When you hear people talking about Amazon FBA, they are usually talking about product research, and product research is important – that’s true.
However, if your product launch fails, you won’t be able to build a successful Amazon business. Launching a new product on the Amazon marketplace is challenging. You need to invest heavily in Amazon advertising to ensure a successful product launch.
If you want to know how to launch a product on Amazon successfully, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you everything you need to launch a new product on Amazon, increase your product ranking, and become a successful Amazon seller.
1. Pre-Launch Strategy
What You Need to Start
If you want to sell successfully on Amazon, you need to invest money into your Amazon product launch. I don’t want to trick you – you will probably lose money during your product launch. At least, you won’t make any significant profits.
The goal of a product launch is to increase your sales velocity and product ranking to make profits in the future. But during the product launch, it’s hard not to lose money. So, what do you need to launch a new product on Amazon?
- Unique product to sell
- Less competitive niche
- Helium 10 or Jungle Scout
- Finally, you need money…
Your marketing campaigns will have a much higher ROI if you sell a unique product in a less competitive niche. Tools like Helium 10 and Jungle Scout can also help you with the optimization of your Amazon PPC campaigns.
Amazon Search Algorithm
The Amazon A9 Algorithm decides whether your product listing ranks in the search results. The algorithm takes metrics into account that influence your ranking. The most important metrics are:
- Click-Through-Rate (ratio of clicks on a listing to listing views)
- Conversion-Rate (ratio of visitors to buyers)
- Reviews (if your Amazon reviews are bad, your ranking will drop)
To succeed with Amazon SEO, it’s essential to rank high on Amazon’s search pages to generate significant sales. However, achieving a high ranking also depends on selling a large number of products. And the problem is that not many visitors will search for products on the second search results page.
So what is the solution to this problem? It’s not enough to do some product promotion. You need to promote the hell out of your product and sell it to as many people as possible. If you want to know how to do that, keep reading this article.
Product Research
During the business development stage, it is important to choose the right product to sell on Amazon. Consider the following when choosing your product:
Customers: This may seem obvious, but make sure to consider potential customers. When conducting your product research, consider things like:
- What your target audience wants
- How often they will purchase your product
- The challenges they face when buying a similar product
Your passion: You need to sell the products you are passionate about or at least have some interest in. This is the key to building long-term profitability.
Competition: The more competition you have, the harder it is to rank a specific product. So it’s important to study what your competitors are up to and learn from them. You may want to pick a narrow niche with a small market, and expand as you go, because low competition will aid your sales growth.
Build Your Brand
Branding is no longer optional on Amazon. It’s essential. If you want to be successful, consider branding as part of your product launch strategy.
During the product development phase, take a step back and think about your brand. Determine what you want to offer, how you want to define your brand, and the difference between your product and the competitor’s products.
This includes product packaging, design, brand colors, and customer perception. These aspects will help you determine your business strengths, target audience, and craft your brand story.
Determining Sales Target
Next, it’s crucial to set the sales target for your product. With Helium 10, you can determine how many sales are needed to rank on the first page of Amazon search results. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to utilize Helium 10 for this purpose:
1. Sign up for a free Helium 10 Account
2. Head over to Helium 10 Magnet
3. Type in the main keyword of the product
4. Check CPR 8-Day Giveaways to see how many sales you need to make every day for eight days to rank on the first page of Amazon search results for that given keyword:
Now that you know exactly what your sales goal should be, it’s time to promote your product.
Do Keyword Research
Keyword research will help you determine which keywords to use in your product listings. It will make your product more findable on Amazon.
Start by thinking of the possible keywords someone may use when searching for your product. Then feed them into an Amazon keyword research tool.
A generic keyword tool may not get you the best results. You can also use Helium 10 Cerebro to find the keywords that your competitors are using. Therefore, you need to put the ASIN of your competitor’s product into the tool:
The tool then reveals which keywords your competitors are ranking for. To maximize your sales potential, set the ORGANIC RANK filter from 0 to 10. Why? Because 90% of sales come from these top-ranked keywords. This strategy helps you target the most effective keywords to boost your product’s visibility and sales.
Keyword Optimization
Keyword optimization involves using keywords in a way that will boost conversions. Keywords should be included in your title, your bullet points, and your product description.
You must optimize your listing based on Amazon SEO and buyer intent. If you understand your target audience, you will know what they are looking for in a product. You will use language that encourages them to place an order.
Gaining an understanding of your target audience can be challenging, but if you are passionate about your product, it should become second nature. You can also use tools like the Review Downloader from Helium 10. This tool enables you to analyze all the reviews of product and discover its weaknesses.
Create an Outstanding Offer
Ranking on the first page of Amazon search results is not easy. The first step is to create an outstanding offer and optimize your listing. You can create a creative product name with free our Product Name Generator. It uses modern AI technologies to create attention-getting product names.
Going further, you must also consider customer satisfaction. The kano-model is used to describe the five stages of customer satisfaction as follows:
- Must-be Attributes: Basic features that customers only become aware of when they’re not fulfilled. If you can’t provide them, customers won’t be satisfied. However, if you provide them, they also won’t feel much satisfaction.
- One-dimensional-Quality-Attributes: One dimensional quality attributes may seem like secondary features to the seller, but if you don’t include them in the product description, you may not fully satisfy your customer.
- Attractive-Quality-Attributes: These attributes will surpise and delight your customer
- Indifferent-Quality-Attributes: Indifferent-Quality-Attributes are irrelevant to the customer. However, they can make a difference to the company. An example would be switching out packaging to something that is more cost-efficient but protects your product just as well.
- Reverse-Quality-Attributes: Reverse-Quality-Attributes lead to dissatisfaction if present, but will promote customer satisfaction if absent. It’s advisable not to include reverse-quality attributes unless you must.
Here is a graph that better explains the kano-model:
You need to focus on building Must-be-Attributes, One-dimensional-Quality-Attributes, and Attractive-Quality-Attributes to increase your sales on Amazon. Must-be-Attributes and One-dimensional-Quality-Attributes are less problematic to establish. It gets more complicated with Attractive-Quality-Attributes. They vary from product to product.
Here are a few Attractive-Quality Attributes to consider:
- Coupon for the next sale
- Outstanding price-performance ratio
- Easy handling
- Special features
Your campaigns will have a much higher ROI if you have a product worth promoting.
Optimize Your Listing
Let’s take a look at the Click-Through-Rate (CTR). The CTR depends on:
- Product image
- Product title
- Price of product
- Product reviews
So, what can you do to improve your CTR? You can…
- Optimize your main image: A high-quality image is mandatory. Make your product look as attractive as possible.
- Describe what people are searching for: Include important information about your product, but don’t overload your title with details.
- Set a low price: Set a lower price than your competitors, but not too low. Don’t cut into your profit margin.
- Get Reviews: Sell your Amazon product to 5 friends and tell them to leave a review.
Here’s an example of an attractive product image:
And here is an example of a bad product image:
Now, let’s take a look at the Conversion-Rate (CR). You don’t want customers to just visit your page. You want them to buy your product. Your efforts are worth nothing if they leave. So, what can you do to improve your CR?
- Include multiple images
- Write crisp Bullet Points
- Show visitors what they can do with the product, rather than flooding them with technical details
- Write a detailed product description
- Try to answer all questions
- Use Amazon A+ Content
Here’s an excellent example of an optimized Amazon listing:
2. Launch Strategy
Drive External Traffic to Your Listing
To boost your listing’s visibility, start driving external traffic to it. Implementing various strategies can significantly increase brand awareness. Here are a few effective methods to consider:
- Create engaging blogs to engage your target audience
- Use social media to raise brand awareness
- Contact prospects through email
- Partner with influencers to promote your product
Driving external traffic will give you a leg up on the competition when you decide to launch your product.
When you generate sales, the sales velocity of your product increases, and you get customer reviews. These are both crucial ranking factors. Accordingly, your ranking will increase, and you will start generating organic sales.
Promote Your Product on Deal Pages
Deals pages are for customers who want to buy heavily discounted products.
They present an easy way for new sellers to sell products. You will typically attract interest with 70% to 90% discounts.
Jungle Scout provides an easy way to utilize this strategy. It has its own tool where you can promote your product directly. Here’s what to do:
- Login to Jungle Scout.
- Go to Launch > Promotions tab.
- Click “CREATE NEW”.
- Select your Product.
- Make changes to your product listing if necessary and prepare your deal.
Jungle Scout also shows you how many products you must give away every day for one to two weeks to rank in the top 3.
In this image, you can see that keyword scout estimates that we have to give away 19 units per day for one to two weeks to rank in the top 3:
You can calculate this number for every keyword. I usually give away 21 units per day to ensure 19 people can redeem the voucher. You can also use Helium 10 to determine this number. Furthermore, here are some alternatives to Jungle Scout Promotions:
Once you’ve launched your product on one of these sites, spend a week or two giving away the coupons. When people buy your product with one of your coupon codes, you’ll get higher rankings.
Instagram Ads
Instagram is a leading social media platform. According to early 2024 stats, Instagram has about 2 billion monthly users worldwide. It is a great way to get external traffic to your product listing.
The advantage of Instagram Ads is that you can use it to reach your target audience. Adjust your ad settings to specify your demographic, so you can target people who are likely to purchase your product.
When using Instagram Ads for your product launch campaign, pay attention your ad design. A boring ad will waste money instead of generating sales. Your ad should be eye-catching and attractive.
You should also set some goals that you want to achieve before you start your campaign. For example, you may want to aim for a certain number of visits or conversions you would like to reach before your ad expires. This article also provides some Instagram advertising basics.
TikTok Ads
TikTok is another social media platform advertisers should not miss out on. It has over 1 billion active monthly users across the globe.
Like Instagram, TikTok allows you to create ads that cater to your target audience. You may also look at competitor ads to determine what type of ads will connect with your audience.
The platform offers templates that you can customize to make ad creation easily. You can also use its analytic tools to measure your ad’s performance and determine what’s working, what isn’t, and adjust as needed.
Influencers
Influencer Marketing is another effective marketing tool. You will have the greatest success if you:
- Find influencers who don’t have a super big following. Influencers with big followings may not want to deal with smaller sellers.
- Find influencers who directly engage with people who would be interested in your product.
- Find influencers with an engagement rate of at least 5% on Instagram. These influencers should have 100.000 followers, and 5.000 likes per post.
- Find influencers with an engagement rate of at least 15% on YouTube.
- Avoid fake influencers (influencers that buy followers).
You can contact influencers through any of the following mediums:
- Direct message
- Pitchbox
- NinjaOutreach
Pitchbox is an outreach and prospecting automation platform that allows users to build relationships with targeted marketing and PR opportunities, bloggers, and influencers.
If you want to do business with influencers, you must provide them with a discount code for their audience. If they sell a product, you have to pay them a commission. Influencer Marketing is generally good for building social proof and collecting more reviews.
Amazon PPC
If you launch a product on Amazon, you need to set up an Amazon PPC campaign. Amazon advertising campaigns follow the pay-per-click principle (PPC). This means that you only have to pay when somebody clicks on your ads.
You can set up your Amazon PPC campaigns for specific keywords. The easiest way to do keyword research is to use Helium 10 Magnet. This tool also shows you how many competitors are placing ads for a specific keyword so you know if there is low or high competition for a given keyword.
Your Amazon ranking should improve after you complete the first sales through your Amazon PPC campaign. You should have at least five positive reviews when you start your campaign. If you have zero reviews, nobody will buy your product. Read our complete guide to Amazon PPC for more valuable information.
Email Outreach
Email outreach is an effective way to promote products. It can be even more effective if you include a coupon code in your email. You can also create an email campaign that ensures you reach your target audience.
Let’s assume that you’re selling doggy treats. Write to all the dog training schools in your area. Make them aware of your product and give them a discount.
Look for their email address online, send them an email, introduce your product and your coupon code, and that’s it. You can also ask them if there is another way to do business with them.
3. Post-Launch Strategy
Get Reviews
Generating the first sales can be challenging, but convincing the customers to leave reviews can be more daunting. However, building reviews is an essential part of the selling process. Amazon product reviews are crucial for three reasons:
- For customers, reviews are like personal recommendations. Good reviews lead to more sales
- Reviews also play a prominent role in the product ranking
- It is hard to generate Amazon PPC campaigns without reviews
Amazon has a set of rules while asking for a product review or seller feedback. For example, they will only accept reviews from buyers who have bought Amazon products totaling $50 in the past 12 months. Amazon also takes action against anyone who abuses the system. Check the policies before you start soliciting reviews. Here are some other ways for collecting reviews on Amazon:
Amazon Early Reviewer Program: This review program helps sellers get initial product reviews. You will be eligible if your product has less than five reviews, and costs at least $15. Amazon will contact random shoppers who purchased your product and ask them to leave a review. The buyer receives a $1-3 voucher for leaving a review, irrespective of whether it’s positive or negative. Amazon charges you $60 after you received at least one review for the enrolled product.
Amazon Vine Program: This program invites the most trusted reviewers to post their reviews on your products. Amazon invites specific shoppers to become Vine Voices based on their reviewer rank. They provide honest and unbiased product reviews to educate fellow shoppers. Amazon shares free products from participating sellers with these reviewers.
Restock Your Inventory
Estimating your sales accurately and managing your inventory effectively are crucial steps in maintaining a successful Amazon business. Proactive inventory management ensures that you always have enough stock to meet demand, avoiding the pitfalls of running out of products. Here are key considerations to keep in mind:
- Sales Forecasting: Considering trends, seasonality, and promotional plans can provide a clearer picture of expected demand.
- Reorder Timing: Plan your reorder schedule well in advance. Waiting until the last minute can lead to stockouts, which not only disrupt sales but also negatively impact your product rankings on Amazon.
- Buffer Stock: Maintain a safety stock to cushion against unexpected spikes in demand or supply chain delays. This buffer helps ensure continuity in sales and customer satisfaction.
Keyword Tracking
Keyword tracking is essential for understanding the effectiveness of your keywords and optimizing your listings and ad campaigns. By monitoring metrics such as click-through rate (CTR), the number of clicks, and purchases, you can identify which keywords are driving traffic and boosting conversions.
This information allows you to refine your strategy by eliminating non-performing keywords and focusing on high-performing ones. By leveraging keyword tracking, you can make data-driven decisions that enhance your Amazon SEO and overall sales performance.
Conclusion
Now that we have discussed the main strategies for a successful Amazon product launch, let’s recap the key points. First and foremost, product quality is essential. High-quality products will naturally attract positive reviews and repeat customers. Additionally, creating an outstanding offer can significantly boost sales and customer interest.
Listing optimization plays a crucial role in enhancing your click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CR). A well-optimized listing with relevant keywords and high-quality images can make a big difference. Moreover, extensive promotion is vital. You need to actively market your product across various channels to drive traffic and build momentum.
Lastly, investing in Amazon advertising is necessary to achieve substantial returns. Ads can help increase visibility and attract potential buyers who might not find your product organically. By implementing these strategies, you can set the stage for a successful product launch and see effective results.
