If you’re marketing on Amazon, you know — or, at least, should know — that Prime Day is something like the mega-retailer’s Super Bowl, Black Friday, and birthday all rolled together.
In other words? Yeah, it’s a big one.
The exclusive two-day shopping event — launched to celebrate Amazon’s 20th year in 2015 — has become an iconic day of dealmaking for savvy shoppers and consumer brands alike. Subscribers to Amazon Prime gain access to some of the website’s biggest sales of the year, smack dab in the middle of summer.
The sales holiday broke records again last year, with an astonishing 100,000 items purchased every minute and shoppers worldwide saving over $1.7 billion — more than any other previous Prime Day, according to Amazon. That flurry of activity led to a reported $12+ billion in worldwide sales in just 48 hours, according to Digital Commerce 360.
How Brands Should Prepare For Amazon Prime Day 2023
While Amazon has yet to release the official dates for this year’s event, they tend to fall sometime in the middle of the summer. And with last year’s success leading to some high expectations for this year’s sales holiday, it’s imperative that brands start strategizing now.
This post will review some best practices for optimizing your Amazon presence to both meet customer expectations and stand out prominently on the digital shelf.
Optimize Your Product Titles and Descriptions
Are your product page titles and descriptions pulling their weight?
As one of the most important factors in influencing the visibility and sales appeal of your products, make sure that your copy is concise, targeted toward your audience, and integrates important search engine optimization (SEO) keywords that customers typically use when searching for your type of products.
This is one area where reading your customer’s comments, reviews, and feedback can be fruitful. Ensure you address frequently asked questions or other concerns in the product copy to dissuade any confusion or abandonment by the customer and improve your chances of showing up in search results.
A few important points of action include:
- Place important keywords at the beginning of your titles and descriptions (i.e., ecommerce SEO).
- Emphasize unique features or benefits of your products as well as any differentiators.
- Announce any special deals or discounts available for Prime Day — and make sure customers on other channels know about this too.
- Adhere to Amazon's style guidelines and best practices for creating product titles and descriptions.
Enhance Your Product Images and Videos
After product descriptions, visual representations of your product are likely the second-most-important feature of your Amazon product page.
High-quality, engaging images and videos that accurately depict your products can go a long way in helping your customers understand why your product is for them, how it fits into their lifestyle, or how it addresses their problems.
Try to hit the recommended “sweet spot” range of seven to 10 photos of each product. Remember, you can go beyond mere product photos with enhanced product content, such as lifestyle images, videos, diagrams, charts, manuals, and more.
Consider the power of Amazon’s A+ enhanced content tools — these offer vendors more customization tools for their storefront and product page design, including features like 360-degree product views and other interactive modules.
Increase Ratings and Reviews
Consider the ways you personally assess your own purchases online. Sure, you read the product description. You examine the images. But you’d still like to see some third-party confirmation that all these compelling claims are up to snuff.
Well, it’s not just you: Ratings and reviews heavily influence a customer's final decision to purchase and play a crucial role in determining your product ranking.
In the run-up to Amazon Prime Day, make sure that you:
- Encourage existing customers to leave ratings and reviews for your products.
- Respond and engage with customer questions and comments promptly and professionally.
- Address negative feedback or issues promptly and constructively. (Use these interactions to showcase to other customers that when you make a mistake, you make it right.)
- Leverage the Amazon Early Reviewer Program or Vine programs for honest feedback from verified buyers.
Embrace Social Commerce and Influencer Marketing
TikTok: It’s not just the sound of a countdown to Amazon Prime Day.
While it’s easy to make Dad jokes about social media, the fact remains that social commerce and influence marketing are a big deal — and well-poised to transform the ways people buy and sell goods online.
The integration of social media platforms and ecommerce, known as social commerce or social shopping, is reshaping online shopping, and combined with the rise of influencer marketing, many businesses may be missing out on some serious opportunities to take advantage of these emerging channels.
Consulting firm Deloitte predicts the market for social commerce to surpass $1 trillion in 2023, with a projected two billion people slated to buy at least one product this year through a social channel.
As you prepare for Amazon Prime Day 2023, it’s a good idea to start priming some social media campaigns — hashtags, viral content, discounts — to prepare and excite your followers about upcoming deals and discounts. Identify any influencers on social media who may speak to a niche audience that cares about your line of products and reach out about possibilities for cross-promotional marketing.
Finally, ensure you carefully monitor and analyze which posts work, and which ones don’t: Rather than simply posting into the abyss, build and improve on what worked in the past, and abandon approaches that don’t.
Prime Your Product Pages For Amazon Prime Day 2023
Amazon Prime Day 2023 presents a unique opportunity for brands to boost visibility and sales on a global stage. More than 20 countries are slated to participate this year.
Intimidating? Maybe a bit. But with careful, strategic planning, your brand can easily stand out from the competition on the digital shelf — all while connecting with legions of customers eager for deals this sales holiday.
