Black Friday deals are on, and the shopping frenzy is in full swing. It’s the perfect time for a last-minute Cyber Monday checklist, to make sure that it’s full speed ahead this sales season.
Never a dull moment on Amazon. Black Friday Deals Week is in full swing, and Cyber Monday is just around the corner. With all this going on, you may be wondering if you still have time for some last-minute moves, before that window of opportunity closes. We think you might.
Make Your Products Stand Out This Cyber Monday
You can’t so much as log in these days without hearing all about the Amazon Sponsored Products program. But Amazon Promotions and Deals is hands down the easiest way for Amazon sellers to promote their products on a budget. You set your promotions yourself and you decide how and when to apply them.
So, what’s the catch? Unqualified leads. That’s when you drive traffic to your product page but fail to convince your customers to buy. This lowers conversion rates and leads to a drop in search result ranking. Sooner or later, winning the Buy Box becomes a long shot.
Unqualified leads happen to everyone. But they tend to shoot up before the holidays because of unsuccessful social media campaigns that go really bad, really fast. Luckily, there’s a sure-fire way to set things right again. That’s right; it’s social media.
Checklist to maximize qualified leads via social media:
- Time your posts so that they go live when people are more likely to have a few minutes to spare.
- Let your followers know they should expect Deals of the Day, Lightning Deals, BOGO deals, Money Off, Free Delivery, or other promotions soon.
- Introduce your followers to your Amazon Store or Amazon Storefront (Seller Central login required) a few days in advance.
- Urge them to browse your catalog and add their favourite products to their wishlist.
- When you’re ready to promote specific products, check every link and anchor text in your sales pitch before it goes live on social media.
- Make sure your links are optimally positioned in the text so that a buyer immediately understands what they are clicking.
- Tone down the sales pitch if it’s too salesy, and focus on a single product at a time.
- Use opt-in forms for freebies like e-courses, workshops, ebooks, coupons etc., to increase your subscriber list.
- Approach an influencer to help raise awareness for your brand just before the sale.
- Increase the frequency of your posts slightly, but also trim them down.
- Share only information relevant to this campaign.
- Don’t bring any new topics into the picture until the campaign is over.
Checklist to maximize sales when you set up your promotions:
- Limit the number of units a buyer can purchase from you at a discounted price (see video above).
- Hide your sales velocity from other sellers. Start by limiting the quantity they can buy. This is very important, and it will require some research.
- Use a time zone converter and double-check the time it takes for your promotion to go live before you schedule it.
- Download your promotion codes and make click-to-website ads on social media platforms.
- Don’t include the code in anchor text, intros or anywhere else where thousands of people could see it instantly.
Checklist to review your account performance:
There’s only so much that promotions will do for you. So, if you want to improve your service and help maximize next year’s sales, then you need to review your performance this year and iron out your offering.
- Download the Amazon Assistant browser add-on and check to see what your Deal of the Day snippet looks like.
- Make a test purchase for a product you like that’s on promotion, then for a product of your own, and compare shopping experiences.
- Compare discounts with your competitors and keep a record of them to see how they’ve changed.
Hopefully, you already have a checklist like this, and it’s helped you develop good habits that you practice religiously. If not, it’s never too late to make one. While you’re scribbling away and checking tasks off, remember that you can always rely on our Account Monitoring team to help you keep up with those less exciting routine tasks.
In the meantime, please stay tuned for our upcoming post, where we analyse BFCM sales and trends.
Melanie takes an active interest in all things Amazon. She keeps an eye on the latest developments and keeps Amazon sellers up to speed.