Over the past decade, Amazon has introduced many features that allow brands to recycle content from other channels and showcase their creative potential. As the marketplace becomes more cluttered, leading beauty brands continue to find new ways to stay at the top of the tree.
These category leaders not only implement such tools across all product lines that are active on Amazon, but they utilize these tools to build (very!) convincing arguments for potential customers to add their products to cart. We’ll showcase four unique ways beauty brands have used Amazon’s features to boost their e-commerce sales.
1. A+ Content: Are you interested in making your product pages stand out on Amazon? Consider A+ Content.
A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content or “EBC” on Seller Central) is free and available for all Amazon Vendors as well as Sellers enrolled in Brand Registry. Brands customize Amazon’s easy-to-use A+ templates to add additional copy, images, and infographics to their listings.
A+ Content helps brands deliver more relevant product info to shoppers in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and therefore facilitates more informed purchase decisions. The Bobsled project team has observed universally stronger conversion rates whenever A+ Content has been utilized compared to standard listings with regular content and placement restrictions imposed by Amazon. Therefore, beauty brands should strongly consider investing time, budget, and resources to develop A+ content that accurately showcases the benefits of their product line to Amazon shoppers.
Example: Coconut Matter utilizes Enhanced Brand Content to illustrate its core brand promises.
Developing your first A+ Content page? Amazon provides a step-by-step “How-To” guide for beginners—click on the “Training” hyperlink in the A+ Content Manager section of your dashboard!
2. Sponsored Brands Video: Sponsored Brands videos have been a hot topic amongst Amazon Sellers for the last few months. This underutilized type of ad campaign allows Amazon Sellers to promote a short video (up to 30 seconds) that captures a product’s key benefits, and is among the best attention-grabbing tools that acquire busy, new customers. Right now, Sponsored Brands videos are mainly populating sponsored ad slots on mobile, although we are starting to see them appear on desktop more often.
Example: Cleof uses Sponsored Brand Video to promote their Eyeshadow Palette Chocolate collection for the keyword “Makeup”
Video is definitely growing in popularity on Amazon, beyond Sponsored Brands ads. Investing in video for your Amazon product line would be a worthwhile investment as video content can be used on Sponsored Brands, Storefronts. and product listings themselves.
3. Amazon Live: Allows brands to broadcast on Amazon directly to millions of shoppers, helping build direct relationships with potential customers in a highly saturated market. All Amazon Sellers who are enrolled in Brand Registry and US Vendors can livestream on Amazon. The angle of the video is entirely up to you, but the most popular strategy (especially for beauty brands) is a “tutorial”-style video, where brands demonstrate to customers exactly how to use their products.
The best part—just like it’s free to broadcast to your followers on Facebook, it’s fre eto livestream to Amazon shoppers with Amazon Live. However, you can pay to “boost” your livestream, which guarantees your video will appear in highly trafficked parts of the marketplace.
Example: Amazon Live video placements on a product listing
Savvy beauty brands on Amazon can utilize this tool to connect with their potential customers, and showcase the utility and quality of their product line.
4. Amazon Posts: A relatively new feature on Amazon, with a social network look and feel. Amazon Vendors and Sellers enrolled in Brand Registry can use Amazon Posts to share curated photos and inspire Amazon shoppers to engage with their brand and products.
Shoppers encounter Posts by browsing through brand- or product category-specific feeds. Posts link to detail pages, making each post in a feed 100% shoppable.
What Are You Doing Differently?
At this stage in the game, Amazon’s e-commerce dominance is undeniable. Forward-looking beauty brands are viewing Amazon as a highly important new customer acquisition and ongoing revenue channel. Taking a “bare-bones” approach to the marketplace simply isn’t enough.
The challenge involves staying up to date with Amazon’s latest features, and successfully implementing a strategy that wins market share from your direct competitors. Good luck!
