How to Start A Profitable Amazon FBA Business in 2018... Even If You Are Clueless! (Part 3/3)

Chapter 6: Uncommon Marketing Tactics To Put Your Product Out There Even If You’re On A Budget.

By now you know everything that you need to create the perfect product, so it’s just a matter of building it and “they will come,” right?

Wrong!

Because if no one knows about your product and if you don’t tell them and show them why your product is different/better they will never know; hence, they’ll never buy, and you’ll end up high and dry.

In this chapter, I’m going to show you a set of marketing tactics that will guarantee that you sell your product on Amazon.

So, there are two things that can make it or break it when it comes to selling your product on Amazon: Visits (or traffic) and Conversion Rate.

On one hand, if you don’t have enough people visiting your product listing or product page on Amazon, you won’t be able to sell a decent amount of products to make a living out of it.

On the other hand, if you have people visiting your product page, but there’s no “salesperson” in there, more often than not, you won’t get the sale.

So, let’s start off talking about how you can create an awesome product listing even if this is the first time you hear that term.

Structure of a Great Product Listing

A product listing is basically a spot on Amazon’s catalog that allows you to sell your stuff.

Now, what you make with that spot is what’s going to differentiate average sellers from 6-figure sellers.

There are four elements under your control in a product listing:

• Product Title
• Product Description
• Bullets
• Pictures

Fig. 17. Product Title, Bullets, And Pictures

In Fig. 17, you can see that when you list a product on Amazon, you have full control of the product title (or product name), bullets, and pictures.

Using these three areas in the proper way will make a huge difference in the decision-making process of anyone visiting your listing.

Fig. 18. Product Description

And in Fig. 18, you can see the product description of a product that’s being sold by Amazon.

Just as a caveat, you won’t have the chance to make your product description look like that.

Basically we, regular sellers, can only write plain text, but what you put there can also contribute to making the sale, more on that in a few.

Kick-Ass Product Titles.

When it comes to writing your product title, you need to remember what we discussed about keyword ranking.

Amazon is going to use whatever you write on your title, as the keywords your product is going to show for, so don’t take this lightly.

Defining your product title is a crucial step.

The good news is that there’s an easy way to do it.

Let’s keep using the fire extinguisher example to show you how this can be done for any product of your choice.

Fig. 19. Product Titles

As you can see in Fig. 19, most product sellers use their brand as the first part of their product title.

But chances are that nobody knows your product yet, so you don’t need to do that. One of the best practices I’ve found is to use the main keyword first in the product title.

Finding the main keyword of your product is usually just a matter of common sense; in this example, our product title should start with “Fire Extinguisher.”

Now, you usually have between 150 and 200 characters available to write your product title (depending on the category), so you need to use them wisely.

Some so-called experts say that you must stuff as many keywords a possible in your title, but you don’t need to do that.

You just need to use the most important keywords in your title and write it in a way that looks really good.

A very easy way on how to find out what other keywords you should use in your title is to let amazon give you some recommendations, as you can see in Fig. 20.

Fig. 20. Amazon’s Keyword Recommendations

Now, those are just ideas of what people usually type when looking for products similar to yours.

To validate those keywords, or to get even more useful keywords, you can head to https://www.merchantwords.com/ and start using their free service.

MerchantWords is really easy to use and can give you great insight as to what keywords to use in your title.

What makes them different is that they use Amazon’s search volume. I’m not sure how updated this service is, but it’s a great starting point.

In Fig. 21, we can see the results from the keyword “Fire Extinguisher” along with an estimated monthly search volume.

By ranking well for the main keyword you could have lots of searches going your way, but you can also niche down and try to call people who are looking for “antique fire extinguishers” assuming that your product works for that.

Fig. 21. MerchantWords’ Recommendations

And there are other web apps and software out there that can help you find more keywords, but you don’t need to stuff all those keywords in your title, just make it stand out.

That along with great pictures will give you a higher conversion rate and overall, more sales.

Remember that Amazon loves sales, so that’s what we need to get in order to get better ranked.

Awesome Pictures.

Do you know what makes a great picture?

You may think you don’t, but we all can tell a lousy picture from a great one. Please check out these two pictures below:

A.   B.
Fig. 22. Great Pictures vs. Lousy Pictures.

Telling the difference between a lousy picture and a great one is easy, don’t you think?

Now, having great pictures in your listing is not a matter of hiring a very expensive and experienced photographer.

Not at all.

What you need here is to know what you want exactly.

Amazon has some requirements for pictures, so when you hire a photographer they have to follow these requirements.

Also, you need to be very clear on what you need and what to ask for.

And the best way to do this is to spend a few minutes checking out the pictures of your competitors, and maybe some pictures from other listings. Then give your photographer some guidelines and let them work their magic.

 
 
Fig 23. Not so good pictures from a best seller

The pictures you see on Fig. 23 are from one of the top sellers of “Fire Extinguishers,” and they’re not very good.

I can see there’s lots of room for improvement there.

And like I said, you don’t need to be an expert photographer to tell the good from the bad.

The pictures on your listing are real estate for you.

Using good pictures can boost your conversions 2,3,4 and even 10-fold.

Great Bullets.

The magic begins now.

Remember that you’ve already copied and pasted chunks of text from the reviews left by real customers on your competitors’ listings?

OK, now is when all that work is going to pay off.

Bullets, along with your product title and product pictures, are the first thing a potential customer reads when they click on your listing, so we need to make sure they feel like we’re talking to them

Fig 24. Bullets And Product Description

So, let me give you a couple of ideas to write great bullets.

First off, remember you have space to write 5 bullets, so you have to select the best to go first.

Second, bullets are all about benefits and not only features.

Each feature is a factual statement about the product or service being promoted.

But features aren't what entice customers to buy.

That's where benefits come in.

A benefit answers the question: "What's in it for me?”

To understand this let me put it into perspective…

Take a look at the list of features below, taken directly from current advertising and marketing materials.

Table 8. Features Vs. Benefits.

Sell the hole, not the drill.

Benefits are end results, and that’s what your potential customer wants to read before making up their mind.

Hope this makes sense to you.

Product Description

And the same goes for your product description, but here you can write up to 2,000 characters, enough for any benefit left out when writing your bullets.

Now, I want to give you a clear structure for the product description and a little trick to make it look really nice.

This is the structure you want to follow:

• Headline: Discover how (benefit)

• Body explaining why your product is different/better: What makes this product different is that it…

• Bold guarantee: Unlimited Lifetime Guarantee.

• Call to action and a reason to act now: Click the orange button now before price goes up.

And that’s pretty much it.

If you have completed the assignments on the other chapters correctly, you won’t have any problem with this section.

Reviews: What You Need to Start Selling on Amazon

You must be fired up and ready to start selling your stuff on Amazon, but there’s just one more step you need to complete before even thinking of selling your stuff.

The reason why people buy on Amazon is simple: Third-party reviews.

Those reviews are from real customers, and the fact that endorsements for a particular product don’t come from movie stars or singers, but from regular people like you and me, it’s a huge game changer.

So, if you want to sell your products, you need some reviews first.

I know that you may be thinking, “How am I going to get reviews if I don’t sell my product first?”

And that’s a fair question.

The solution is really simple: You need to automate your review-getting process, and we’ll talk about that when we talk about world-class customer service.

I know that you may be wondering if you’re going to be able to sell your stuff with zero reviews. I am here to tell you that it can definitely can be done. I’ve done it several times, but that’s why you need to have a different/better/superior product than what’s currently being offered.

Make sense?

Paying for Reviews?

Please keep in mind that Amazon forbids paid reviews in their terms of service, so you want to stay away from services that offer that, and you don’t want to offer people you know to pay them for leaving a review.

Smart Promotions

A very smart way to use promotions is to persuade people to purchase more than 1 item, and the reason for that is two-fold: You’ll pay a few dollars less in FBA fees, and they’ll get a better deal, which will increase your chances of getting a review and make more money at the same time.

I usually offer a discount based on the amount they purchase:

• 5% off if they purchase 2
• 7% off if they purchase 3
• 10% off if they purchase 4
• And so on and so forth.

Now, for this type of promotion you want people to see it in your product listing, so we want the “detail page display text” box to be ticked.

To create promo codes on Amazon to give them to specific people, you have to follow these easy steps:

1. Go to the “Advertising” tab, and then click on “Promotions.”

2. Create a “percentage off” promotion.

3. Fill out conditions, always select “buyer gets” = “Percent off” and set the percentage.

When offering a percent off, you need to limit the maximum quantity per order or people could buy your entire inventory with that discount.

To do so, go to: Inventory > Manage Inventory > Edit > Offer Tab > Max Order Qty = 1.

4. Schedule start date/time and end date/time keeping in mind that Amazon’s time is PDT. As for the internal description you can call it whatever you like.

5. Set additional options making sure you tick the boxes shown in the pic below and don’t tick the “detail page display text” box, or else everyone will have access to that discount, and we just want certain people to be able to use those coupon codes. All right?

6. Then you either wait until the promo is live or you can go to “pending” promos and manage claim codes.

7. Create as many claim code groups as you want (I recommend creating just one group), set the quantity, and click “create.”

8. Immediately or after a few minutes, you’ll get the coupons ready to download.

Remember that it’s going to take up to 4 hours until new coupons are ready to be redeemed, so keep that in mind.

Another way to persuade people to buy from you, and increase your keyword ranking, is offering a better price.

So, a good strategy is to offer a very competitive price (compared to your competitors), that way you’ll be offering a better/different product for a much better price.

The good news is that you don’t need to keep your price low forever, just until your product starts showing up in a better keyword ranking and you get some nice reviews.

I can’t tell you when to increase your price, but you can always play with the price of your product to see how the demand responds.

Email Blasts for Better Keyword Ranking

Another way to make sure your product skyrockets to the first page of a certain keyword is using email blasts.

An email blast is self-explanatory: Someone owns an email list that is hungry for free or largely discounted products, and he’s willing to send a couple of emails on your behalf in exchange for a payment.

You get a BSR bump on Amazon, and maybe some reviews in return, but what’s most important is that your products will be showing up closer to the first pages of your main keywords.

The only issue with this strategy is that sometimes this service could be very expensive.

There are some service providers for email blasts, but there are 2 that stand out in my experience:

• Viral Launch

• Zonblast

Both of them are good, but it all depends on your budget.

I also send out free email blasts from my personal account to my coaching students. I built this list a while back, and I continue using it every time I launch a new product, so it works to some extent.

I cannot promise you to get you a ton of sales, but it’ll be good enough to get your BSR jacked up.

Running Amazon Sponsored Ads

For any type of business, big or small, running PPC is a must.

For Amazon sellers, this is a great opportunity to get more visits to our listing and generate a virtuous cycle.

The more you sell, the higher your product is ranked, and the more sales you get. So Amazon Sponsored Ads is unquestionably the best way to get visibility for your product even if you’re on a budget.

If you want to know more about PPC, I can show you that and more in my coaching program. Click here to apply.

The Art and Science of Promotional Inserts

You should know by now that Amazon frowns upon any attempt at driving traffic off their website, that’s why they don’t allow any external links in any form of communication with Amazon’s customers.

You can’t place a link to your website on your product listing, but what you can do is include your links in your packaging, or better yet, as an insert inside of that packaging.

Something as simple as this:

Fig 25. Sample of an Insert

And here’s the website they’ll get when they type that URL into their browser: http://minormiraclehomesolutions.com/gift/

As you can see it’s a really simple, but it produces around 20 – 30 new subscribers per day. Not too shabby, huh?

It all depends on how many sales you make per day.

Crunching some numbers, that means more than 10,000 subscribers in one year, assuming, of course, that no one unsubscribes.

The gift they get is a 30% off coupon which they get immediately after they leave their email, and we take advantage of that form of contact to give lots of value to that customer.

A cheap piece of paper plus a simple website can create a nice subscriber base you can use to market your upcoming products.

How cool is that?

Wanna work with me?

Click here to apply, I’ll be happy to help

Chapter 7: World-Class Customer Service: How To Dazzle Your Customers With Little Work On Your End

Awesome Follow-Up Sequences Running On Autopilot.

Dazzling your customers is all about being different and a little bit creative, and this can help you get tons of reviews.

Now, anyone can create an impersonal follow-up sequence that tells the customer when their order is going out, but the trick is to be able to stand out from the clutter.

I’m talking about making an email memorable.

So, with one of our brands I started an experiment writing this sort of memorable emails, and since we started it we’ve gotten emails like this one:

- “Products look awesome and I really enjoyed the fairy communications. :)
Wonderful customer service!”

- “Thanks Fairy Queen, I got the bags yesterday and they look great. Can't wait to use them! I appreciate your emails. Don't work too hard. ”

-“Really cute! Thanks...looking forward to your well-made product. Thank you fairies!”

See?

I can’t get tired of these emails.

Just so you have an idea of what I’m talking about I’m going to give you an example of one of the emails that we’re using for this campaign:

Hi (customer name),

This is (me), and I'm thrilled to have you on board as part of our family of happy customers.

Your (order number) is being taken care of by one of our "Home Solution Fairies" in the department of "dreams come true" right now.

As you know, fairies are the best problem solvers in the world (and beyond).

I'm telling you, those little pixies have done a heck of a job weaving and sewing for days on end to create the plushy, strong, and long-lasting bags you'll get in a few days' time.

And the only thing they ask in return is that you use them as much as you can. Deal?

As you can see we have run the extra mile hiring these fairies (and yeah, we pay them well and we treat them really nice) because we wanted to create the perfect wash bag for your treasured intimates.

Trust me, they understand how important your delicates and undergarments are for you.

And just in case something went wrong in their little magical workshop (which is supernaturally impossible) and any of the bags has any weak point, please remember that you're completely covered by our 5-year warranty: "We're so sure of our product's quality that either it last you up to 5 years or we refund 100% of your money back, plus we replace it with a new one."

To claim it, just contact us. You don't need to send the bags back to Amazon; your fairy friends will let you keep them.

According to our "Pixie Workflow System,” your new Wash Bags will be delivered around (system date) or sooner, depending on your shipping choice.

I will contact you in a few days to make sure you've received your order and that everything is OK.

If you have any questions, or just for fun, hit "reply."

I'll get back to you as fast as I can.

Yours truly,

Me

Hope that gives you an idea of what you can do with your follow-up sequences.

But hey, don’t just use fairies; you can use elves, unicorns, etc.

I use and recommend Feedback genius to take care of our follow-up campaigns.

The best part of having a service like feedback genius is that you set it and forget it.

Just keep in mind that you CAN’T send a link in your email communications and your emails should only be about the order, so keep that in mind when crafting your emails.

Dealing with Complaints with a Cool Head.

People will complain, and there’s nothing we can do about it other than keeping a cool head and trying to fix the problem.

You should know by now that Amazon spoils their customers, and they’re right even if they are wrong.

So, if you ever get one (or more than one) be very polite and show your willingness to get their problems solved.

I tell you based on my experience that arguing with a customer will never offer a positive outcome: You can win the argument, but you will definitely lose that customer and lots more because everyone can read your conversation.

So, next time you have a customer complaining, even in a bad way, think about the repercussions before you act. Yes, it is so tempting to insult back. However, this method is rather ineffective.

Always try your best to reach an acceptable resolution for the customer, and if it’s met, don’t forget to follow up.

More often than not, you won’t be able to reach out to that angry customer, and they’ll leave a negative review and forget about it. And that can hurt you pretty bad.

That’s why you need to have a system in place to bring your customers a high level of satisfaction, similar to what we have discussed so far.

Still, even if you have everything in place, you’ll still get some bad reviews and negative feedback. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Getting Reviews And Feedback On Autopilot

Just to be clear here, a review is not the same as feedback. A review is related to a particular product while feedback is related to a particular seller.

In Fig. 26, you can see an example of what feedback is, and the way people leave their feedback is very similar to when Amazon asks for a review.

Most Amazon customers don’t understand the difference, but for us as sellers, that’s very important.

A review can affect your sales because it’s right in front of your potential customers, feedback cannot, but it can affect your ability to sell on Amazon, in the long term.

In any case, having a follow-up sequence in place can help you to get feedback and reviews on autopilot.

Generally, I set it on the 3rd or the 4th email of my follow-up sequence, and it works like gangbusters.

Fig. 26. Feedback from a particular seller

Removing Negative Feedback

Like I said before, even when you have the perfect customer service system in place you’ll get bad reviews and bad feedback.

There’s nothing much you can do about negative reviews other than keeping your cool and trying to make the customer happy.

But you can definitely do something about negative feedback.

Amazon has an option to remove negative feedback, but it’ll only work if the feedback is all about the product.

But if they mention something about the customer service itself or the like, you won’t be able to remove.

Here’s the process step-by-step:

1. Go to help
2. Go to order
3. Type the order number of the customer
4. Request negative feedback removal.

Now, there are some rules about removing feedback, and in the end, Amazon will decide if the feedback stays or not.

Chapter 8: Taking Your Amazon Business To The Next Level.

For all of you that have come this far, I salute you!

Having a business is simple, maybe it won’t be easy, but it is simple. It’s just a matter of following a set of steps and being prepared to make some decisions, and of course, being ready to learn from your mistakes.

But the idea behind this guide is to ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes I made. Hopefully you have been completing every step along the way, and you’re now ready to take things to the next level.

In this final chapter, I’m going to share with you the secret to becoming a 6-figure or even 7-figure successful Amazon seller.

You see, launching your first product is fun and all, but the real money will come when you have 2, 3, 4 and maybe 5 products.

One product can generate around $2,000 – $15,000 per month, so having 5 can skyrocket your income like you never thought possible up to $75,000 per month, and $900,000 a year (very close to a million dollars per year).

But honestly, if you are not patient, this won’t happen, because Amazon, like any real business, takes time to grow.

You can’t expect to see these results in one month. I always tell my private coaching clients that Amazon is a one-year project.

So, let me show you how to achieve your financial goals in a very simple way.

Click here to apply

3 Boring Steps Every Successful Amazon Seller Must Take

Over the years, I’ve learned that success is not about hustling and grinding, it’s more about persistence, and following a simple plan.

The problem with that is it can be boring.

Yes, it’s fun to enjoy what hard work can give you, but the actual work—the daily grind—is going to be BORING pretty much all the time.

Repetitive tasks that don’t seem to be making a difference but that add up when you do them every day.

Boring, but so worth it, in my opinion.

The most overlooked key to massive success is to stay consistent with your work.

Anyways, let's jump right into the steps:

Step 1: Reinvesting your profits

Business growth is impossible unless you reinvest your profits.

Reinvesting is the best way to build wealth. If you’re a business owner, reinvesting is crucial to your company’s continued growth and success.

With that being said, one of the things you need to do is to leave the money “in the game” by buying more stock or investing in more advertisement or running more promotions, so your business can grow.

I never touched any of the money my business produced for at least a year; I know it’s very difficult to do that, but it’s the only way to grow.

Step 2: Adding your second product

What better way to reinvest your profits than adding a second product to your store?

You know the process, so it’s just a matter of rinse and repeat as many times as you want and can, but let’s start with your second product.

The best time to roll out your second product is when your sales for the first product are stable.

I’m not saying that you must be making huge profits with your first product before you move on to the next one.

Not at all.

But at some point, your sales will become more predictive—20 a day, 30 a day, 50 a day, whatever number it is.

The other condition is that you should be turning a profit on that product, even if it is $2,000 per month or a little less than that.

Soon you’ll realize that your “line of products” is making you a handsome profit every month.

Remember, it’s all about consistency and persistence.

Keep working on those building blocks every day and in one year from now, you’ll see nice results.

Step 3: Hiring people

Being a one-man or one-woman operation is OK if you want to make a couple thousand dollars on the side.

But if you really want to grow a business, you need to hire people or at the very least team up with someone with the same objectives in mind.

I work this business with my wife, I have 4 partners, and I hire at least 3 people every month for different tasks.

I don’t have anyone permanent on the payroll, but that’s just because most of the business is automated thanks to Amazon’s platform.

That being said, to grow you need helping hands. And you’ll notice that your business becomes overwhelming for just one person at some point.

Another benefit of hiring people or teaming up with other people is that you can mastermind your plans, you feel like you’re not alone, and take it from me, as rewarding as working online may be, it can be very lonely.

Also, at the very least you’ll need to hire an accountant to file your taxes.

I cannot give any tax or legal advice, but if you contact me, I can hook you up with some of the finest people that can help you with that.

A Final Word From Lenin

I’m glad you have read this far.

In this guide, I’ve tried to lay out the process clear enough so anyone who wants to start an Amazon business can get started right away.

If you’re really interested in this business, and you need my help, I’d love to talk to you about your possibilities.

To get in touch with me, you just need to click here to apply.

On the other hand, if you want to get started by yourself and get your feet wet on Amazon you’re more than welcome to give it a try.

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