Establishing an effective digital strategy for your brand comes with its fair share of challenges, especially on Amazon, in a dynamic marketplace.
Brad Saksons is the marketing director at OMNI ePartners, a full service digital marketing agency specializing in Amazon advertising management. He's also a founding member of Amazon Media Group's ISO team. In other words, Saksons is an e-commerce expert. When it comes to e-commerce challenges, Saksons says being "retail ready" is absolutely critical before increasing traffic from advertising vehicles on Amazon.
But what does "retail ready" entail? How can your CPG brand stand out among the hundreds of millions of products already sold on Amazon? On our upcoming BrandCamp webinar on April 17 Saksons will demystify what it means for CPG brands to succeed online, particularly within the Amazon ecosystem.
Here, Saksons gives us a taste of what's to come on the webinar.
In today's constantly evolving marketplace, why is it important for CPG brands to have an effective omnichannel strategy, and what role does Amazon play?
Brad Saksons: Personally, I think the term omnichannel is becoming outdated and CPGs should be thinking of their business including all channels and specifically e-commerce as a complete strategy. Brands need to understand that the barrier of purchasing consumables online does not exist anymore. There is a symbiotic relationship between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce marketplaces (mainly Amazon).
We should think about our products on Amazon and how the content/information/reviews are a better trial-driving vehicle for brick-and-mortar, even over our direct-to-consumer websites. For most of the country, consumers on Amazon do not have the option to purchase single products, so the online experience provides confidence to “trial” an item in a brick-and-mortar store. If they decide they love the item, they will come back to Amazon for savings and convenience where they will purchase multipacks or club boxes.
What is the most common Amazon strategy mistake you see brands making, and how do you get those brands back on track?
BS: One of the most common mistakes we see is when brands activate advertising too early on Amazon. Their typical goal is to jump-start sales velocity for new items or to accelerate sales on older products. This makes sense at a high level, but when we audit their detail pages, we see a number of problems that should be addressed for each product to be “retail ready." Being “retail ready” is absolutely critical before increasing traffic from advertising vehicles on Amazon and includes the following page attributes: titles, image quality, number of images, bullet points, enhanced content, quality of reviews and number of reviews.
Join us April 17 as we dive into Amazon paid search strategy, Amazon DSP and retail readiness for your CPG brand. Register here for Amazon and Beyond: Course Correcting Your Online Strategy.
