The holidays is just at the corner; this means more people shopping on Amazon and more people coming at you. While it may seem that the surge of potential buyers will mean more for your business, it is not always the case—most especially if you have not properly optimized your Amazon strategy. Fortunately, Jenna Lieber of Turnkey Product Management has the answers for you! She gives out some big pointers that not only apply for quarter four, but also to your business in general. She talks about four different topics and breaks every single one of them just for you: Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) updates, video on the listing, giveaways, and pixeling.
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This is Jenna Lieber from Turnkey Product Management. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a Client Manager at Turnkey. What we do at Turnkey is we manage full-service brands on Amazon. We also have a course, which teaches you how to sell on Amazon and we also have an inner circle group where we all meet together. We talk about Amazon strategies every single month. We do a ton all on Amazon. That is our main focus. I spent a lot of time on there. I’m here to give you some big pointers that not only apply for quarter four but also in general, this should be in your Amazon strategy. We feel that this is a perfect time to unveil it to you, to talk about it with you because this is the big time of year. What I’m going to talk to you about is what is working on Amazon now. We have four topics we’re going to discuss now and I’m going to break down every single one of them for you.
Enhanced Brand Content
We’re going to talk about some EBC updates, video on the listing, giveaways and pixeling. For those of you who don’t know what enhanced brand content is, enhanced brand content is essentially a more in-depth product description that is available to sellers that are brand registered. The EBC offers five templates and one additional custom template. At Turnkey, we always use the one additional custom template. The reason is that sometimes your images are different sizes than the template. It makes it a little bit easier and better to play around with in our opinion. I’m going to break down how you put it together. The big news and the big update is EBC now allows you to add keywords to each image in the enhanced brand content. This is a big deal because, for those of you who don’t know, EBC is a part of your SEO and can have an effect on your PPC. It’s important to take advantage of keyword placement every single chance you get. How do you do that?
The way you can input keywords into your images is for those of you that already have your enhanced brand content, it’s built out, it’s done and it’s been submitted to Amazon. That’s okay. What you can do is you can go back into enhanced brand content and make edits to it. That means that as you’re making edits to it in the backend, you are not going to take down your current enhanced brand content, so it’s okay to make these edits in the backend. What you do to be able to input those keywords is you delete the image that you already have on there and then once you re-upload the image, it will give you a spot to put these keywords. The max character count for these keywords are 100 characters per image. Make sure that you’re paying attention to that. Spaces do not count. The big bonus here and the reason this update is so huge is these keywords do index for SEO and PPC.
A lot of people are concerned when it comes to your bullet points. You don’t want to talk too long, you don’t want to talk about things that maybe don’t matter directly to your product. This is a great place to put them. They’re not visible, so it’s a great place for these keywords. While we’re on the subject of keywords, one thing I always like to bring up is how important that EBC is to the mobile listing. The reason being, the EBC shows up before the bullet points when it comes to the mobile listing. On the mobile app with Amazon, your EBC is showing up first. Why is that important? Majority of users are only shopping on the mobile app. When we’re selling on Amazon, we obviously are using our desktops to set up these listings, so we sometimes forget that most of our shopping is through our phones. It’s through those apps. It’s through the Amazon.com app so making sure you’re paying attention to that is important.
Videos On The Listing
That enhanced brand content is showing up before your bullet points on mobile. Please make sure that enhanced brand content is on point and ready for the holidays. I would start making these changes soon. If you don’t have an EBC, get one as soon as possible because it is the holidays. Amazon might take a little bit longer to allow you to update it but try to make those adjustments as soon as possible. For those of you who are not brand registered, that’s okay. This should be your push to hopefully get that trademark done. Get ready to get brand registered because there is a ton of different valuable items that you can take advantage of being brand registered. This is probably the biggest news. My whole job is around Amazon. I’m a part of those chat groups about selling on Amazon. I’m a part of all those Facebook groups and this is a question that everyone’s asking, “How do I get video on the listing?”
Don't get intimidated if you don't have these assets, just try to get on board as soon as possible. Click To TweetSellers who are registered with Amazon Brand Registry can now add a video to their listing that shows their product in action. How do you add the video? Like all updates, it wasn’t very public when Amazon did this. They didn’t mention it to anybody. It’s just something you’ve got to find. Luckily, we spend all day on Amazon. We found it and we can help you get there. Where you would do it? You would go up to advertising and scroll down to enhanced brand content. Click on enhanced brand content and when you’re in there you’ll enter your SKU and press enter. What it will do is it will say, “Do you want an enhanced brand content or do you want to add a video?” Press add video. It’s super simple. Nothing crazy going on with adding it. It’s super easy.
A couple of things here. When we’ve been talking to people about this, we’ve been talking to our coaching clients about it and our course clients about it. They’ve been asking, “What is the best video to put on Amazon?” We don’t have a straight answer. We’ve seen a lot of success with different types of videos. The ones that stand out to me always are the ones that talk about the brand as a whole. Maybe it’s not directly about your product. Maybe it’s not about a specific group of your products but rather it’s about what your company is and what your company stands for. Featuring your products but not necessarily a how-to video or not something that’s just showing how the product works. Those videos do incredibly well. We see a lot of success with those videos.
That being said, we also see a lot of success with those how-to videos. Showing your product in action, showing how it works, how people should use it and everything like that, it’s good to also have those videos. One thing I would recommend is you know your product the best. You have Facebook stats. If you’re putting these on Facebook, you’re able to see how many people have watched this video. You can see on YouTube how many people watched this video. Maybe you can use that to gauge it, but it’s your call. What do you think your customers want to see the most? Do they want to understand the product a little bit better with a how-to or do they want to know who you guys are as a brand? You know your company the best.
This is incredibly important with the holidays especially. People are shopping like crazy. Trying to get this video on there as soon as possible will help you. We have seen a huge jump when it comes to conversion for those who have a video on their listing, so taking advantage of it is crucial. In those videos, maybe create a video that has a personal connection with your brand, solve a pain point, provide as much information as possible and show them how to use it and how-to all of that could work. One thing that Jeff always talks about when we’re talking to people about these videos is a video is better than no video. If you’re just getting started, if you don’t have these video assets yet, that’s totally okay. There’s no need to stress out about it.
One thing you can do is you can create a PowerPoint. This is something you can do by going to Fiverr. There are a ton of people out there who can do this for you, but you can create a presentation and what these people can do is move through the presentation and make it a video. Then you can add text over it, you can add a voice over it. There are different things you can do that won’t be as expensive as a full production of a video. There are other options for you. A video is better than no video, so just something to consider. Don’t get intimidated if you don’t have these assets, just try to get on board as soon as possible.
Amazon Strategy: The videos that stand out to me always are the ones that talk about the brand as a whole.
Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t straight up tell you what you can and can’t do. They make it complicated. They like to make things complicated. Here are some tips from our Turnkey team. We have gone through this process with tons of clients. We’ve seen videos get approved and videos not get approved. Here are a couple of things we’ve learned. Try to keep your video two minutes max. Even that is pushing it. Studies have definitely shown that people do not watch videos that long. Trying to keep it as short as possible and keeping it concise can help. It’s something to consider. Another random rule that Amazon doesn’t talk about or that maybe other people don’t realize is you cannot mention certificates. I’m sure you’re asking, “What does that mean?” because it is a little vague.
We have one client, it was a supplement client. They submitted a video that Amazon said, “You are claiming you’re certified,” and we were like, “What does that mean?” I re-watched the video twenty times and I don’t know what Amazon is talking about. It turns out Amazon was talking about that we claimed we had a certain certified ingredient. We slightly mentioned it when we were talking. That shows how thorough they are with watching these videos and making sure everything’s okay. Just watch what you say when it comes to things like that. Don’t make these crazy claims. Don’t say you’re certified in this or this and that because Amazon won’t allow it unfortunately. Even though it most likely is true, I know you aren’t making up if you’re certified in anything but unfortunately with Amazon, it’s not going to fly. It’s something to consider, a random tip we found.
Do not use profanity. I feel like this is common sense, but just in case. Do not use profanity and don’t use violence. Don’t use these things that you know Amazon does not want on their page. It’s something to consider. Don’t do it. The last big thing, this is huge. Your video will not get approved if you have any of these. Do not mention external links. This includes any text that has external links. Don’t talk about your website, your email or your Facebook. Don’t put Facebook.com/… Amazon will not allow it. They do not want to take people off of Amazon. Having any external links, even phone numbers that could potentially take a customer off of Amazon, they’re not going to allow it in your video. I know that’s stressful like, “What can you have in the video or what can you do with the video?” Sometimes it is unfortunately a trial and error.
One of our clients got a few videos denied, so we’re working through those and adjusting those videos. That’s something someone on Fiverr can easily do for you. People can make these adjustments for you. I know sometimes it can be a little stressful, but it’s easy for people to make these cuts. The last thing is I wanted to point out where this video will be. It will be on your listing. It will be in the image blocks. It will be the last one featured in the image blocks. Another place it will be is right above the reviews. It will say, “Recommended videos,” and it will feature that along with your review videos and everything. Pretty cool telling you this could be a reason why people buy your product. Especially, a lot of people are shopping for gifts for people. This could be your selling point, so get to this immediately.
Giveaways
The next thing I want to talk about is 100% in my previous presentations, I’ve definitely talked about giveaways. This is a promotion that not many people take advantage of, so we try to stress that as much as possible. It’s a great opportunity right now. It’s a great place to get visibility. I highly recommend doing it. Giveaways, what do I mean by that, the Amazon giveaway? If you were to go to Amazon.com and search in their search bar, giveaways, it would take you to their giveaways page, which is incredibly cool. You can see all these cool products that people are giving away. They give away a Lexus, they give away supplements and they give away yoga products. They give away all of it. It’s tons of different products. It’s a great place to put yourself. People who may have never heard of you, now have seen you there. A giveaway is a great way to promote your product.
Leveraging Amazon starts with thinking outside the box and understanding your strongest asset. Click To TweetHow it works for those of you who don’t know. What you do is you go into seller central, you go to your Promotions tab and when you get there, there’s a section that says Giveaways. Click on Giveaways. You will set up your giveaways. You will select a number of products you want to give away. We suggest at least two. For those who are doing your first giveaway, keep it small. You want to see how successful you are. There are some products that completely killed the giveaway game and others sometimes struggle and that’s okay. It’s understanding what works best for your product. Definitely test this out. I would recommend doing two, get as many people watching as possible and give yourself as much the chance as possible.
After that, you select the number of participants that need to watch to win. Amazon creates this number, you don’t get to choose this number. I don’t know how Amazon chooses this number, it could be the popularity of the product or what they’ve seen, who gives giveaways the most. It depends. 100% test it out to see what Amazon gives you. For example they say, “We can get 5,000 people to watch this.” You click 5,000 you’re giving away to. It’s a lucky random winner. It will be the 5,000 person that enters and the 10,000 person that enters. It will shift it away for every 5,000 persons. That’s just an example.
Participants, what you can do to this giveaway to boost it up, to get your brand out there to advertise to them is you can connect a YouTube video. When you connect these YouTube videos to your giveaways, the participant needs to watch at least fifteen seconds of the video to enter your giveaway. If they do not watch the video for fifteen seconds, they cannot enter to win your giveaway. This is a little unfortunate considering it used to be 30 seconds, it’s not fifteen seconds. It’s a bummer, but it’s making sure a lot of good information is in those first fifteen seconds with your video.
We get a lot of questions about what video to use. Use a video that you are showing to promote other products or your brand is a great way to do it. One thing I will mention, Amazon does not watch these YouTube videos when you submit them. I’m throwing it out there, but Amazon is not watching these videos, so it’s up to you what you would like to put in those videos. Connecting to that YouTube video is a great way to get people to understand your brand and get them to buy into it. That’s what we like to use those for. The final step is connecting a promo code to this giveaway. We always do a private promo code for this because we don’t want to know the detail page.
It’s only for people that do giveaways and it’s a great way to hopefully if they lose, that’s okay. You have a promo code, so it’s fine. What’s cool is before people enter the giveaway, they’re told how much they’ll save if they lose. These are people who already know they’re going to get a promo code. It increases the likelihood they’ll click on your giveaway. If you don’t have a promo code, they’re probably like, “I’m not going to save if I don’t win. Is it worth watching?” Fifteen-seconds is a long time for people nowadays. Making sure you have that promo code in there is incredibly crucial, so make sure that’s in there. One cool thing is the giveaway’s dashboard.
Amazon Strategy: Fifteen-seconds is a long time to people nowadays.
After you set up a giveaway, it will lead you to the giveaways dashboard where you can watch to see when your giveaway goes live and then you can watch the statistics of how many times it’s clicked. One thing it does tell you is how many promo codes were claimed and how many were used. It tells you how many people purchased. That’s incredibly cool. We still do it the old-fashioned way. What we’ll do is we will download the promotional report a week later and double check that that dashboard is correct and that promo code was used. How you do that is you download the promotional report and then you find the giveaway promotion you’ve already set up and you can see how many times it was used.
Pixeling
Leading off of this, we’re going to talk about that YouTube video and how you can retarget customers off of Amazon using the Amazon giveaways. We just talked about it, YouTube videos. You can connect them to these Amazon giveaways. When you’re doing a giveaway, YouTube videos are a great way to capture an audience and promote the product and cross-sell. To take your giveaway up a notch and to take this strategy up a notch is you have a YouTube account and you can connect that to your Google Ads account. When you do this, you are now able to pixel every single person watching these videos. I’m going to use a great example. One of our clients, they did a giveaway with their YouTube video and they’ve got 22,000 people who are now pixeling to those people. It’s incredibly important. It’s a great way to advertise to them again.
This is a great way to retarget because there’s a lot of stuff going on with Amazon and Facebook and how they’re shutting down software for customer lists. Try to find different ways to do stuff like this. You can add that pixeling into your account. Use that pixeling to follow people around YouTube and continue to retarget to them to potentially sell. I am not a YouTube expert. I’m not going to pretend to be a YouTube expert. If you are like me who is not a YouTube expert or Google Ads expert, that’s okay. Hire someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to pixeling thing because it’s such a great opportunity.
In one week, that one client got 22,000 views on their YouTube channel from Amazon, able to pixel to them and now they’re able to send that traffic and retarget. When it comes to this stuff, we want you guys to think outside the box. What are your biggest assets? What works well for you? Does YouTube work better for you? Does Google Ads work better for you? Does Facebook work better for you? Try to get people there. Try to get them where your best assets are. Try to get them where you’re the strongest. That’s when you’re going to see the most success. This is something not a lot of people are doing, do it now before a bunch of people are doing it. Setting up that Amazon giveaway, the only cost to do it is to purchase the product from yourself. It’s your cost of goods, but you’re purchasing the product from yourself and the Amazon fees associated with it. Pixeling, do it if you’re doing giveaways.
I want to give the final tip. This is like a big summary of what we talked about. The first thing is to invest in video. You have to do it. If you don’t have any video assets, that is okay but make it your 2019 goal that you need to get these video assets. It’s crucial, especially Amazon has it on their listing now. You can send people to YouTube. That would be a great place for the video. You can pixel. You can do these things. Get the video though because without the video, you can’t do these things. Making sure of your video is our first thing. The second thing is to hire an expert in general. If you don’t know how to do these things, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Hire an expert though who knows how to do it. It’s simple. It’s easy. Hire an expert who could help you out with this step. Do your keyword research. This ties into the enhanced brand content updates. It goes in general to your listing. You need to do your keyword research. Optimizing your listing, making sure it’s as strong as possible for quarter four and for beyond that. It starts with keyword research and knowing your product and knowing different terms people are searching. Making sure you have that keyword research and done tying it into the enhanced brand content to use it for PPC.
Definitely, do it and spend extra time doing it. It can’t hurt. Think outside the box. Pixeling for example, that’s incredibly outside of the box. Using any leverage Amazon gives you is incredibly important. It starts with thinking outside the box and understanding what is your strongest asset? What do you have that your competitors don’t have? That is all I have for you. I hope you all have an amazing quarter four. I will see you guys next time.
Tune in to Jenna Lieber next Office Hours. Connect with and find out more about Jenna Lieber in our Experts Directory.
