How can D2C businesses use Amazon A+ Content to boost their sales?
Jan 16, 2022
10 min read
There should be no doubt referring to Amazon as the largest and most competitive eCommerce marketplace, having over 9.7 million sellers worldwide. Among these, almost 1.9 million sellers are actively promoting and selling their products on this marketplace.
Now, the question is, how can you make your product and services stand out when millions of products are already striving for the same trophy? Well, Amazon’s A+ Content can be an efficient solution to beat your competitors to the draw and boost your sales.
This blog will guide you through the world of Amazon A+ Content and its benefits to maximize your sales by improving conversions. So, let’s get started!
What’s Amazon A+ Content?
As described by Amazon Seller Central, Amazon A+ Content is an advanced feature that allows brands to modify the product description of branded Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs). It was formerly renowned as Enhanced Brand Content (EBC).
Amazon A+ Content is a kind of additional information that Amazon sellers can include in their product’s description listings. Using this feature, you can showcase your product’s features to the users uniquely, consisting of enhanced images, brand stories, and text positioning.
When you get access to the A+ Content, you can add the following features to your product description:
- Precise and informative introduction of the product
- Detailed and more comprehensive product description
- Highly optimized images
- HD videos that describe your product's features
- Comparative charts and tables of your competitors
- Attractive bulleted features list
- Inclusion of a section known as “What’s in the box?”
Using A+ Content will efficiently help you convey your brand’s story and products’ benefits that add value to the customers. It will also enhance their experience, making them choose your products over your competitors. Since your brand will generate more value for your customers over others, you can observe a significant increase in sales.
How to Create an A+ Content for Your Brand?
Until mid-2019, Amazon A+ was only accessible for the sellers or vendors having a former EBC. However, now this feature is open-source and available to almost everyone. But you have to make sure you are eligible for a specific set of requirements.
- The first thing to remember is to have a professional seller account.
- Secondly, make sure you register yourself in the Amazon Brand Registry to be approved as a brand owner.
- Once Amazon verifies you, you can start including the ASINs of your products to A+ Content. When you update the content for the particular ASIN, it will be reflected for the parent ASIN and all the child ASIN levels.
However, how strategically you create and optimize your content will help you get the proper conversions and sales maximization. Let’s talk about it in the latter part of the article.
But what if your brand is new on Amazon?
Well, that’s not an issue. You still have an option to be eligible for the A+ Content feature. Amazon also accepts and promotes emerging brand owners engaged in other managed selling programs, such as Amazon Exclusives and Launchpad's.
Benefits of A+ Content for Your D2C Business
You have already been told that Amazon is a highly competitive marketplace, and with the correct utilization of Amazon A+ Content, you can appear as the game-changer. It can provide you with a competitive edge to skyrocket your conversion rate and accelerate product sales. In fact, proper integration of A+ Content into your product marketing techniques can help you increase your product sales by 3% to 10%. Here are some advantages of A+ Content for your D2C businesses:
Seize your shoppers’ attention
The hardest part about selling a product on Amazon is grabbing your customers’ attention when millions of similar versions are out there. Amazon’s A+ Content helps you capture the eye of potential buyers as they are fed up looking at cluttered and messy product listings and no longer want to see them.
However, with A+ Content, the product description is well-descriptive with large HD images and a video describing the product’s features and usage. Moreover, the formatted text and enticing bulletin points make it easier to grab your products' attention.
A better option in terms of SEO
One of the best things about A+ Content is that search engines like Google easily recognize it. Due to this, your brand and products get more visibility, and they appear on your users’ screens more often.
One thing to note is that A+ Content is not indexed on Amazon, but Google does it, which means if you work correctly according to the algorithms, your products will be visible to your potential customers on Google. Enhanced product listings increase discoverability, optimize your brand rankings, and ultimately increase sales.
Increase in conversions
Well, this is normal. When you use high-quality images, HD videos, attention-grabbing, and SEO-friendly product listing pages, getting a higher conversion rate is no surprise. Your products eventually come into the limelight, making your shoppers click on the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button confidently.
More reviews and fewer returns!
What do you usually do while shopping online? If you get sufficient time, you will try to gather as much information as possible about the product you want to buy from different sources and several reviews. However, when you use the A+ Content strategy in describing your product information, they get a clear picture of the product all at one stop. It helps the customers make the right and quick decisions.
Furthermore, when they purchase a product with its complete understanding, there are negligible chances that they will return it. Also, the satisfied customers will leave positive feedback on your products page that will help other customers choose your product. Hence, increase in sales!
Minimize ACoS and Raise ROI
When you run a PPC campaign for your product, it might bring you clicks in a large number but not necessarily guarantee sales. In addition, running a PPC ad can cost you a good amount based on your needs and target options.
However, the right on-target and comprehensive A+ Content can easily convince your potential buyers to purchase by grabbing their attention on the products’ features. Also, you won’t be charged for using the A+ Content strategy (until you upgrade to the premium version). Therefore, with A+ Content, you get more sales, less advertising cost of sale (ACoS), and a higher return on investment (ROI).
Best Practices Regarding Amazon A+ Content
To get better results, you need to ensure that your A+ Content is optimized with the best practices. Here are a few tips for delivering quality A+ Content and a better customer experience:
Emphasize the USP of your brand
Remember that a product is not produced just to sell it, but for your customers to buy it. Therefore, see it from the customers’ point of view. Discover why they will need it or how it can benefit them. That would be the Unique Selling Point (USP) of your product that you must emphasize in your A+ Content.
The advantages of your product will help drive emotions, the emotions that describe your customers' needs. And where the emotions are aroused, the purchases automatically take place.
Keep your content short and clear
It doesn’t matter how informative your product description is, your customers usually have the same time you would invest while purchasing for yourself. Nobody wants to wait, and no one has much time to read long and detailed paragraphs about your product. Therefore, make sure you stick to short and on-point A+ Content to accelerate the buying decision.
Use the combined power of text and images
You might have read or heard that the visuals speak more than text. Hence, in your A+ Content, combine high definition visuals along with the precise text. You can use banners to segregate your product’s listing and details page to make it more straightforward and offer a streamlined experience to your customers.
Avoid errors and proofread your content before submitting
Make sure you avoid using special characters in your A+ Content. Amazon forbids the use of some special characters, including copyright and registered trademark symbols. Moreover, you are also not allowed to use hyperlinks to other websites in your A+ Content. However, adding a link to any other ASIN is acceptable within the module type.
Also, Amazon takes almost a week to approve your content describing the product listing and description. Therefore, make sure you proofread it for any grammatical errors before the submission. It is crucial because, for some reason, if you ignore the mistakes and Amazon approves your content, it will be live on the website. Later, when you realize that your content has some errors and you wish to fix them, you will have to submit the page again. However, until the mistake is resolved, it would have run live almost for a week.
Keep your page designs uniform
Always remember that you do not create the design or structure of your A+ Content for one page. Instead, you will be using it for the whole product catalog. Therefore, make sure to maintain consistency throughout the layout of your products page. Use minimalistic designs with optimized images and formatted text. Your products’ page design should be unique and signify your brand’s extension. Also, to avoid rejection from Amazon regarding your visual content, ensure that your images and videos are of appropriate resolution and size as per the policies suggested by Amazon.
Guidelines for Amazon A+ Content
- You should not refer to your business as a seller or distributor.
- Don’t provide any contact information of your business or company.
- Avoid using purchase references, like “cheap,” “free,” “bonus offer”, “affordable”, “shop with us,” etc., in the product description.
- Don’t use any special characters including ?, ? or ™.
- Avoid using low-quality images with the unreadable textual matter.
- Do not add hyperlinks to any website inside or outside of Amazon.
- Don’t use images or graphics that might imitate Amazon logos or programs.
- Never mention anything in your A+ Content that shows association to any kind of criminal activities.
- Avoid mentioning debatable claims, such as “the best product,” “#1 selling item”, “the top product in the list,” and like.
- Ensure that the lifestyle images you use show the products.
- Your A+ Content (images, videos, or text) should be unique.
- Any changes or modification in the content is allowed only in the first two business days after publication.
- Don’t insert or mention anything that violates the Amazon selling policies. Amazon has the right to take down your page in that scenario.
Wrapping Up
As per an Amazon report, on average, around 4000 items are sold every minute by the small and medium-sized businesses located in the United States. This statistic might clearly tell you why all kinds of companies want to incorporate themselves with Amazon services. However, a wide presence of competitors can make it extremely challenging for you to distinguish your brand from them.
Undoubtedly, A+ Content is an efficient method to make your own way in this cut-throat competition and grab the attention of your potential customers. All you need is to follow the proper guidelines to make your products stand out from the product. And the appropriate knowledge comes from experience. Therefore, it is worth investing in an efficient and proficient digital marketing agency to help you deliver high-quality A+ content to increase conversions and boost sales.
7 Questions That Your Content Strategy Must Answer
To protect your business site from changes like Google Penguin, Content Marketers need to have clear insight so that they can design an accurate content strategy. Your content strategy needs to work well with the search engine crawlers so that your website remains optimized and ranks high in SERPs. But we do that, isn’t it? Lots of long-tail and short-tail keywords, generating backlinks and getting the contents published on sites having high Domain Authority is what we have been doing all through. What’s missing? Maybe the idea to have good content is not understood fully. The customer’s perspective is often missed while developing a content strategy. And as you can expect, with only 44% of B2B marketers having a documented content strategy, the industry is lagging behind in providing the users with the most accurate information. This approach may have worked in past, but with search engines moving towards delivering the most accurate results, your content should best answer the questions that your users have. To find a key to this problem, let's ask ourselves if our content strategy addresses these concerns: “What” Is Your Content Going To Be? What kind of content is going to create? From web blogs to podcasts, the expectations of customers and the limitation of the content publication platform are different. Is your content strategy consistent with the type of content and the place where the content is going to be published? “Why” Is Content Essential For Your Site? Understand the goal before you begin. Why are you serious about the content part? Is it to increase the traffic to your website and improve the conversion rates, or to create large followership by building trust? Is your content strategy aiming towards higher visibility on SERPs, or promoting your products and services? In any case, you need to check if your existing content strategy is answering your customers' questions and addressing their pain points. “How” To Get Where You Want To Go? Once the objective is decided, it is also important for all the team members to stay on the same page. In case, you have outsourced the content to another firm, you need to make sure the content developers know what exactly you are aiming at. “When” Do You Begin? Now! And... Making realistic plans is crucial to its success. How much time do you allot for the content strategy? What are the barriers that need to be overcome? Analyze your previous content strategies and based on that, you can settle in for a time frame for the execution of your strategy. “Where” Is The Content Distributed? Your content strategists need to understand that content distribution determines how much amplification your content is going to get. For greater amplification and larger popularity among your audience, you can use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Sharing on these sites can take your content to a larger domain, also capture the attention of your passive audience. “How Often” Should I Produce Content? How often should you blog? Monthly? Weekly? Daily? Before committing to any frequency, ask yourself whether you have enough resources to meet the deadline? Staying more active is a good thing as the users get more content to read but unless you are consistent in posting content, the effect is diluted. “For Whom” Is The Content? Who is going to read your content? If your content is for everybody, then it is for nobody, right? Your content strategy should keep in mind the audience segment that you are targeting? Make the buyer personas and ensure that your content strategy is consistent with the buyer journey. In particular, your content should be developed to take the audience to these three buyer's journey steps: Awareness Phase Is your content informing the audience about the opportunities they can have? Is your content suitably placed to explain the key issues, risks? Apart from informing the audience, ideal content should also provide precise solutions to optimize and improve the user's life situations. Consideration Phase How is your content providing the available approaches and methods that can solve the reader's problems? Through expertly written guides, troubleshooting tips, whitepapers, your content can help your audience, hence building trust and engagement simultaneously. Decision-Making phase Most of the existing content on the web is informative and provides useful solutions to the readers. But where they lack is that they do not clearly tell the audience what to do next. How is your content helping in defining a specific call to action? Create comparative studies, product literature, and the pros and cons of various approaches and methods to encourage the users to make a purchasing decision so that their decisions remain more informed and intelligent. This is one aspect that content strategy can never ignore. By getting content published on good sites, and on your own website, you can attract the attention of your targeted audience. But that’s not the end of your content strategy. Go back to your goals, see how are you motivating your audience towards the goal. You wanted to increase the conversion rates, how is your content encouraging the visitors towards sales? You want to build trust with your audience, check for the email subscribers’ behavior to derive actionable insight. ...
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5 Tips To Become Successful In Social Media
In the recent years, Social Media has become an important part of everyone’s lives. It is not merely limited to just sharing pictures or funny videos, but it also plays an important role in contributing to the success of your business. At Present, it has been considered as one of the most rewarding marketing channels used by businesses to reach their target audience. With the constant increase in industrial competition, everyone wants to have a good social media recognition for their business. Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and Instagram are frequently used active social media platforms used by the businesses. A great or good social media presence can definitely help your business grow like anything. But, this can only happen if you have a huge list of followers and understand their needs precisely. These 5 important tips will guide and help you become successful in becoming active on Social Media: 1. Identify your Goals The first and the most important step to become successful in Social Media is to identify your business goals and objectives. Ensure that you have a clear idea about what you are going to do, before and after you start posting on Social Media. This also implies that you should be familiar with the mechanism of every social media platform, your target audience, how can you reach them! These initial points will offer you a correct direction to promote your business rightly. 2.Understand your Audience Knowing your audience and understanding their needs can help you interact with them at a more personal level. Once you know what they want to read about and what they believe in, you can give them everything they want. This simply means bringing them to your website and show them what your business is all about. 3. Establish your Brand Message Based on your business goals, objectives, mission and branding, you need to create message tones and categories lined with your business. This represents your brand message in your “voice” and it should be appropriate to your brand, industry as well as your target audience. 4. Share withEveryone In order to become successful in Social Media, one of the best things you can do is to share your Social Media accounts with everyone. You should avoid being spammy, but, also you don't need to be hesitant to share. Sharing your Social Media accounts will let people know about your presence on Twitter, Facebook, etc and they can share it further. This is the best and simple way to let the world know about you. 5. Provide good Customer Service If your customers are facing some problems, go above and beyond to help them and reach a conclusion. Doing this, shows that you are doing your best to provide them with a helpful and perfect solution. This will generate a feeling of trustfor you in your customers and make them come back to you. Conclusion To sum it up, these useful tips can help you become successful in Social Media. For more tips and information related to Social Media Strategy, let us help you, get in touch with us! ...
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Enhance Product Discovery: Best Navigation Tips to Improve UX
What makes navigation an important factor? Have you ever felt that you wanted to reach a particular page on a website but could not or said you got lost? This is where navigation comes in and helps you easily navigate through the numerous pages of the website. Implementing optimal E-commerce Navigation UX helps users easily navigate the website's various pages. Businesses can improve their overall UX by incorporating simple pathways, smoothly designed menus, and a user-friendly interface. Most of all, a well-structured navigation system easily guides a potential customer through the ocean of products, fostering a positive user experience and increased engagement and purchases. According to research, only 30% of the users rely on search input, while 70% prefer navigating directly. This blog will discuss the importance of navigation and the rules for designing an effective navigation. What is Ecommerce Navigation Design? Ecommerce navigation UX design focuses on creating, analyzing, and implementing effective ways for users to navigate online shopping platforms. This specialized area of navigation design is integral to the success of ecommerce websites, as it directly impacts how users interact with and explore the vast options of products and services. The primary goal of e-commerce navigation is to provide a smooth and positive journey for users from the moment they enter the site to the completion of a purchase. This involves the strategic use of UI patterns, including links, labels, and other elements, specifically tailored to enhance the ecommerce user experience. The advantages of an e-commerce navigation UX design are: Enhanced User Understanding: It helps users quickly understand the structure of the ecommerce platform, making navigation and product discovery easy. Increased User Confidence: A user-friendly navigation offers credibility and authority, which makes users confident about the product, encouraging them to browse and make purchases easily. Credibility: The navigation design contributes significantly to the credibility of an ecommerce platform. The design patterns for navigation UX are diverse and dynamic for e-commerce. Different businesses need different navigation patterns; there is no such thing as one solution that fits all. Each chosen design pattern must be carefully evaluated and tested to ensure it aligns with the ecommerce platform's specific requirements and the target audience's preferences. Adopting a user-centered design perspective is essential. Understanding online shoppers' distinct preferences and behaviors allows for creating navigation that optimizes the ecommerce platform and resonates with the users, ultimately contributing to a positive and rewarding online shopping experience. The Importance of Navigation Design More than 5.5 million apps are on platforms like Apple and Android collectively. Now, think of these maps as the navigation design of each app, determining how easy or frustrating it is for any user to find what they are looking for. Every product needs a smooth path, whether it's buttons, menus, or dropdowns, for a user to achieve their goals. If this path is confusing or poorly designed, that person might leave and abandon the app. That is why navigation design is crucial it works like a friendly guide, helping them explore and enjoy what an app offers. In 2001, tech expert Alan Cooper highlighted, "A good design should be crystal clear. Users shouldn't waste time figuring out where things are hidden.” Here’s why navigation design matters: Reflects Your Brand: A well-designed navigation system makes a positive impression, shaping how users see the app. Communicates User Location: Navigation acts as a GPS, which helps you know where you are in the app. It's like a friendly guide saying, "You are here," making your experience smoother. Provides Access to Information: Navigation is the key to finding your need. A smart navigation system ensures you can easily access the information or features you are searching for. Good navigation design is not just about buttons and menus; it is about making the user's journey through an app enjoyable and hassle-free. What are the rules for Designing Great Navigation? Prioritize Consistency Inconsistencies in navigation can arise when content does not align with the predefined sections of a website, leading to its separate listing. Alternatively, there are situations where users require quick access to elements residing deep within the website, prompting site owners to add quick links in the navigation. However, some alternative approaches aim to sidestep the practice of making irregular additions to the navigation.1. Subpages and Landing Pages Achieving consistency needs transparent decision-making. All navigation elements should display subpage links or none of them. Displaying subpages for specific sections may mislead users, creating the impression that sections without visible subpages lack them. If subpages are not featured in primary navigation, employing consistent secondary navigation across all sections is crucial. For example, When a visitor hovers over any section in the menu on the Nashville Zoo website, the corresponding subpages for that section become visible. Similarly, all primary navigation items should consistently link to landing pages or serve as section headers for secondary navigation links. Inconsistencies such as only some items being linked can create confusion among users. Additionally, when a primary navigation item is a link, clearly indicating the related action through verbiage or visual design is essential. This ensures users understand how to navigate to the desired content. Let’s look at an example: In the Fairfax County Public Schools menu, users can reach the Careers landing page by either clicking on the text "Careers" or clicking on the arrow to explore the subpages. 2. Call-outs and Feature Blocks Call-outs or feature blocks on the homepage or section landing page may be best for content requiring easier access. These visually appealing elements capture user attention without disrupting the overall site navigation. 3. Breadcrumbs Breadcrumbs act as effective navigation aids for users arriving from external sources. Ensuring accuracy in breadcrumbs is critical for effective user orientation. While smaller websites with two levels may not necessitate breadcrumbs, consistency is key when implementing them. By adhering to these principles, websites can establish a cohesive and user-friendly navigation experience, allowing users to explore content with clarity and effortlessly. Design Clear Interactions User confusion often arises when visitors struggle to identify interactive elements or anticipate specific actions. To overcome this challenge, it is imperative to design functional and crystal-clear interactions meticulously. Clarity through Visual Changes Visual changes convey the nature of interactions on a website. An example is the smooth transition from an expand icon to a collapse icon, signaling a change and providing users with a straightforward guide on how to undo the modification. The absence of such visual updates may result in users overlooking these crucial changes. Use of Labels with Icons While icons can effectively replace text links, introducing a label significantly reduces ambiguity. For instance, rather than relying on the widely debated hamburger icon, adding a clear "Menu" label alongside it improves user understanding. This practice proves valuable for other commonly used icons, such as "Contact" or "Login." Designing Interactive Icons The differentiation between icons serving as links and those employed for informational or categorical purposes is critical to user understanding. A strategic approach involves assigning the link color specified in the style guide exclusively to icons designed for interaction. Decorative icons adopt a distinct non-link color to maintain clarity. A study by NNG underscores the impact of varied visual indicators. Users show a 37% increase in speed when locating items within a web page list where color and icon variations complement the text. By implementing these principles, websites can serve user-friendly experiences, ensuring visitors confidently navigate and engage with the intended interactions. Avoid Deep Navigation To create a perfect design, aligning the information architecture (IA) and website hierarchy with this goal is crucial. When constructing a sitemap, aim for a "flat navigation" model, enabling users to reach the deepest pages within one or two clicks. While flat navigation is an ideal solution, it is a misconception to believe that limited short-term memory necessitates short menus. The Nielsen Norman Group advocates for menus that allow users to "rely on recognition rather than recall." Thus, menus should be short enough for easy scanning yet long enough to maintain clarity. Limiting the Number of Levels The site hierarchy defines the number of navigation levels. One or two clicks should quickly lead users to their desired destination with minimal confusion. As the Nielsen Norman Group noted, deeper hierarchies can disorient visitors. Most websites maintain three or four levels of hierarchy, balancing accessibility and avoiding overly broad navigation. To determine the right number of levels, separate the current hierarchy into different groups and assess whether these groups can be brought next to a higher-level grouping. This may involve: Updating section labels Creating new sections Adjusting how sections relate to each other Consolidation or removal of content needs to be considered as well. Current trends for truly flat navigation lean towards full-page designs where all pages reside on one level. Unique Visual Design for Each Level Navigation should enable quick scanning, distinguishing the primary, secondary, and tertiary links. Consistent visual design elements such as font styles, sizes, weights, and colors should differentiate between navigation levels. If secondary navigation is present, it should clearly distinguish between parent/child and sibling links while aligning cohesively with the primary navigation. Use Location Indicators Similar to breadcrumbs, location indicators within the navigation assist users in orienting themselves within site, especially when navigating deeper levels. Clear visual cues signify the section a user explores, enhancing overall navigation understanding. Design for Responsive Compatibility A good navigation system should be user-friendly on all devices that includes your computer, phone, or tablet. Create a navigation that looks and functions the same way on different devices, or consider having two similar navigations so users don't get confused when switching between their computer and mobile. No More Hovering on Mobile When you hover over a menu on your computer, it shows more options. But this doesn't work the same on phones. If you have something you can click on your computer by hovering, find a way to make it easy for mobile users, too. Have a text link that takes you to one place and a little button you can tap to see more options. Design for Each Device Designing the navigation differently for computers and mobiles is better. Each device is different, and designing for its unique features and screen sizes makes the experience smoother for users. It is like having a separate design for each device to ensure everything fits and feels right. Conclusion Designing navigation is a basic step to foster user engagement and convert users into buyers. Navigation emerged as a key factor shaping user perceptions, reflecting brand identity, and ensuring users quickly access the information or features they seek. As users increasingly rely on navigation rather than search inputs, businesses benefit from investing in optimal navigation design. If you are struggling to create an ideal e-commerce navigation UX or unsure where to initiate this crucial process, Saffron Edge is your trusted partner. Our expertise lies in optimizing websites, explicitly focusing on enhancing the user experience for online shoppers. Let us guide you in creating an e-commerce navigation design that not only meets but exceeds your objectives, driving engagement and conversions effectively. ...
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