Understanding how to master the Amazon customer journey is the first approach to enhancing your customers’ purchasing experiences and acquiring new ones. A powerful customer journey leads to more positive reviews, higher keyword rankings, and the ability to increase your customer lifetime value. In this blog, we’ll discuss how to master the Amazon customer journey: strategies that will help you optimize your listings.
Before we jump into it, if you’ve just chanced on my blog, my name is Ian Smith with Evolve Media.
What We Do At Evolve Media Agency
We help Amazon sellers optimize their Amazon listings with photos, videos, copywriting, and get their listings converting as high as possible. We do product photoshoots, video shoots, and overall marketing both on and off Amazon; running Email Marketing and Google Ad campaigns. We can also get your Amazon data and Instagram user data, and then market directly to potential customers.
If you want to book a free consulting call with us, then head over to evolvemediaagency.com. And if you want to optimize your Amazon listing on your own, we’ve got a great Amazon listing checklist for you at zonchecklist.com. We broke down all the different sections on an Amazon listing page and created different sales strategies for each. You can check off as you implement the different sales strategies.
The Amazon Customer Journey: Tips & Strategies To Increase Your Revenue
I recently needed a new microwave cover. My current microwave cover was messed up and not in the best shape. This mess was a problem, and I needed to go out and start looking for a solution to this problem. This scenario is usually how the customer journey begins.
1. Recognizing a Problem
The customer journey starts with a pain point. Your customer recognizes they have a problem and need a solution to it. Potential customers will ideally not have a brand or specific keywords in mind. They will type in keywords like “microwave cover” or “food cover for microwaves.” It’s essential as an Amazon seller to position your title and your Amazon listing in a way that helps you show up for these searches. Understand that your potential customers may not know what exact keywords are popular. They’re just going to think up keywords and search for them.
2. Searching For a Solution
The next step for the potential customer is finding solutions. Potential customers will most likely try to find answers on Amazon or Google. This step also begins their information-gathering quest. About 46% and 35% of product searches start on Amazon and Google, respectively. What does this mean? Focusing your advertising budget on Amazon only reaches less than 50% of your potential customers. Practically, you’re missing out on the 37% of product searches starting on Google. To gain more visibility and exposure, spread your advertising cost to include Google Search and Amazon PPC ads.
a. Focus on Click-Through Rates
When running Google search or Amazon PPC ads, focus on increasing your click-through rate. Try to resonate with your potential customers to get them to click on your ads. With Amazon PPC, have a nice, large product photo that will intrigue shoppers enough to click on them. Your product titles should also be intriguing. With your Google search ads, focus on your sales copy. Add the word Amazon or AMZ in your Google ad copy so your potential buyers know they can buy your product on Amazon. Add details such as the number of ratings and reviews you have and any bestseller or Amazon choice badge. These details are more likely to increase your click-through rate.
b. Create Good Content
Finding solutions to problems comes with gathering relevant information. Having great content helps you make the customer journey easier and puts you on as a brand leader. Create informative blog posts that are insightful to your potential customers in their information-gathering phase. You want to be there when they are looking for “three tips on buying the best microwave cover.” Various strategies can help you show up in this information-gathering phase. Another idea would be running an Amazon-sponsored video ad. These sponsored ads are great ways to set yourself apart from your competitors. They also provide more information about your product.
If you need help creating refreshing visual content for your Amazon products, my team and I would love to help. Visit evolvemediaagency.com to learn more about our services.
3. Evaluating Solutions
After potential customers gather enough information, they evaluate their choices and the information. This process includes looking at the various options available to them and narrowing it down to fewer options. Product evaluations can be frustrating for your potential customers. Making this process easier is one way to convert a shopper into a customer. Optimize your product photos, videos, sales copy, EBC content, reviews, and customer Q&As to help your shoppers decide. Stand out from your competitors through your listing, pricing, reviews, product photos, and videos. Your video and image content should be crisp and clear.
a. Improve Your Shipping Times
One major evaluating factor for most shoppers is shipping speed. Potential customers tend to go with the options that get them their products as fast as possible. Though this is not really within your control, you can influence it. You can improve your shipping speed by sending a lot of inventory to Amazon. This approach helps since your inventory will be spread across different fulfillment centers across the country. Shoppers close to any fulfillment center that has your Inventory are likely to get faster shipping speeds.
b. Be As Accurate As Possible
Nobody likes to do product returns. It’s a frustrating process. Potential customers try to make the right decision or buy the right product so that they don’t have to go through the gruesome process of having to return it. So be as accurate as possible with your listing, your product photos, and everything else. Be sure the product size and colors are exact. When it comes to your product videos, consider the accuracy and grammar. Visualize accurately what the product looks like in the real world. These details help your conversion rate and decrease your product return rate.
c. Take Advantage of Every Part of Your Listing
Take advantage of every single part of your Amazon listing. Leave no stone unturned. Fill out your EBC content area, and don’t just do images, but add written text. This approach helps your SEO. When it comes to your product photos, add enough information to aid your potential customer make a purchasing decision. Create infographic types of pictures. You need to make product photos such that if your potential buyers only looked at them and nothing else, they would have enough information to make that buying decision without regret.
d. Fill Out Your Storefront
Credibility is an integral component of boosting your conversion rates. Filling out your Amazon storefront makes you look more credible, trustworthy, and legit. You will not lose many shoppers when you have an optimized and on-brand storefront. When potential customers click on your storefront, it keeps them within your brand ecosystem. Without a storefront, they are directed to the search results. I highly recommend that you invest in getting a storefront built out to create a brand ecosystem for your products and listings.
e. Use Customer Questions & Answers
Most Amazon sellers drop the ball with Customer Questions and Answers. Mostly, when shoppers have concerns about your product, the customer Q&A comes in handy. Potential customers would do a quick search at your customer Q&A area to find answers to their concerns. If you are not addressing their concerns, they are likely to visit your competitors’ listing, which may have addressed that concern, and purchase from them.
If you need help getting questions and answers for your Customer Q&A area, my team and I would love to help you. We have a service package that can get you either 25 or 50 questions put on your listing. Visit evolvemediaagency.com to look at our different services or book a free consulting call with us.
f. Improve Your Quality Reviews
When it comes to evaluating your product reviews, many shoppers only look at the top reviews. Potential customers rarely go deep into the reviews section. Making sure your top reviews appear first is very important. One way to do this is through the “Helpful” button. Get a lot of your friends, family, and your customers to click on the “Helpful” button for your best reviews. Encouraging this initiative will push and anchor your positive product reviews at the top and push your negative product reviews out of sight.
4. Making a Purchase
The fourth step in your Amazon customer’s journey is the purchasing state. Potential customers at this juncture have evaluated their solutions and have about three to five options from which to choose. In my microwave cover experience, I had four different options in my cart and had to narrow it down to the best option. Your potential customers will narrow down their various options, and ultimately, you want your product to win that narrow-down competition.
One effective way of emerging as a winner in these narrow-down competitions or evaluations is to make your product offer very simple. Avoid offers like buy one, get one free, or huge sales slashes. Keep them simple; you’re either offering a discount or coupon or not. Using coupons, however, are great for boosting your listings’ conversion rate. Coupons push urgency and bring a great sense of good value for money spent. Your potential customers may want to act now or buy your product because they know the coupon may not be there forever. They perform much better than just slashing down your prices.
5. Post Purchase
What happens after the customer purchases your product? Most Amazon sellers miss out on the final step in their customers’ journey. Your post-purchase strategy plays a crucial role in increasing your Customer’s Lifetime Value and generating more revenue.
a. Get Your Amazon Customer Data
The first post-purchase strategy I recommend is to find a way to download your Amazon Customer Data. Once you have that information, you can market to them off Amazon. You can send email or SMS campaigns to them, though I do not recommend SMS campaigns as it’s a more personal space. You can also upload their details to an ad database like Google, Facebook, TikTok, or LinkedIn and run ads targeted at them.
If you’re running a pre-purchase funnel and are driving your Google ads traffic to a landing page, you can get your customers pixeled with Google or Facebook pixel. This approach also gives you the ability to retarget them with ads. Your landing pages can also include email popup forms that collect customer details for an offer.
You can either use landing pages to collect your customers’ details or our Amazon Customer Data Download Service to acquire these details. My team and I would love to help you out with this process. Visit evolvemediaagency.com to book a free consulting call with us or learn more about our services.
b. Have a Post Purchase Follow-Up Sequence
Ultimately, having a post-purchase follow-up sequence helps you get your customers to come back and buy again. If you’re selling a consumable product, you can cross-sell them on different products in your lineup. You can also ask them for a referral or review. Set up a post-purchase communication channel that helps you keep in touch with your customers after their purchase. This approach helps increase your Customer Lifetime Value and generate steady revenue.
These are the five stages of a customer’s journey. Learning how to master the Amazon customer journey helps you design a marketing strategy that intrigues your potential customers at every phase of their purchasing decision. Speak to their emotions, offer valuable content, and recognize their needs before they can anticipate them. Customer journeys are one of the most effective ways to capture your potential customers’ minds and sell them your brand.
Hopefully, this blog was valuable to you. Thanks for reading! And if you want to book a free consulting call with us to discuss these strategies or any other ideas you have, visit evolvemediaagency.com.
