Index Computation
Keywords help Amazon’s search engine algorithm understand what your product page is about and serve it to the right audience. Considering user intent, Joyce researched keywords and then calculated the efficiency or effectiveness of each one.
Shore360 Agency recommended that MiniMovers issue an official statement to explain the story behind the video that triggered public backlash against them. A press release was then written and submitted to numerous local and national news sites.
Rewriting of Product Descriptions
The product description section is where you basically expound on and add more value to the features you mentioned in the bullet points section. Joyce rewrote the client’s product descriptions to improve readability and to convince customers to purchase without sounding too pushy.
Optimisation of Product Titles
The product title is one of the relevance-related ranking factors on Amazon. It also impacts your click-through-rate. For these reasons, Joyce optimised the client’s product titles by including relevant keywords that we wanted to be associated with their brand name.
Setup of Sponsored Ads
The client has run paid ads on Amazon before, albeit unsuccessfully. After doing keyword research, Joyce set up and optimised both automated and manual campaigns to generate better traffic and deliver more sales.
Once the 16 hours were consumed, Shore360 Agency scheduled another meeting with the client. After analysing the financial viability of the client’s business, we came up with recommendations for moving forward. We gave the client a walk-through of more optimisation strategies, as well as monitoring of their product detail pages and sponsored ads’ performance.
The Results
Through Joyce’s SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) ads efforts, the client’s product visibility improved and weekly sales surged. Page views and sessions were on an upward trend. Between June 02 and June 23, ordered product sales increased by almost 200%.
Sponsored ads started contributing to overall sales as well. For example, between June 16 and June 22, sponsored ads delivered 37% of the client’s total sales. Meanwhile, in the first week of July, 77% of overall sales came from paid ads.
On July 2, Joyce observed that organic listings are now delivering numbers so she recommended that the sponsored ads be paused.
Pleased with Shore360 Agency’s service, the client, without prompting, left some kind words for us:
Note: Shore360 Agency represents the consolidated organisation encompassing its former trading brands: ShoreDigital, ShoreMarketing, and ShoreSuite.
Any reference in this material to these former entities shall be understood as a reference to Shore360 Agency.
About Amazon.com
In the 25 years since it was launched as an online bookshop, Amazon has grown to be recognised as the largest online retail platform not only in the US but also worldwide. It is dubbed as one of the Big Four Tech companies along with Google, Apple, Facebook, and occasionally, Microsoft.
Recovering Reputation, Rebuilding Brand Trust
Amazon receives more than 150 million unique visitors monthly in the US alone. According to Statista, the online shopping site reached 232 billion USD net sales in 2018, achieving 31% year-on-year revenue growth.
This is how ShoreMarketing helped a start-up business gain better traction on Amazon and at the same time, teach them how to stay competitive using the best selling practices.
