Amazon Marketing for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs): A Comprehensive Guide

Over a million small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are already leveraging Amazon’s platform for sales. How can yours distinguish itself? Utilizing Amazon Storefronts and implementing a robust marketing strategy tailored to your SMB. Although it might be unfamiliar territory for many business owners, Amazon marketing for SMBs holds the potential to profoundly influence your company’s expansion, revenue, and beyond. Are you prepared to delve deeper into marketing your SMB on Amazon?

What does Amazon marketing entail for SMBs?

If you’re new to marketing on Amazon, don’t fret!

Amazon marketing for SMBs revolves around a straightforward objective – enhancing your brand’s visibility on the platform to elevate brand recognition, sales, and overall company growth. Depending on your goals, you may expand your digital marketing strategy to encompass other avenues, such as social media.

Some examples of strategies for promoting your SMB on Amazon include:

Enhancing your product listings through search engine optimization (SEO)
Advertising your products through pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
Managing and enhancing your product reviews
Establishing your business presence on Amazon Storefronts

However, similar to your products, each marketing approach is distinct and tailored to suit your business’s needs.

What does Amazon marketing entail?

Whether you’re managing your marketing efforts internally or collaborating with a reputable digital marketing agency, it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with Amazon marketing before launching your Amazon Store. Understanding the components of an Amazon marketing strategy allows your team — or agency — to initiate your campaign with realistic expectations.

The critical components of an Amazon marketing strategy for SMBs typically include:

Amazon SEO

With over 50 percent of product searches originating on Amazon rather than Google, your products must rank prominently for shoppers. If a user searches for a product you offer and doesn’t appear until the second page of results, the likelihood of shoppers seeing or purchasing your goods diminishes.

Why? Roughly 70 percent of Amazon shoppers find what they need on the first page of results. How can you optimize your products for Amazon? Enhance various elements of your product listings, including:

Product titles
Product Features
Product descriptions
Product images
And more

However, preliminary research is necessary before diving into optimizing your inventory.

Initial steps for product optimization include keyword research, focusing on identifying relevant, high-value keywords utilized by your target audience to discover your product, and competitor analyses, examining your competitors’ keyword and marketing strategies to inform your own.

For many businesses, product optimization is a one-time effort. However, it’s quite the contrary.

Similar to ever-evolving shopping and product trends, user search patterns continually evolve. Hence, continuous product optimization is imperative. Without regular audits and enhancements to your Amazon SEO, your visibility in search results and associated benefits, such as sales, will diminish.

If you’re serious about marketing your SMB on Amazon, prioritize Amazon SEO as a fundamental aspect of your strategy.

Amazon PPC

Ranked as the third most popular advertising platform, it’s evident that businesses are increasingly investing in Amazon ads. Even as an SMB, your company can leverage the diverse advertising options available on Amazon, such as Sponsored Product Ads, to connect with your target audience and boost your sales figures.

To give you a quick overview, here’s a summary of the advertising options offered on Amazon:

Sponsored Product Ads: These ads are visible in search results and product detail pages relevant to your keywords. They promote a single product and allow targeting based on keywords, products, and product categories.
Sponsored Brands: With Sponsored Brands, your business can showcase up to three products in search results, prominently displayed at the top. This format is ideal for grabbing the attention of potential shoppers. Targeting options include product categories, specific products, and keywords.
Product Display Ads: These ads appear on product detail pages and highlight a single product. You can target users based on their interests or products similar to yours through product display ads.

All Amazon ads, whether Sponsored Product Ads or Product Display Ads, require a minimum daily budget of $1. However, most companies, including SMBs, typically allocate more than $1 daily to their advertising efforts. This increased spend is influenced by factors like the average cost-per-click (CPC) of keywords. Although optional, advertising on Amazon can yield significant returns on investment (ROI) for SMBs. For instance, Sponsored Product Ads boast the highest sales-per-click metrics, indicating that users not only click on these ads but also make purchases.

Furthermore, ads grant your products prime visibility in search results. For example, your products are prominently showcased with Sponsored Brands, followed by Sponsored Product Ads. Even when displayed on product detail pages, ads enable you to engage and divert shoppers from your competitors.

This underscores the critical role of PPC in Amazon’s marketing strategies for SMBs.

Amazon review management

Reviews wield considerable influence, impacting your ranking in Amazon search results and influencing shoppers’ purchasing decisions. Consequently, effective review management has become integral to SMB marketing on Amazon. To optimize your visibility in search results, you must amass a substantial number of high-quality reviews for your products, preferably verified reviews left by purchasers on Amazon rather than your website.

However, review management extends beyond merely soliciting positive reviews. It entails addressing negative feedback constructively rather than disregarding dissatisfied customers. Engaging with unhappy customers allows your team to identify areas for improvement and enhance customer satisfaction.

Critical tasks in review management encompass:

Addressing queries in the product Q&A section
Crafting responses to sales inquiries

Leveraging review generation tools such as Amazon Vine™ or the Early Reviewer Program

Given the potentially demanding nature of review management, particularly for extensive product lines, many SMBs opt to collaborate with agencies like CreaRank.

Management of Amazon Storefront

An increasingly significant aspect of Amazon’s platform, Amazon Storefront hosts over 20,000 SMBs. It is a valuable resource for business owners by granting shoppers immediate access to SMBs. Moreover, Amazon Storefront boasts a homepage highlighting various businesses, curating product collections, and more.

These features give your company a valuable opportunity to garner exposure and drive sales.

While access to Amazon Storefront is by invitation only, eligibility can be attained through enrollment in the Amazon Brand Registry. This service necessitates an active, registered image or text trademark. Registration for the Amazon Brand Registry is free. Additionally, your SMB can secure a feature in the following sections:

Exclusives: Products exclusive to Amazon can secure a spot in Amazon Exclusives. This section showcases unique and innovative products from emerging brands. Shoppers can filter search results by category, average customer review, and shipping options.
Handmade: Amazon Homemade is a valuable section for artisan SMBs. It highlights artisanal goods such as gifts, pet supplies, stationery, and more. Users can browse by category, event, featured artisan, and more.
Launchpad: If your company operates in the tech sector, Amazon Launchpad offers an opportunity to showcase your Amazon Storefront. It features everyday items from tech-focused SMBs and provides product and company spotlights to enhance your business’s visibility among shoppers.

Management of Amazon Stores

If you’re a vendor or seller who owns a brand, you can create an Amazon Store, provided that you’re not merely a reseller.

With your Amazon Store, you establish a virtual storefront for shoppers interested in learning more about your brand and products. Additionally, you have the flexibility to experiment with your product display. For instance, Amazon offers the option to handpick or utilize dynamic widgets to determine which products are showcased in your store.

A dynamic widget utilizes user data to curate your product display. Factors such as a shopper’s past searches or recommendation history influence the products displayed by the dynamic widget in your store. In contrast, handpicking your products entails highlighting the same selection of products to every user.

Viewing your Amazon Store and Amazon Storefront from a marketing perspective allows you to enhance their impact on your company’s sales and growth. By ensuring your Amazon Store is user-friendly and securing valuable shout-outs on your Amazon Storefront, you can effectively leverage both platforms for your business.

However, it’s essential to integrate your Amazon Store into a comprehensive marketing strategy. By combining optimizations for your Amazon Store with techniques such as Amazon SEO, PPC campaigns, and review management, you can maximize the effectiveness of your Amazon marketing efforts.

5+ Reasons to Market Your SMB on Amazon

Are you hesitant about investing your time and resources in promoting your SMB on Amazon? Consider these compelling reasons:

Expand Your Reach

Amazon has over 300 million active user accounts, including over 100 million Amazon Prime members. As the most prominent ecommerce platform globally, Amazon offers unparalleled access to shoppers worldwide, presenting a significant opportunity for your company.

Through advertisements and product optimizations, your SMB can tap into the 70 percent of shoppers who predominantly stick to the first page of search results. Moreover, the first three products featured in search results capture 64 percent of all clicks. With Amazon Storefront, your business can enjoy a unique feature that showcases your brand and products to your target audience—customers keen on supporting SMBs—granting you a competitive advantage over larger sellers.

Reach Your Target Shoppers

While users often turn to Google and Amazon to make their purchasing decisions, Amazon is increasingly becoming the first destination for shoppers. Failing to appear in Amazon search results can hinder your product’s visibility and make it challenging to capture the attention of potential customers. A well-researched Amazon marketing strategy can help your SMB address this issue effectively.

By understanding your target audience’s pain points, you can tailor your product features and descriptions to resonate with their needs. For instance, highlighting an extended warranty can sway shoppers toward choosing your product over competitors’.

Outrank Your Competition

You compete with over a million other SMBs on Amazon. To stay ahead, it’s crucial to refine your marketing strategy continually. By investing in Amazon marketing for your SMB, you maintain competitiveness and capitalize on the oversight of competitors who underestimate the power of marketing and advertising. This can translate into gaining significant market share from your competitors.

Increase Your Sales

During peak shopping seasons like the holidays, Amazon SMBs collectively sell over a billion items. This underscores the platform’s significance in users’ shopping habits throughout the year. A strategic marketing approach, encompassing tactics such as Amazon SEO and targeted advertising campaigns, can consistently bolster your SMB’s sales.

Enhance Your Brand Awareness

While brand names drive only 30 percent of searches on Amazon, most focus on product categories or user needs. This presents an excellent opportunity for SMBs to build brand awareness among shoppers who are open to discovering new products or brands. Initiatives like Sponsored Brands advertisements can help introduce your business to a broader audience.

Foster Business Growth

Ultimately, every business aims for growth and success. A well-executed digital marketing strategy tailored to your SMB can propel your company to new heights. However, it’s crucial to base your strategy on data-backed research rather than intuition. Consider the success story of Little Flower Soap Co., which doubled its sales after implementing a robust marketing strategy on Amazon, resulting in job creation within its community.

With SMBs accounting for over half of all Amazon sales, the potential for business growth and success is immense.

Why Consider Professional Amazon Marketing Services?

For numerous SMBs, managing their presence on Amazon can feel like a full-time endeavor. It often demands a significant investment of your team’s time, expertise, and resources. This is why many SMBs choose to enlist the services of professional Amazon marketing agencies.

But why make this investment? Here are a few compelling reasons:

Access Unparalleled Expertise

While you possess in-depth knowledge of your business and its offerings, navigating the complexities of marketing and advertising on Amazon requires a distinct skill set. While your goal is to expand sales and grow your company, you likely want to avoid the costly trial-and-error process of learning how to market your business effectively. By partnering with a reputable and seasoned digital marketing firm, you can rest assured that your Amazon marketing efforts are guided by expert knowledge and experience, minimizing the risk of costly missteps.

Choose an Agency Over a Consultant

Opting for a consultant may mean relying on one individual who likely juggles multiple clients. This scenario can lead to generic strategies, delays in progress, and unsatisfactory outcomes. Conversely, working with an agency offers a notably different experience.

At CreaRank, we assign you a dedicated account manager, ensuring you receive personalized attention and service.

Access to Advanced Marketing Tools

Effective digital marketing hinges on utilizing the right tools. Analytical software and keyword research tools are indispensable for crafting a competitive, data-driven marketing approach. However, acquiring and maintaining these tools can strain your budget.

You sidestep this financial burden by opting for professional marketing services for Amazon. Agencies often have access to a comprehensive suite of marketing tools, enabling them to devise performance-oriented strategies that align with your budget. Moreover, agencies like CreaRank leverage proprietary software to enhance the efficacy of marketing campaigns further.

If you have the opportunity to enhance your marketing strategy and achieve superior results, why hesitate?

Save Time

Time is a precious commodity for SMBs, often stretched thin with myriad responsibilities. The prospect of managing advertising campaigns alongside daily operations can be daunting.

With a professional digital marketing agency, you delegate this responsibility. Entrusting your campaign to a trusted partner means you can focus on other aspects of your business. Regular check-ins with your dedicated account manager allow you to stay informed about your campaign’s performance without the burden of day-to-day management.

Additionally, agencies can simplify complex topics, saving you and your team valuable time. Whether it’s explaining interest- or product-based targeting for Product Display Ads, your account manager can provide clear, concise explanations, sparing you from extensive research efforts.

Enhance Marketing Results

While larger enterprises may successfully handle marketing in-house, it’s often a formidable challenge for SMBs. Maintaining a successful marketing campaign can be overwhelming with myriad responsibilities competing for attention.

This is where partnering with a digital marketing agency proves invaluable.

By harnessing their expertise and leveraging cutting-edge marketing tools, agencies develop and nurture robust strategies that yield tangible results for your business. For many SMBs, this translates into a significant return on investment (ROI).