For companies of all sizes, brand positioning has become the key to winning over customers. In an often oversaturated global market, having the best product isn’t enough anymore. Instead, success depends on well-thought-out business strategies. These allow you to achieve familiarity, show off your distinguishing features, and reach your target audience.
When selling a product, this can be difficult to do, especially when competing with a giant such as Amazon. But, this does not mean that you can’t leverage the marketplace. In fact, you can do it in a way that allows your brand to reach its full potential.
This post aims to explain how you can position your brand on and off Amazon. With a few best practices, you can both maximize your sales and achieve your long-term business goals.
Why diversify?
The first thing to consider about brand positioning is the potential you can unlock by selling on varied platforms. Diversification helps you maintain control over your business. By using more than a single sales channel, you expand your reach and multiply your visibility.
Even if you already have an e-commerce store, selling through Amazon gives you the chance to take advantage of the platform’s popularity. After all, according to the company’s 2020 statistics, average daily sales exceeded $410 million.
Besides its go-to status among shoppers, Amazon also offers many pros to sellers. These include:
- A huge customer base
- Credibility
- Simple software
- Internal customer service
- The FBA program
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any cons. Selling through Amazon makes it difficult to establish personal connections with your customers. In the long-run, this could mean lower chances of developing loyalty. Furthermore, the marketplace can make it challenging to secure a profit. It makes it difficult to stand out among competitors and favors quantity over quality. And there is another worrying fact about Amazon: it could become your main competition. Especially if you’re selling a product that isn’t patented.
That’s why marketplace diversification is an excellent strategy for bringing your brand to the next level.
How do you position your brand off Amazon?
Brand positioning is all about setting expectations and delivering on promises. By working on it, you’re working towards transforming your company into a household name. How do you achieve this? You do it by using a combination of different strategies.
There are many things you can do. But before we get into any of them, we need to cover the basics.
One of the essential parts of the positioning process will be managing expectations. Your main goal in the process should always be improving user experience – regardless of where you’re selling.
When you have an e-commerce store, this is slightly easier to do. For one, you have control over the design of your product pages, so make the absolute most of them:
- Include a wide variety of product photos and videos.
- Describe your products in a way that points out their unique benefits.
- Provide added value through how-to guides or FAQs.
- Increase AOV (average order value) with recommended product sections.
- Make use of social proof.
- Offer live chat customer support.
- Showcase your company’s identity throughout the entire page.
For a product page that does all this, take a look at this Amerisleep page for reference. Not only does it tick all the boxes, but even more, it is optimized for conversions and lead generation. What makes it particularly well-thought-out is the FAQ section, which plays a double role. On the one hand, it establishes authority by offering relevant information to website visitors. On the other, it uses high-ranking keywords for an SEO boost.
Of course, you can do something different as well. Adding a blog section to your website is another excellent idea. It can be a part of your content marketing strategy that aims to widen your organic reach. And, it can help you establish your brand as a relevant source of information.
Shopify’s blog is a great example. It offers readers many handy articles on how to maximize earnings through the platform’s services.
Of course, to get your target audience to visit your e-commerce store, you’ll want to combine your branding and marketing strategies. Make the most of email marketing. Establish a strong social media presence. Create compelling PPC campaigns to widen your reach. Furthermore, don’t forget about the potential of running special promotions. Offer free shipping or exclusive perks to your e-commerce customers, and they’ll find it compelling to shop directly from you.
Brand positioning on Amazon
Your e-commerce store allows almost endless opportunities. But, you’ll have to take a different approach when selling on Amazon.
Don’t let the website’s dated design hold you back. Pay attention to how your listings look to make them customer-oriented. Use high-quality images. Don’t skimp on information and add your brand’s visual identity where possible.
Searching for a great example of branding on Amazon? Take a look at this product by footwear manufacturer Cole Haan. The listing features a standard description. But, it also points out the unique benefits of purchasing this exact brand of shoes in the “From the manufacturer” section.
Of course, polishing up your listings is not all you can do to maximize visibility.
With big brands joining the market, Amazon has introduced its Brand Registry feature. And you should aim to take full advantage of it.
By signing up for it, you’re opening yourself up to three huge benefits:
- You are protecting your brand reputation from unauthorized resellers and fake products.
- You are gaining access to the Enhanced Brand Content feature. This lets you further customize your store and listings.
- You get the option of sponsoring your brand on Amazon, which will put you in the top spots on relevant search pages.
Integrate Your Amazon & Off-Amazon Brand Strategy
The most successful brands use the strengths of Amazon and off-Amazon channels to build their brand in a unified manner. LandingCube enables brands to boost performance on Amazon using off-Amazon marketing channels. By driving traffic from paid ads, organic social media, email, blogs etc. you can increase the exposure of your Amazon listings. And every sale from external traffic brings more organic visibility to your Amazon products. With the possibilities it offers, it could be an integral part of your positioning strategy. LandingCube could help you increase conversions as well as build your customer database. It might take more effort to go this route. But, think of the long-term benefits of becoming a go-to in your niche.
Find what works best for your business
As you work to position your brand on different sales platforms, you’ll find that some work better than others. For one part, that will be due to your customers’ preferences.
If, for example, they’re one of the 100 million Amazon Prime users, they’ll want to take full advantage of the perks they’re offered. Or, they may live in a location with limited delivery options and want to deal directly with you to simplify the shopping process.
One thing you can do to leverage channels will be to build landing pages that offer multiple buying options. Here, potential customers choose the sales channel that is the most convenient, which maximizes conversions. It also helps keep the conversion rate (unit session percentage) on Amazon higher, which further boosts placement.
Or, if you’re still learning about your audience’s preferences, you could run a test, sending them to different sales channels. Not only could this help you increase your positioning on certain platforms (Amazon), but it will also provide valuable information on where you need to direct your focus in the future.
Final thoughts
No matter how big or small your brand is, you probably can’t compete with Amazon. But ultimately, that’s not really necessary. Even if you have an e-commerce store, or use a platform such as Etsy or eBay, selling through the world’s largest online shop offers a multitude of perks. Especially when you’re looking to position your brand, or expand your audience.
So, instead of trying to make everything work through a single channel, see what you can do to leverage the different platforms available to you. You might just find that the effort turns out to be worth it.
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