Step aside, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There’s a new hot shopping day in town, and it’s Amazon Prime Day. The third annual event, held July 11, grew by more than 60 percent over last year’s event, as tens of millions of Prime members hustled to make special discounted purchases across a 30-hour shopping window, says Amazon.
Simply Gum, a natural gum and mints brand, wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass by. CEO and founder Caron Proschan and her team decided to sign up for a Lightning Deal—offering a limited quantity of discounted product, sold for a short period of time—and they sold out almost immediately. Here are three tips for brands considering participation:
Formulate a goal. For Simply Gum, that goal was to increase awareness and facilitate trial—and gain new customers and devotees along the way. To incentivize new shoppers to try the product, Simply Gum created a Lightning Deal, slashing its prices by 20 percent.
Get the word out. Social media is an invaluable tool for Simply Gum, and the brand looked outside its own channels to spread the word about its Prime Day deal. “Partnering with influencers on Instagram allowed us to reach people beyond our immediate audience and is something we’ll be doing again,” says Proschan. The right influencer is an existing supporter of the brand (someone who already engages with its content), or someone whose values align with those at Simply Gum—namely, a passion for natural food.
Plan for volume. One thing Simply Gum will change about its strategy for next year’s Prime Day is planning its inventory a bit better. “Because demand far exceeded our expectations, we ran out of product sooner than we thought we would,” says Proschan, which put a cap on how much revenue the brand could generate. Her tip? “Assume you will sell more than you think.”
