How to Prepare and Strategize for Generating Sales on Amazon – In Just 7 Minutes with Mike Begg

Resources/Links:

• Get your FREE copy of the Advanced Amazon Selling Guide Today!: https://landing.amzadvisers.com/landing

Summary

Have you already invested your product on the Amazon platform? Are you satisfied with the results it’s getting? Do you want to know the secret to improving your sales and results and how to make the most out of your investment in Amazon?

Mike Begg is an expert in eCommerce and digital marketing. He co-founded AMZ Advisers and has grown the business to over $10M/year in ad spend and $100M/year in Amazon sales.

In this episode, Mike shares his experiences and ideas on how to increase your sales and brand discovery with the use of Amazon. He also shares the secret of how to maximize your investment in Amazon through making your product “retail-ready”.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:25 – Mike’s ideal client: “Our ideal clients are CPG brands and manufacturers that are either not satisfied with the results they’re getting on the Amazon platform or haven’t really invested into the platform or venturing into it but at the same time, they have to have that willingness to invest in the platform.”
• 02:02 – Problem Mike helps solve: “The problem that we solve and the reason we started this company was to help brands get the representation they need on the Amazon platform.”
• 02:55 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Mike: “There can be a variety of problems but the biggest issue that most companies have is that they’re not getting the sales they want, or they’re not getting enough traffic their listings. And that can be for a variety of reasons, it really comes down to SEO and advertising.”
• 03:53 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Mike’s solution: “A lot of the common mistakes are people just throw things up on the platform and expect that that traffic’s immediately going to come without, you know, really considering what their sales copy is without doing the proper keyword research, and everything that really builds the foundation for you on the Amazon platform.”
• 04:45 – Mike’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “There is a term within the Amazon community which is called “retail readiness” and getting your listings to be “retail-ready” is extremely important for being on the platform. There are a few different things you can consider to get your listings “retail-ready” on your own.”
• 06:18 – Mike’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Get your FREE copy of the Advanced Amazon Selling Guide Today!: https://landing.amzadvisers.com/landing
• 07:01 – Q: Why do companies need to invest in the Amazon platform? A: The reality is Amazon is the best brand discovery platform that there is right now, at least in the US and in North America.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“You can't just throw things out there and expect to succeed without taking certain steps to make sure that you're set up for success.” -Mike Begg Click To Tweet

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Hello everyone and another very warm welcome to Marketing The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland, joined today by Mike Begg. Mike, good day. A very warm welcome from down under. Where are you hanging out, sir?

Mike Begg 00:22
Tom, thanks for having me here. I am based in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Tom Poland 00:26
How’s the weather today?

Mike Begg 00:28
It’s a little cloudy, you can see some rain rolling in but normally, it’s pretty warm. So, can’t really complain.

Tom Poland 00:34
Yeah, I heard it’s a pretty nice climate there, a little bit like castaway’s beach. Right here in little Queensland, Australia. So, folks, for those who don’t know Mike, he’s a specialist in eCommerce and digital marketing, which is a whole world of pain for those of us who don’t know much about it. He co-founded AMZ Advisers and get this, he’s grown the business over $10 million a year in ad spend and $100 million a year in Amazon sales so I think he might know what he’s talking about.

Mike Begg 01:08
Yeah, I think I have a pretty good idea on the Amazon.

Tom Poland 01:10
All right. Well, that brings us quite nicely to the title Mike, which is “How to Prepare and Strategize for Generating Sales on Amazon”. I’m going to show you how to do that, folks. Tell you how to do that in just seven minutes, Mike. Our seven minutes starts now. Question number one is who is your ideal client?

Mike Begg 01:25
Sure, well, our ideal clients are CPG brands and manufacturers that are either not satisfied with the results they’re getting on the Amazon platform or haven’t really invested into the platform or venturing into it but at the same time, they have to have that willingness to invest in the platform. You can’t just throw things out there and expect to succeed without taking certain steps to make sure that you’re set up for success.

Tom Poland 01:48
Right. And we’ve all heard stories of incredible success in Amazon stores, but can you drill down a little deeper. This is question two, six, and a half minutes left. More specifically, what’s the problem you solve for your client?

Mike Begg 02:02
Sure. The problem that we solve and the reason we started this company was to help brands get the representation they need on the Amazon platform. Five years ago, when we started our agency, we were looking at huge companies, brands owned by Procter and Gamble, or Johnson and Johnson, and just seeing how poorly they were set up on the platform, and how these disruptor brands were able to come in and actually make sales from these established household names, and that’s where we came from. We want to help clients to build their presence on Amazon, to protect their brand, and ultimately, to make it a valuable sales channel for them.

Tom Poland 02:34
And building that presence and having the brand is such a boost to sales in a platform like Amazon. So, question number three is, tell us about the symptoms that your ideal clients are experiencing in their attempts to sell on Amazon before they find your solution? What’s going on in their business or what’s going on in their Amazon store?

Mike Begg 02:55
Of course, well, there can be a variety of problems but the biggest issue that most companies have is that they’re not getting the sales they want, or they’re not getting enough traffic their listings. And that can be for a variety of reasons, it really comes down to SEO and advertising. And on the advertising side, another common symptom is that they’re not getting the return on the advertising dollars that they expect. They’re not being efficient enough with their spending. And these are all common issues that most brands that don’t have someone on their team with an Amazon background that understands the platform admittedly, are able to deal with.

Tom Poland 03:27
It’s a specialty, I mean, it’s such a specialty. So that leads us quite nicely into question number four because they’ve got this- probably got a team of people, and they’re not a specialist in Amazon so they’re going to try stuff to fix the problem, but they’re going to make mistakes because it really is kind of like the blind leading the blind. So, question four, four and a half minutes left, what are some of the common mistakes that you see people making before they find your solution?

Mike Begg 03:53
A lot of the common mistakes are people just throw things up on the platform and expect that that traffic’s immediately going to come without, you know, really considering what their sales copy is without doing the proper keyword research, and everything that really builds the foundation for you on the Amazon platform.

Tom Poland 04:08
Right.

Mike Begg 04:08
Without doing those things, you really can’t succeed on the platform. So, one of the common mistakes is using competitor keywords or branded terms from other competitors. It’s one thing you really don’t want to do. And then another one is just using poor imagery on your listing not having good product photos, or not having a professional photoshoot, and that’s really important to make your listing stand out.

Tom Poland 04:28
Call them mistakes even by some of the big players. So, question five, three and a half minutes left, give us one valuable free action that someone listening to this could take, that’s not going to solve the whole problem, I think they’re going to need your solution for that, but it might just take them a step in the right direction.

Mike Begg 04:45
Right. There is a term within the Amazon community which is called “retail readiness” and getting your listings to be “retail-ready” is extremely important for being on the platform. There are a few different things you can consider to get your listings “retail-ready” on your own. The first thing is obviously, your SEO copy. You want to make sure you’re doing good keyword research, placing your primary keywords in your product title, your secondary keywords in the bullet points, and the remaining keywords in your product description and the back end of your listing. That’s the first step. The next one would be to take advantage of all the images that you have in your product listing page. So, Amazon, in some categories allows up to nine images, so you should really use those to your advantage and use the images to call out the main benefits of your product and how- not the features, but the benefits, how it improves their lives. And then finally, start getting reviews for your product. You need to have a certain number of reviews to have that social proof that’s going to get people that find your product to actually buy it.

Tom Poland 05:43
Perfect. Thank you, sir, more than one valuable free tip there that it also underlines the importance of getting someone and we can tell folks, this is not an affiliate thing I’m doing here, I’m not promoting you because, you know, I’m getting paid or anything. The reality is, folks, that if you’re going to get into something like selling on Amazon, you’re going to need a specialist. So, but some good free tips, they’re all the same. Two minutes left, two questions left. Give us one valuable free resource, please, Mike, that we could direct people to somewhere online, they can go and they can find out more about how you work with declines, maybe get some more free information as well.

Mike Begg 06:18
Yeah, of course, we love sharing information. And we have an offer right now where you can get our eBook that details everything you need to know about the seller central, and vendor central platforms on Amazon, so that’s the 3P and 1P side, and you can learn more about how to just sell on Amazon in general. And the website for that is AMZadvisers.com/landing. And in addition to that, we also have a lot of free content on our blog, which you can find on our website and our YouTube channel.

Tom Poland 06:46
Perfect. So AMZadvisers, that’s A-D-V-I-S-E-R-S.com/landing, go get it! Lots of free value there. 80 seconds left. Mike, what’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Mike Begg 07:01
I think the question that you should have asked, but didn’t would be “Why do companies need to invest in the Amazon platform?” And that’s a common objection that we get from a lot of leads is like, “Why do I need to spend money here? Why do I need to focus on this?”

Tom Poland 07:14
Right.

Mike Begg 07:14
The reality is Amazon is the best brand discovery platform that there is right now, at least in the US and in North America.

Tom Poland 07:21
Yeah. I see as well.

Mike Begg 07:22
Look at the number of people that are going to search on Amazon.

Tom Poland 07:25
Yeah.

Mike Begg 07:26
That’s 66% of total product searches start on the Amazon platform.

Tom Poland 07:29
Wow.

Mike Begg 07:30
So, if you’re not there, you’re not building a brand there, then how do you expect any new customers to come to your brand? And worse yet, how do you expect your competitors not to steal those customers from you that you spend so much time acquiring?

Tom Poland 07:43
It’s not really a negotiable option, but you’ve got 66% of the audience going to Amazon to have a look and see it to find your product. If they can’t find it, you’re leaving a lot of cash on the table, folks. Mike Begg, thank you so much for your time. You’ve over-delivered as per your reputation. Thank you.

Mike Begg 08:00
Thank you very much for having me, Tom. I really appreciate it.

Tom Poland 08:04
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.