Serious Sellers Podcast: Learn How To Sell On Amazon FBA & Walmart

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#468 - Amazon & Walmart PPC Strategies, Dayparting, & Improving Organic Rank Jun 27, 2023

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In this special TACoS Tuesday in SSP episode, let’s dive into the world of Amazon and Walmart PPC together with our expert guest Jocelyn Jeffries, Senior Manager for Retail Media at Pacvue. Our guest is an experienced professional managing $50 million in ad spend annually. Let’s listen to her insights, tips, and answers to our community’s questions about PPC asked live. In episode 468 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Jocelyn discuss: 01:33 – Let’s Meet Our Guest Jocelyn 02:25 – Managing $50 Million In Ad Spend Annually 04:21 – A New AI Innovation That Pacvue Released 07:10 – Jocelyn’s Favorite PPC Metrics 08:08 – How Do You Get New To Brand Data For Sponsored Product Campaigns 09:27 – What Are The Benchmarks For NTB Data? 12:53 – A Weird Situation With PPC And Attributed Sales 13:57 – How To Use PPC To Improve Your Organic Rank 16:34 – Tip When You Are Targeting Top Of Search 17:35 – Running PPC Campaigns After Missing The Honeymoon Period 19:41 – PPC Tips And Insights For Amazon Europe 20:45 – How To Use Day Parting In Your Campaigns 22:46 – PPC Sales Increased But Organic Sales Stays The Same 24:32 – PPC Strategy For Walmart.com 28:03 – Rolando Joins Us To Ask His Question Live 35:31 – How To Get In Touch With Jocelyn And Pacvue ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we’ve got somebody on the show who manages over 50 million in an annual PPC spend who’s gonna be answering a lot of your questions, such as, how did you Day Partying, how to advertise on Walmart, how to launch and get organic rank from PPC and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think Bradley Sutton: We know that getting to page one on keyword search results is one of the most important goals that an Amazon seller might have. So track your progress on the way to page one and even get historical keyword ranking information and even see sponsored ad rank placement with keyword tracker by helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/keywordtracker. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our monthly tacos Tuesday show. TACoS Tuesday, where we talk anything and everything PPC related, whether it’s on Amazon or Walmart, or even off Amazon and Walmart. We can take your questions on PPC, on other platforms potentially as well. So every month we bring on a special guest. And so without further ado, I’m gonna bring her on here, Jocelyn from Pacvue. How’s it going, Jocelyn? Good, Jocelyn: How are you? Bradley Sutton: I’m doing just delightful. And what do you do at here at Pacvue Jocelyn: I am on our kind of managed service consulting team, so I’m actually guiding strategy for some of our largest enterprise clients which is very fun. We work with really cool brands, you know, across, you know, self-service, managed, et cetera. And we have a lot of fun, but really mapping out the entire strategy for the year, and we’re pretty deep partners at that kind of level where we’re involved in the retail side and the you know, promotions and merchandising and all of that kind of aspect when we’re that deep into the relationship with the client. Bradley Sutton: Have any rough, like, cool figures you can throw out, like, Hey, I manage one gazillion dollars worth of spend per month every day, or something like that. That impressive. Jocelyn: Yeah, I probably manage about 50 million in ad spend through the year, which is very cool. You know, when you’re up to that level of budget, you get to do a lot of fun stuff, a lot of testing, a lot of learning. You know, I love a good test and learn. That’s kind of my thing at this point. Whether that’s, you know, testing new, creative testing, new audiences kind of addressing some larger, you know, brand initiative questions. You kind of get to do that, some of that when you start getting up to the higher budgets, which is certainly fun for someone like me. Bradley Sutton: Okay. What platforms are you knowledgeable on? I’m obviously Amazon, but are you currently, you know, running any campaigns on other platforms, be it Walmart, Instacart, et cetera? Jocelyn: Yeah, so I manage campaigns on Amazon, Walmart, Criteo, Instacart, DoorDash. Bradley Sutton: What’s the one you said before Instacart? Jocelyn: Walmart, Criteo. Bradley Sutton: What’s that? Jocelyn: Criteo is like Target, CVS shipped a bunch of the smaller retailers. They don’t have their own networks but that’s how Target does a lot of their advertising. So pretty much Jenny and everything I’ve done some campaigns on, which is fun. Obviously Amazon’s the biggest and has the most opportunity to learn and whatnot. But I do have experience in pretty much every retail media site. Bradley Sutton: I love it. I love it. I don’t, so at least one of us knows what they’re doing here. All right. So you know, I wanted to show this quick video. We just launched something at Pacvue yesterday. Now you tell me, how do you say this? Like, I’ve known about this film festival and stuff for like, years. How do you actually say, is it Cannes? Cannes? Jocelyn: I think it’s Cannes. Cannes Lions can Bradley Sutton: Cannes. Okay. Well, I’m, I’m just gonna go with that. But at the Cannes Film Festival, Jocelyn: Think it’s all real name, but most people call it Cannes. Bradley Sutton: All right, well, people don’t come to me for your Instacart advertising, nor your French word pronunciation, but everything else you can come to me for. But anyways, let me show this video really quick for everybody to see, like this really cool, kind of like AI innovation that Pacvue has launched. Maybe, maybe I can even ask you a couple of questions about it if you know. So let me just go ahead and throw up this video for everybody to see in 3, 2, 1. Here we go. (Video): Pacvue Excel copilot is industry’s first natural language generative AI for commerce built directly into Microsoft Excel. You can query all of your PAC view data in one place with prompts, like, show me my top campaigns by ad spend. Pacvue Excel Co-pilot can also generate pre-formatted dashboards. Co-Pilot can reduce the time it takes to produce these reports from hours to just minutes. Now teams can spend their time on critical thinking, discussion and strategy. All of these charts can be automatically generated into a prebuilt PowerPoint alongside the relevant analysis. Learn more about Pacvue Excel Co-pilot and Pacvue AI today. Bradley Sutton: Wow, pretty cool. So basically if I’m under, I haven’t seen this in action, so what it seems like it’s kind of like, hey, I can threw in a prompt like enter, say hey, like, Hey, show me this metric combined with this, make an Excel chart for it, or something like that. Or am I on the right track here? Jocelyn: Yeah, that’s exactly what it really does, and it’s a pretty powerful tool. You know, I think of that’s really how we think when we’re looking at reporting and looking at performances. You’re thinking in questions like that of what’s got the most efficiency, what has the highest conversion rate, things like that, where it’s gonna take some time to man either manually pull that or to, you know, shift through Excel files and whatnot to generate that. So it’s a much more like, I think, natural way to approach reporting. And it makes it so much easier and really kind of mirrors the way you’re thinking with the way performance is, is able to be displayed and makes reporting so much easier and so much time being saved. I think that’s what probably a lot of us who are hands on the keyboard are really doing is reporting out to your stakeholders, reporting out to your boss, reporting out to your client, whoever it is. A lot of what we do is, you know, the storytelling of reporting and performance. And so this makes it a lot easier to do at a lot quicker of a pace. Bradley Sutton: What are some of your favorite, maybe more under the radar metrics? You know, we’re talking about reporting, we’re talking about analytics and things. I mean, you know, everybody I’m sure looks at ACoS, you know, most people nowadays look at TACoS, which is the name of this show. But what are some other things that, that you, that’s important to you? Like what would you say is the next thing that people need to be looking at? You know your CVR or your ROI, your RoAS? Like what’s your star metrics? Jocelyn: Yeah, I think, you know, return is what most people use when they’re looking at performance, and that’s obviously important. You know, you need the kind of the one-to-one efficiency of what that ad spend is generating for you. But I also enjoy looking at new to brand percentage and subscribe and save. Those kind of are the two opposite ends of, you know, the, the full funnel, you know, where you’re kind of living in the middle, when you’re focused entirely on return, you’re look living in like the, just what is the revenue that’s being generated? You’re not looking at the long-term impact of how many new customers am I bringing into my brand or my store? And how many of those are becoming loyal customers through subscribe and save. So when you start looking kind of beyond the RoAS and you start looking at different sections of the funnel, that’s where you’re looking at more of a long term kind of growth plan versus very short term, which is where you can kind of get kind of pigeonholed into when you’re looking just at return. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now speaking of RoAS one of the first questions here, it’s from Jack and Jack says, let me see if I can get it up here. How do you, or not RoAS new to brand how do you get new to brand data for sponsored product campaigns? Is that available? I know it wasn’t like, you know, a couple years ago, but wasn’t that something that was recently released? Jocelyn: Yeah, so you can get new to brand data through for sponsored brand just through the native console, but through AMC, Amazon Marketing Cloud, you actually get significant, you know, much more data. That’s really what Amazon Marketing Cloud is, but it also allows you to get new to brand data for sponsored product campaigns along with all of your DSP metrics as well. So AMC is a very flashy, exciting topic. There’s a lot to do with AMC, but it does kind of fill in the gaps for some of the, the data that’s maybe missing. So that’s a huge kind of piece that we’ve been rolling out at Pacvue in general but also with a lot of our clients in the last, so it’s a year or so. It’s a pretty big huge topic and a lot of people are kind of overwhelmed because it is so much data and it’s hard to figure out where to even start. But you can kind of start by filling in some of the gaps that you have and, you know, just the native Amazon console. Bradley Sutton: And what do you do with this information regardless of how you’re getting it, you’re getting in Pacvue, somebody’s getting it you know, themselves, there’s something else. Now I know what my new to brand data is. What constitutes good numbers, what constitutes bad and, and what’s, what’s your action plan once you get that number? Jocelyn: Yeah, so new to brand is gonna vary category to category. If you’re looking at toothpaste that’s different than if you’re looking at TVs. You know, you’re not gonna be buying a TV every year or maybe you are. But you know, those metrics are really gonna differ by your category. So looking at some category standards is important. You know, we release our CPC report I don’t think we include new brand in that percentage, but talking with you know, your Amazon rep and getting some of that data through context that you have is important to kind of set, like, what is the benchmark for me? Because 10% for one brand is gonna be horrible for another and wonderful for a different brand. So once you kinda have a benchmark of where you’re starting and where you’re trying to get to, that’s really when you can start taking action. Jocelyn: And a lot of that action is gonna be around targeting and shifting spend. So, you know, if someone’s already searching for your brand name, they’re probably not gonna be a new customer. They’re already aware of who you are. So maybe shifting some of that spend out of brand defense and going into more general category terms where people are searching for, I don’t know, natural toothpaste versus, you know, the brand name itself. So that’s when you start shifting where you’re investing in order to impact certain metrics. So, you know, the reverse is true for subscribe and save. If they’re already brand aware and they haven’t purchased, you know, in the last 90 days, you can spend some additional budget on retargeting, for example, to try and generate more loyal customers. So once you kind of have your objective of what am I trying to achieve in the next quarter, for example, and what are my benchmarks and what are my goals for that, you can then start taking action and start shifting spend of in what direction is gonna start influencing those metrics. So those are really kind of the actions you start taking once you start looking at this broader data. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So talking about, you know, PPC from a branded side, you know, your branded keywords and, and things like that, do you always keep those or do you suggest to keep those segregated like, hey, if any branded, you know, keywords or search terms come out, let me, let me keep those in its own campaigns, or do you keep them co-mingled with, with your regular random search terms? Jocelyn: No, I, we definitely always pull those out because you wanna know how much you’re spending on those, and you wanna know how much people are searching for those, you know, if that’s going to increase over time, you wanna be able to see that. And you’re gonna have a lot more control over how you’re defending your brand. You know, it’s kind of up to you of how much you want to spend on protecting your own brand name. It’s, if it’s very competitive and people are, you know, targeting your brand name, you need to be there to defend it. And if not, you can shift budget out of that, but you have a lot more control over how and where you’re spending when you have things separated out. So we typically have things break broken out by branded, you know, general non-brand category terms, adjacent, maybe, you know, similar products, things like that. And then competitor, if you are going after competitors that’s the best way to kind of structure your campaigns. So you have, again, much more control and you’re very intentional in, in how you’re spending your budget. Bradley Sutton: We’ve got a Facebook user here that says, Hey, I noticed a weird situation. I got impressions, zero clicks, but a sale. So like, is that is that a data error from, from Amazon, if, you know, is it, is there a such thing as getting zero clicks, but actually getting a, a attributed sale? Jocelyn: It would be something from the past. So, you know, if you are advertising June 1st through the 20th, and then you pause for the 21st through the 30th, for example, you may get some sales attributed after, you know, after the time that you pause where you may have zero spend and you know, zero clicks that day. But because they clicked on the ad, you know, four days ago, the sale may be attributed then. So it’s probably an attribution thing less, you know, they’re not converting on an impression that sale would not be attributed to that impression. But it’s possible that it was attributed at a later date. So if you run outta budget, you know, with five days left in the month, you’re probably still gonna be seeing some sales trickle in because of the attribution window. So I would say that’s probably what the situation…

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#467 - Amazon Pre Launch Episode: The Bali Blast - Part 2 Jun 24, 2023

Show notes

Welcome back for part 2 of this 2-part strategy series with Bradley! In this episode, we dive into a range of strategies and tips to supercharge Amazon brand pre-launch activities. We kick off with a quick recap of Part 1 before getting into advanced topics like reverse engineering your competitors’ PPC strategies, expanding your keyword search, and uncovering long-tail keywords. We also explore tactics for identifying products frequently purchased alongside yours and share a seller’s success story after using the Maldives Honeymoon Method. Additionally, we discuss leveraging search query performance, optimizing listings using the Amazon algorithm, and understanding indexing versus ranking. Tune in for valuable insights on all the steps you need to do before launching your brand on Amazon. In episode 467 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 02:18 – Make Sure You’ve Heard Part 1 Already 02:45 – Reverse Engineering Your PPC Strategy From The Competitors 05:05 – How Widen Out Your Search For More Keywords 06:19 – Get Long Tail Keywords Of Top 10 Phrase Roots 09:20 – Which Products Are Frequently Bough Together With Your Product 10:32 – How The Maldives Honeymoon Method Helped This Seller 13:07 – Bonus Hack: Using Search Query Performance With No Product Yet 14:48 – 10 Relevant Spanish Keywords? Check The Translation 17:56 – How To Use Frankenstein For This Strategy 18:57 – How Does The Amazon Algorithm Work For Listing Optimization 19:21 – Subject Matter Is No Longer Existing In Front Or Back Ends 19:51 – Amazon Indexing Versus Ranking 22:05 – Using Your “Keyword Bank” Inside Listing Builder 22:32 – Use Chat GPT To Build Your Lising Inside Helium 10’s Listing Builder 23:37 – Try To Nest Your Keywords Together 24:20 – Important Things To Note When Making Your Listings 25:24 – Don’t Use A+ Content To Index For Keywords 25:39 – More On The Difference Of Indexing And Ranking 27:17 – Check Indexing For Main And Secondary Keywords 29:32 – Add Top 10-30 Keywords Inside Keyword Tracker And Turn On Boost 30:11 – Setup Helium 10’s Market Tracker Tool 31:38 – Make Sure To Activate The SKU In Inventory Management 32:53 – Activate Your Helium 10 Alerts 33:27 – Use Follow Up For Automatic Request A Review 34:50 – More Bonus Tips: Strikethrough Pricing 36:11 – That’s It For The Bali Blast Pre Launch Strategies 37:06 – Stay Tuned For SSP Episode 500! ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today is part two of my two-part episode where I’m talking all about my pre-launch strategies for Amazon. You don’t want to miss today’s strategies because it’s gonna get you on the right track for the Maldives Honeymoon Launch method. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: Wanna check estimated sales for products you see on Amazon? Or maybe you want to instantly see how many listings on page one of a search term result, have the actual search keyword in the title. You can find all of these things out and more with the Helium 10 Chrome extension tool X-ray. More than 1 million people have used this tool. Find out what it can do for you by downloading it for free at h10.me/xray. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And I am still here in Bali. I just finished my last dinner with the team. Bradley Sutton: They gave me this like parting gift, vegemite. I’m not even sure how to pronounce this hat I’m wearing here. So again, thanks to Regina and Chris for organizing this event. It was awesome and now as for my last night. I got my flight in a couple of hours here. I wanted to record part two of my Bali Blast method, which is my pre-launch method. Again, you guys call it whatever you want. This is just me being silly with, you know, making up names for strategies and things. But if you miss the last episode, part one, make sure to go back and watch that episode. Otherwise, you know, a lot of this is not gonna make sense. But basically what this two-part episode series is, is like, hey, I’m like, Hey, you wanna get that Maldives honeymoon when you launch your product. Bradley Sutton: We know about the steps that’s taken there. What about before? You know, what comes before the wedding? Well, bachelor’s party or bachelorette party, and where’s a cool place to go for that Bali, which is just happens to be where I am. So I was like, let me call this the Bali Blast method just to make it trending in my own mind at least. So anyways, the last episode, we went through 16 different steps on, you know, everything from keyword research to a little bit of listing optimization. And we’re gonna do a little bit more keyword research today and also some more listing optimization. And we’re gonna bring you right up until almost getting your, your PPC campaigns ready. And I’ll give you guys some bonus, bonus strategies as well. All right, let’s go ahead and hop right into it. Bradley Sutton: The first step of today is actually step number 17 in this whole strategy, and that’s reverse engineering your PPC strategy from the competitors. All right? So basically what I want to do is put my competitor’s ASINs into Cerebro, just like I was doing, you know, to get the initial keywords, but this time I’m looking at sponsored rank average. So if I put a whole bunch of competitors into Cerebro, I’m gonna put a sponsored rank average from about one to 30 and maybe I wanna put in a minimum search volume. It’s not necessary, but I am then going to look at how many competitors are advertising for the keyword, like a high number of competitors and what their sponsored rank average is, which means if I were to take their position of where they showed up in search results, approximately what position would it be? Bradley Sutton: Like, for example, if they were ranking, you know, one four and eight, well, the sponsored rank average would be four, right? And the reason I’m looking at this number is because these will be some, some keywords that potentially, you know, are good or that at least the competitors have decided that they’re gonna pay more money. You know, you don’t get on the top of the page of sponsored results if you don’t have a, a pretty high bid and you don’t bid high unless you have some, you know, facts and figures that back up that that bid. All right? So it’s kind of, again, a way of reverse engineering what your competitor has had to learn through trial and error. And so this is gonna get you some more keywords that you definitely want to get indexed for. Bradley Sutton: Another step is, again, if you don’t have Helium 10, another way you can do some preliminary keyword research and get some more keywords is look at the Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer. Alright? Product Opportunity Explorer. Even if you don’t have brand register, you have access to that. It’s in your seller central dashboard. You enter in a, your competitor’s products and then find the niches that that product appears in. And these are niches of keywords, right? So for example, one of the coffin products, they are in the Halloween decorations niche. And then if you were to click in there, you are gonna see, you know, anywhere from 10 to 30 keywords that make up part of that niche. That’s another way to get some relevant keywords, I think not a lot of people are using. Even if you have Helium 10, it’s kind of like a cool way to get some more keywords for your listings. Bradley Sutton: Next is still in Cerebro. All right? I’m still in Cerebro and I still am looking at the same 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, whatever competitor ASINs. Remember that first step, which I went over in the Wednesday or the last episode, this part one of this was clicking the top keywords and the opportunity keywords. And then just now I talked about looking at the sponsored rank average. Well, in this situation, under the same exact search. I’m going to start widening out my search. Remember, I wanna start finding keywords where I wanna get indexed for it, but I don’t necessarily need to be the number one, you know, click item. I don’t need it in phrase, form my listing. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna have minimum search volume, maybe 200 or 300 or 400. I’m gonna put advanced rank filter number one, minimum one, okay, minimum one. Bradley Sutton: And then advanced rank filter two, which means where the range, I’m looking for 1 to 100. So basically it’s like, Hey, show me keywords where any of these products that I put as my competitors, at least one of them, at least one, is ranked in the first two pages. All right? So this is, you know, gets me a good list of keywords that I might want to be indexed four cuz they could potentially get me sales in the future. Alright, next keyword research step to get ready in this Blas method is number 21, get long tail keywords of top 10 phrase roots. Alright? Get long tail keywords of top 10 phrase roots. What in the heck does that mean? You know, when, when you’re looking at your, your top keywords, I already finished up until when I’m on step 21, I’m already finished with my steps that get me my keyword phrases. Bradley Sutton: So if I look at my keyword phrases, I might put them into a Magnet first. And let me just show you, what I can do is I can take those keywords and either stick it in magnet or just look at the keywords and see are there certain root words that are appearing? You know, Magnet will tell me if there’s keywords individual keywords that are appearing most often. It’s the ones that are most frequently there. Like for example, if I have a bunch of keywords like coffin letter board, coffin letter board, decor coffin letter, this coffin letter that, well, coffin letter and coffin for that sense are root words or phrase or mini phrases that are appearing in a lot of the keywords that I targeted as my main phrase. I know this sounds like kind of crazy, especially if you’re brand new. Bradley Sutton: Let me try and break that down one more time. Make sure you understand it’s really important, guys. All right, so if I have a list of 20 to 30 main keywords, I want to find the top keywords that are most commonly occurring. Because those 30 phrases, isn’t it completely 30 phrases that are completely unique keywords, right? Coffin, for example, if I’m doing coffin shelf coffin’s probably gonna be in half those keywords, right? So I wanna find those keywords, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to go into magnet and I’m gonna put that root, all right? So for example, coffin letter, I’m gonna put that root word here and I dunno, 3000 keywords might show up, but this time I’m going to use the filter in magnet that is entitled Smart complete. All right? Bradley Sutton: Because that’s gonna show me long tail versions and different versions like plural form or singular form of that root phrase, coffin letter. So for example, in this case, six different keywords come up, longer tail keywords. And then again, these are ones I’m gonna put into my secondary keyword list because these are ones I want to get indexed for. You know, maybe nobody’s getting sales for it right now, that’s why it didn’t come up in Cerebro, but it could be potentially, you could be the first one to, to rank for it all, right? Because if it’s a longer tailed version of a keyword that you’re relevant for, there’s a chance that it could be relevant to your product. So make sure to check those keywords as well. Next step right here is step number 22. Now, this is something that we went over in step three. Bradley Sutton: In step three in the last episode, I showed you guys about how to use Black Box Product Targeting in order to find frequently bought together products, all right? And that could be potentially be used for bundling or maybe to add something to give a good chance to get a good review. But in this sense, use that same function, all right? To see which products were, you know, really frequently bought together a lot with your product. All right? And now what you’re gonna do is some of those products, like maybe there’s five, hopefully there’s, you know, not too many, maybe there’s five or six. Pick a few of those really good selling ones that you think are more on the relevant side. And now what you’re gonna do, instead of trying to, you know, think of bundling options, this is gathering kind of loosely relevant keywords. Bradley Sutton: So for example, in this coffin letter board, frequently bought together search, there were like stickers that showed up and there were these you know, actual letters that showed up and there’s probably coffin shelves that showed up, et cetera. Now, none of these are like substitutes for a coffin letter board, right? It’s not like, oh, I’m gonna buy, it’s not like it’s not like the same product, right? So the keywords that are driving sales to these products, like let’s say it’s a coffin letter board, and the product that’s bought with it is a skull candle holder. You know, the keywords are most likely completely different. But here’s the thing, you are gonna wanna for the mo again, we’re, we’re trying to look ahead to the Maldives honeymoon method, the launch method, which, you know, if you’re, that’s the first time you’re hearing this. Bradley Sutton: We’ve talked about that in like at least 10 episodes here. Oh, by the way, I just talked to, you know I told you guys, I’m here in Bali organized by Chris Thomas. Chris Thomas is one of the leaders here in the Amazon collective and Amazon collected mastermind, and he’s also a coach, and he was on this podcast before, he was telling me in the car today that he helped somebody with this Maldives method, the Maldives honeymoon method, and was able to net something crazy, like hundreds of thousands of dollars, like within a one month timeframe, all unfulfilled by merchant products, but they used the Maldives honeymoon method, and he was like thanking me, thanking me for that. I was like, oh, that’s why I do this kind of thing. It’s so great to actually hear people using this methods again. Bradley Sutton: So, so what we’re talking about today, Bali Blast method, it’s trying to get us ready for that Maldives honeymoon. Anyways, I digress. We’re talking about frequently bought together products and then finding the top keywords for those products and then putting it in your listing. So when I say top keywords, if my product is a coffin letter board, let’s say one of the frequently bought together might be a coffin shelf, or no, what did I say? A gothic skull candle holder, right? I’m going to look using these same techniques we’ve been talking about or using brand analytics, whatever the case may be, I wanna find the top three to five keywords that are driving sales for that gothic skull candle holder. I can find that in brand analytics. I can run cerebra on it. And when I find the top keywords that are driving sales there, you know, by looking at what’s high search volume where they’re ranked at the top of the page, I’m gonna put those into my listing somehow. Bradley Sutton: And the reason why is I want to loosely relate my products to these other products that have a history of being bought together with my competitor’s products. Does that make sense? I’m not trying to steal the sales of a gothic candle holder. No. What I’m trying to do is set up my listing so that from day one, once I start doing ppc, maybe I’m going to product target these frequently bought together products. It could be that Amazon from day one might not give me any im…

Full show notes at the publisher

#466 - Amazon Pre Launch Episode: The Bali Blast - Part 1 Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

Live from Bali, Indonesia, Bradley shares his top strategies that have to do with Amazon pre-launches. This is to prepare your Amazon brand for a great launch and honeymoon period. There are a lot of steps that lead to your Amazon launch, but these groups of strategies put a close to the product research, keyword listing, sourcing, and listing optimization stage of your Amazon journey to now skyrocket your new brand into epic launches! Let’s go ahead and hop into it. In episode 466 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 01:46 – A Strategy To Help You For Before Amazon Launches 02:37 – What Makes A Bachelor Party Really Cool? 04:08 – Bradley’s Amazon Dad Joke 04:50 – Check This On Your Main Keywords 06:44 – What Is Title Density? 07:41 – Checking Your Competitor’s Strength 08:54 – Explore Bundling Options 11:29 – Identify Your Top-Selling Child Item 12:46 – Identify Main Topics From The Reviews 14:14 – Identify Pain Points From Reviews 15:56 – Check The Opportunity Explorer 16:40 – Analyze Your Competitor’s Image Strategy 19:37 – Preparing Your Keyword Lists & Bradley’s Keyword Research Strategy 22:21 – Keywords That A Lot Of Sellers Miss 22:29 – How To Get Opportunity Keywords From Helium 10 25:46 – Brand Analytics And Helium 10 Data 28:04 – Checking Off Amazon Keywords 29:24 – Find Sales Peak Days Of Your Competitors That Are In Your Niche 30:06 – And Corelate That Day To Brand Analytics 31:47 – What Is Bradley’s Time Machine Keywords? 33:48 – Bonus Hack: Checking Historic Keyword Ranks 36:57 – Stay Tuned For Part 2 Of This Episode! ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: All right, guys, I’m here recording this live from Bali because I’ve come up with a new strategy on how to get ready for your Maldives honeymoon launch. It’s my pre-launch Bali blast strategy. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think Bradley Sutton: You wanna know what keywords are driving the most sales for listings on Amazon. To do that, you need to know what highly searched for keywords the product is ranking for. Maybe at the top of page one, you can actually find that out in seconds by using helium ten’s keyword research tool, Cerebro. Now, that’s just one of the many, many functions that make this tool my favorite tool in the whole suite, and it’s the most powerful keyword research tool ever created for eCommerce sellers. For more information, go to h10.me/cerebro, h10.me/cerebro. Don’t forget to use the Serious Sellers Podcast, discount coupon SSP10. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Bradley Sutton: And as you can see, if you’re watching this on YouTube, I’m here in Bali, but the Amazon collective mastermind and it’s really amazing. My first time in Bali, really incredible. And I was inspired to go ahead and talk about the strategies that I talked about here at the Bali Conference and at the Billion Dollar Seller summit, most of which actually have to do with pre-launch. Alright, so I think you guys, you know, know about the Maldives honeymoon launch strategy. It incorporates, you know, a lot of pre-launch strategies, but I want to kind of like separate it out like how to get ready for an epic wedding and honeymoon, right? Maldives honeymoon in real life is potentially to have an epic bachelor or bachelorette party. I never had one. I didn’t, I didn’t do that. But, you know, I’m sure many of you have, and, and some people I read actually go to Bali for their bachelor party. Bradley Sutton: See the B theme here? So I’m like, you know what? Let’s just make this easy to remember. Let’s call this like the Bali Blast method. All right? You guys don’t have to call it that. It is what it is. It’s a strategy that helps you get ready for a good launch. All right? So you don’t have to call it the Bali blasts. I might not even call it the Bali blasts. I’m just throwing that out there cuz I’m here in, in Bali right now. But think about what makes a bachelor party really cool. Again, I don’t know because I’ve never, I’ve never even been to one, let alone had my own. But I would assume that hey it, it’s meant to be kind of like your, your last hurrah really set you up for you know, not missing your single days, right? Bradley Sutton: You’re ready to move on to the next phase, which is, you know, married life and first of course the honeymoon. Alright? So that’s kind of like the thought process behind this strategy too. Alright? It’s, we’re here in Bali, think of a bachelor party. And what I’m doing is I’m trying to set up like completely put a close on the initial, you know, product research sourcing and listing optimization. Like, how do we put a close to my previous single life or before I had a product and now get ready to move on to that. All important, you know, merry life starting with that honeymoon period because it’s not just about, you know, the, the honeymoon period. And the Maldives Honeymoon strategy isn’t just about, you know, doing the right PPC, you know, during launch and setting your launch date in the future and things like that. Bradley Sutton: That’s all important, but there’s a lot of steps that lead up to the launch that will help make sure that you get off on the right foot for your launch. So let’s go ahead and hop into it. One thing I was doing guys, when I spoke at different events is I was doing some Amazon dad jokes and I’m gonna give the one that I gave, I don’t remember where I gave this, but it was the one that was the hardest for people to understand. All right, so let’s see how fast you guys pick this one up. All right, so here’s an Amazon dad joke. I was doing product research and I was trying to validate an idea I had for people to put loved ones ashes into a glass urn. All right, a glass urn. So my question is, you know, is this a good opportunity? Bradley Sutton: Did, did I validate this? Is this a good opportunity? Well, the answer is remains to be seen. Think about that for a second. You didn’t get it. Glass urn, remains to be seen. You know, the glass is transparent, all right? So it’s remains, you know, ashes to be seen. All right guys, don’t worry. This is not an episode about Amazon dad jokes. Let’s go ahead and hop right into the strategy. But before I do that one bonus strategy I mentioned this to the elite members a couple months ago or about a month ago, and I talked about this on my tour, is something interesting that you can notice on your main keywords. So if you go to your main keywords, especially in like the home and kitchen category, look at the search results and see if your competitors have this kind of bold black letters underneath the title, alright, underneath the title. Bradley Sutton: And if they do it’ll say sometimes, like, you know, here I’m looking at a Tesla thing I did, I see solid and it says geometric. And what happens is some sellers, they don’t know about this field and, and they just have like gibberish in there cuz probably cuz they were trying to fill up their listing you know, with the flat file and like, look at this one listing here. It just has a bunch of gibberish, looks like they’re SKUs, says Halloween show, 1790, all one word, right? This is something that you could fill out. This is the pattern field. All right guys, so this is the pattern field, and if you fill it out, it can give you potentially some extra ranked use. And at the very least, what it can do is it just sticks out on the page. If you have like your main keyword there or something that’s kind of sticks out on the page as opposed to just like random gibberish like some of these competitors have, you can see I was doing a Tesla scene for a, a bat math. Bradley Sutton: So or a bat bath mat, say that five times fast. And then I just go, went ahead and threw it into this pattern field and within like two hours it was already there showing up on the main page. So there’s a strategy in itself. Now, if we’re thinking about pre pre, pre-launch, it actually starts all the way back when you’re trying to validate your product and maybe you’ve already decided on it and you want to decide on what are the main keywords. And once you decide what those main keywords are, the first step into having a successful pre-launch is take a look at the title density of your main keywords. Alright? So your title density for those who don’t know, it’s, it’s a field that’s in Helium 10. And basically this is how many listings on page one have the exact phrase that was searched in phrase form. Bradley Sutton: So if I search coffin tray and Helium 10 says I’ve got a title density of nine, that means there are nine listings on page one that have the keyword coffin tray in exact phrase match. And this is important because it’s going to give you an idea of how difficult or how easy it might be to launch. All right? So the bigger the number, that means the harder it is to get to page one. The smaller the number, you know, potentially if it’s a lower search volume and the title density is zero or one, theoretically from day one of your launch, you could already be on page one because that’s how much emphasis Amazon puts on the title. So that’s something important to think about. Check your title density, that is step one. Step two, analyze your competitor’s strength. All right, this is important because when we’re talking about how hard or how easy it’s gonna be to get to page one, it’s not just about the title density, but how strong is your competition. Bradley Sutton: So what you do is what I’m showing here on the screen, throw all of your listings into lists or your competitors’ listings into listing analyzer and take a look at at their top keyword phrases, and it’ll show for the top keyword phrases in this niche where they ranked the last time helium 10 checked. And then you’ll see, like, look at this, this guy is a strong one here because look, he’s got, he’s ranked number one, ranked number one, ranked number three, ranked number six. However, this other main competitor in this niche, he’s only in the top 10 on one keyword and everything else, he’s like on the bottom of page one or middle of page one. All right, so now you know, hey, this com other competitor who’s at the very top of the page, he might be a little bit tough to work with, but this other guy, I can definitely take him. Bradley Sutton: You might reason. All right, so again, listing analyzer, go in there, see what kind of search volume top 10 search volume that your main competitors have. All right? The lower it is for some of them, that means that’s the competitors that you’re gonna probably easily be able to beat. Another thing I wanna talk about is explore bundling options, not just as something to add to your listing or to your product. I mean that, yes, that’s definitely something that you can do. You know, maybe you see that people are buying a coffin shelf and a skull together, right? So maybe you’ll be the first one to have a coffin shelf with skull together. Of course, that’s an option, right? But take it a step even easier. Use Black Box product targeting. Enter in your competitor’s ASINs and then filter for frequently bought together. Bradley Sutton: This is gonna show you what has been frequently bought together over the past, like 30 days or more that Helium 10 has detected. And sometimes you might find a product that’s like seven or $8 or even $6. And basically what this means is this, this could potentially be a product that you could source for like 30, 40 cents. Like one of the ones that was showing up here is, is spooky stickers. You know probably you could source some spooky stickers for like, what, you know, 25 cents or something like that. But if you have a history that your competitors are selling their product, and then the buyer at the same time is buying spooky stickers on their own, because you can see it in frequently bought together. Now what you should do if it’s really cheap, just go ahead and buy that product, maybe even in a smaller quantity if it’s a little bit more expensive, and then stick it into your product costing you 25 cents each. Bradley Sutton: If it’s really small, like stickers. And don’t advertise it. Don’t even advertise in the listing, right? I mean, you could advertise in your listing, but I prefer that for like, you know, more impressive bundling opportunities. But here’s what happens if you don’t advertise, and this is a strategy that, you know, Toma Rabinovich has, has been teaching for, for a while now. It’s part of his like six star method, and I’ve seen this myself out, out in the wild. But what happens is now your customer gets the product, they open it up expecting whatever they bought, say it’s a coffin shelf, but then all of a sudden they have these spooky stickers that customers like them, like, now what does that mean? That means it’s like a pleasant surprise, and it gives, it makes them like double 2x, 3x, maybe even 4x more likely to leave a positive review than if they were just happy with the product by itself. Bradley Sutton: And you could see this, there’s a couple of coffin shelf listings out there where somebody was bundling, you know, some stickers in it, and you see a, a decent number of reviews mention the stickers, like, Hey, you know, it was so nice to, to have these spooky stickers or whatever, whatever it said. So this is a something that costs you like 20 cents an order maybe, but could potentially increase your positive review velocity. The next step for Bali Blast, all right, your pre-launch setup is identify the top child or top selling child item. So this is only if you guys are trying to launch for a product that has multiple variations, and Helium 10 is obviously showing you the same sales for each one. Well, that just means that’s how many sales it has overall. So the way that you could kind of have an idea of which one is selling the best, so that you don’t have to buy one of each color and launch for each color is you run a review analysis on the listing and then hit product variations. Bradley Sutton: And then you’re gonna see the breakdown of the reviews. Usually one child item, it’s the one that is kind of like the star child item and has all of a big majority of the reviews. Like, like this I think is a letter board. I’m looking at the black coffin letter board has 77% of the review share. Number two is purple with 10%. Everything else is like less than 7%. So if this was me, I’m like, all right, I know if I’m just starting off I’m cool with maybe just getting the black coffin shelf, maybe the purple one to start off, and I’m not gonna worry about those other colors. Imagine if you didn’t have this visibility and you’re, you’re like, all right, let me order 500 of each of these colors. You would obviously be in a bad way for your inventory. Bradley Sutton: The next step we’re going to go in, number five is identify main topics from the reviews. This is going to be useful for your listing optimization later on. So the way you can do that is with that same tool, review insights, hit review analysis, all right? And then see what are the top phrases that are showing up. And then start digging into what people are saying about the top phrase. Like for example, that coffin letter board one of the top phrases is for Halloween. So what I would do is I would click on that and see, alright, what, how are customers using this for Halloween? And then I’m going to actually make sure to make that one of my images.…

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#465 - Amazon Small Business Success Story Jun 20, 2023

Show notes

In this episode of SSP, we speak with two guests. Rod Johnson, Co-Founder of BLK & Bold specialty beverages and Andrea Marquez, Host of Amazon’s This is Small Business podcast. We explore the journey and story of Rod’s Amazon brand, from small business to a big brand that’s thriving inside the Amazon platform. Andrea also shares resources and programs inside Amazon like the Small Business Academy, Black Business Accelerator, and more! Don’t miss out on this episode where our guests share all their tips, strategies, and common factors that will lead your Amazon brand to success. In episode 465 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Andrea, and Rod discuss: 03:43 – Rod’s Backstory 05:01 – Andrea’s Backstory 06:10 – How Did Rod Get His Start In Amazon? 08:00 – Hosting Amazon’s Podcast: This is Small Business 11:31 – Checking Out Rod’s Amazon Brand & Story 13:56 – Developing The Brand Story & Mission Before The Product 17:38 – Amazon Services & Programs You Should Know 19:30 – Free Resources From Small Business Academy 20:39 – Listen To The This is Small Business Podcast! 21:16 – How The Black Business Accelerator Helped Rod’s Business 23:57 – Rod Johnson’s Tips For New Amazon Sellers 25:00 – Common Factors Andrea Sees Successful Sellers Have 27:19 – Promoting Their Brand Through External Traffic 28:31 – Let’s Talk About Their Brand’s Logistics 29:10 – Bradley Doesn’t Like Coffee?! 30:38 – “Support Small Businesses” 31:20 – Bradley Walks Rod Inside The Helium 10 Suite Of Tools ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we’ve got our first seller on their show who’s never even used Helium 10 plus the host of a podcast that is fully run by Amazon itself. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Are you looking to learn how to sell on Amazon? The Freedom Ticket Course made by Kevin King is one of the most popular courses ever created for Amazon sellers. It’s got over 90 modules and 40 hours of detailed step-by-step training to help get you started on your entrepreneurial journey. Now, this course costs $997, but Helium 10 actually covers that cost of the course for any Helium 10 member. Find out why tens of thousands of students love this program by going to h10.me/freedomticket. Don’t forget that if you do, sign up for a Helium 10 account. Don’t pay full price. Use our podcast discount code SSP10 to save 10% off for life. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sut. In this is the show that is actually a special show here cuz we’ve got Amazon themselves, another podcast, but literally from Amazon here on the podcast and we’ve got another Amazon seller. Bradley Sutton: So I’m so happy that we are, are here’s only the second time we’ve ever had somebody from Amazon on the podcast. And we’ve got thousands and thousands of listeners, and so you can kind of like flip the script a little bit. Now we’re gonna put Amazon in the spotlight, but we’ve got an Amazon Stellar who doesn’t use Helium 10 for the first time ever potentially on the show. This is great, to talk to somebody who, who’s had to scale up on their own. And we’ve got somebody who talks a lot to other Amazon sellers due to her podcast. So Andrea and Rod, welcome to the show. Andrea: Thank you for having us. No pressure on the Amazon side. Bradley Sutton: None. None at all. Rod: Thanks for having me. Bradley Sutton: Now Rod, you just said, while we are off air here, you’re from you’re in Des Moines right now? Rod: Yes, yes. The company’s based in Des Moines. And I have my business partner to blame for that his life choices. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So that was my second question. Is that where you were born and raised, or I’m assuming not then? Rod: No. Born and raised about 30 minutes outside of Chicago in a small city called Gary, Indiana. Bradley Sutton: And then is that where you went to like high school? Rod: Yeah, yeah, born and raised there and then eventually traveled south to Bloomington, Indiana, where I earned my bachelor’s from Indiana University. Bradley Sutton: So you’re a Hoosier? Rod: Yes. Hoosier. Hoosier through and through. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Through and through. All right. Andrea, what about you? Like, where are you right now, and then where did you grow up? Andrea: I am right now I’m living in Houston, Texas, and I am a Texas girly. I was born at the border of Brownsville, Texas. Lived on the Mexican side of it till I left to college at 17. So I’m Mexican American at heart, very daughter of a two immigrants. And, but at the same time, I’m a Texas girly, so I’m a little bit of both. Bradley Sutton: Tex-Mex. You said you went to college at 17. Where did you end up going? Andrea: I went to New York at Columbia University for my undergrad, which was like a huge culture shock for me coming from a relatively small city/town. And then going to this like the epicenter of like, everyone lives there almost. Bradley Sutton: Let’s switch back to Rod here. What was your main, like, like first career? Like what did you study there in college and then did you actually use that, as soon as you got out? Rod: Yeah. so I studied criminal justice or at least that’s what the paper says. But I started my career out actually in fundraising. I got a job on campus working for our call center, aka interrupting people’s dinners, asking them for– Bradley Sutton: You’re one of those huh? Rod: Absolutely. And it was better than working in fast food or working as a server, like, I can sit down and I can run my mouth. This sounds like the perfect job. And ultimately– Bradley Sutton: And nobody can throw the food right in your face or anything like that. Rod: There we go. And then just continue to use those skills that, that I acquired in undergrad to build a professional career as a fundraiser for different academic institutions as well as hospital organizations. So, I had an opportunity to or a ton of opportunities to speak with people from all walks of life and talk about how these different institutions really propelled their personal and professional lives. And you know, presenting them with the opportunity to invest in people to have that same experience was, was pretty rewarding. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. Excellent. Excellent. And Andrea, what about you? Did you enter right into your field of study right away? Andrea: Not really similar to Rod here. The paper says I studied a double major in political science/international law, but I also double majored in theater directing. So I feel like at the end of the day, it’s all theater, isn’t it? I feel. So, but that took me to journalism. I think that right now what I’m doing is much more tied to my master’s degree than my undergrad, but it’s, it’s all the same. You learn how to tell stories. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. So is this kind of like working for Amazon, your first entry into like the e-commerce side of things? Andrea: Absolutely. My background was much more into nonprofits, so this was very new to me. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. All right. So interesting, interesting. I love hearing that because the perspective of somebody who doesn’t hasn’t been 10 years and in e-commerce and might be already biased and jaded of certain things is always a fresh perspective to have. Now, Rod going back to you, how did you get any, it’s one jump from your major to what you ended up doing. It’s another jump to go into selling products online from fundraising. So where did that segue happen? Rod: Yeah as rewarding as that fundraising career was I just really reached a point where I had to take some self-inventory and ask myself, am I being fulfilled on all fronts and really at the most important fronts to me. So while I’m connecting these people back to their passions, my passions weren’t necessarily being addressed. And that was helping people who had similar circumstances to overcome that I did. So to that point my friend that I grew up with in Gary, Indiana was having those same conversations, right? Where it’s like, is this the end all be all for me? Do I want to continue to use my skills to grow someone else’s dream? Or can I use that to leverage something that’s really important to me? Rod: And you know, we were throwing a few things back and forth to each other, and what we realized is that we could use something that fueled us to fuel those passions, and that thing was coffee. So as you know, that idea became more and more of a reality the easiest, or rather I say the path that had the fewest barriers of entry was going to e-comm, right? So you can have your brick-and-mortar space and you can have a profound impact in your community or you can make your product and rather our social impact mission more accessible to millions of people by way of e-comm. So it was intentional and really it was the path of least resistance that led us there. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Interesting. Now, Andrea, were you hired at Amazon for the podcast or have you been doing other things there? Andrea: I was hired specifically for the podcast, and it’s very nice to hear Rod again, cuz he was in one of our first episodes of season one. He believed in us before we had even launched of this is small business, and I solely dedicate my time here at Amazon to telling small business owner stories. Bradley Sutton: Let’s talk about how this got started. When did it start? What was the kind of like the thoughts there at Amazon of why they needed something like this? And if you can just talk a little bit about the history and then you just mentioned it, but if you can mention again, the name of the podcast so everybody can take out their phones and make sure to subscribe to it right now while they’re listening to this one. Andrea: Yes, of course. So the podcast is, This is Small Business and it’s hosted by me. And we produced, this is Small Business because we understood that as an aspiring entrepreneur. And Rod, maybe you can also talk to this later, but like, there’s a lot you’re learning along the way. And the more I talk to small business owners, the more I realize how it’s a lot of things are new and you have to learn a little bit about everything. And especially if you’re someone who’s starting their first business, you, you don’t really know what you don’t know, right? So we wanted to make sure that we had something inspirational, but also easy to listen to and on the go. And that’s why podcasting was the best way to go for us right now. And I think that this is small business serves us two things. So it’s an accessible educational resource for aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners, right? Andrea: But I think it’s also a great way to celebrate and highlight small business stories, which before I started working on this, I feel like we didn’t hear about a lot of these stories. We hear more about like, these bigger brands that have made it and like, have become household names, but a lot of the small business owners who are in this journey, they wanna hear from people who are either going through what they’re going with through right now or are have just passed that. Right. And they’re barely starting to learn what it is to build a small business. And so on the podcast, we of course cover hot topics and challenges that small business owners face every day. And then we end every episode with key lessons that I think all small business owners can use on their journey. Bradley Sutton: I like it. I like it. All right now. Yeah. Rod, what would you think, this is obviously not your first podcast because you were on This is Small Business first. Like, some people are reluctant, I think to kind of like tell their story and then it’s really funny. Like, I’m not sure how involved you are with the Amazon community, but it’s really weird that I mean, in the outsider’s opinion I’m not an outsider, but like when I tell this to other people, they just don’t understand it. Like, a lot of people at Helium 10 here work or don’t come from an Amazon background. And what’s really weird to them is that Amazon sellers, they’re so private, a lot of them are private. Like you have you know, a party of 300 Amazon sellers, 290 of them don’t even want you to know what category they’re selling because they think that maybe they’re gonna get attacked by listing hijackers or something so that’s, that’s kinda like a, a little culture shock in the Amazon world. Bradley Sutton: But you, you’re pretty much open with your brand. Like did you talk about it with today on her, on her show? Rod: Yeah, absolutely right. I mean we are in the for-profit business, while I have a nonprofit background you know, black and Bold exists to make a profit and participate in community economics, and the only way that we are going to welcome more people into that ecosystem is to drive our passion to of helping kids in need is to talk about it. The thing that’s most authentic to us is our story. You know, we know that there are others that can relate, whether it be our background, whether it be our entrepreneurial journey and dealing with the turbulent times that are inevitable. And the successes that come along with it, we, we felt as though that was it needed to be heard. That’s what inspired us to even jump into entrepreneurship where other people’s stories, right. You know, generically you can point to something like a Shark Tank and you hear all of these entrepreneurs that have amassed some success in their relative, their communities and they’re looking for that boost. That’s inspiring, right? That’s the American dream. And we wanted to participate in inspiring the next generation of business owners and just career professionals. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Now speaking since you are open to it, lemme just share my screen really quick for everybody to see. I’m looking at one of your listing pages right here, and you talked about your story and like you’re literally using the brand story section on an Amazon listing and a lot of people don’t. You have got here meet the founders and you talk a little bit about your goals here. You know, like you know it says you create this company with a desire to unite coffee and tea lovers worldwide. I’ve got my tea here, by the way. I’m not drinking coffee, but I go coffee sometimes. And then it says, the common interest of investing communities specifically for youth. Bradley Sutton: Now, sometimes I think Amazon sellers out there who do have a brand story or decide to kind of like weave in a story here. They start with the product first and then after a while they’re successful. Alright. Alright. Let me go ahead and start talking about the founders and let’s talk about our mission, but I could be wrong here. It seems to me that with what you’re saying here, like you, you almost had the mission first and the story first, and then you kind of like develop your brand around that. Would I be kind of on the right path there? Rod: That is 100% accurate. You must have our place bug essentially. But yeah, that’s what we did. It was certainly mission first and the product is more of a vehicle to help elevate and, and propel that mission. And like I mentioned we just look at our own daily habits. We drink coffee and tea. I traveled a lot for work meeting with different donors where do you set up shop when you’re on the road? In a coffee shop. You go to a Starbucks, you go to someplace that has cheap wifi and you get your work done. And I had a, a real affinity for the, the, the community the coffee community and how welcoming it was. Rod: And we’re like, that’s gonna be the, the vehicle that, that drives this social impact mission. That’s, t…

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#464 - Amazon Prime Day Strategy Checklist Jun 17, 2023

Show notes

Prime Day is an excellent opportunity for Amazon sellers to boost their sales, gain exposure, and connect with new customers. In this SSP episode, Bradley unveils his never before shared strategies and techniques to help you prepare for Prime Day. We will also provide insights from three successful Amazon sellers who have achieved remarkable results, including the 9-figure brand Solo Stove!Our panel of guests share their game plans and tips for Prime Day success, giving valuable advice on PPC campaigns, sales strategies, and simple ways to maximize sales during this event. Whether you’re a seasoned Amazon seller or just starting out, this blog offers valuable insights to help you make the most of Prime Day and boost your sales. In episode 464 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Kseniia, Mike, and Nate discuss: 02:25 – Have Brand Analytics? How To Check For Top Performing Keywords 03:46 – Check For ALL Of The Keywords A Product Was Ranking For 04:04 – How To Check Your Historic PPC Budget Utilization 05:45 – Making Bulk Changes To Your Budgets with Adtomic 06:52 – Utilize Adtomic Budget Rules 07:45 – Try To Determine Competitors Sales: Organic Or Sponsored Search 10:37 – Find The Keywords That Converted For You In PPC Last Year 11:57 – Check Your Sales Heat Maps from Last Year 13:08 – Check Your Competitor Price History 14:08 – Check CPC & Keyword Ranks BEFORE Prime Day Last Year 14:11 – Check CPC & Keyword Ranks DURING Prime Day Last Year 15:18 – Let’s Welcome Today’s Guests 15:41 – Nate Barnard From Solo Stove 16:35 – Mike Kim 7-Figure Amazon Seller 16:57 – Kseniia Reidel 6-Figure Amazon Seller 17:19 – Solo Stove Is Making 9-Figures In Sales Annually! 17:57 – How Many Sales Do They Make During Prime Day 18:46 – How Does A Big Brand Go 30x On Prime Day? 26:39 – Leveraging Adtomic For Their Prime Day PPC Campaigns 28:50 – Kseniia’s Gameplan For This Year’s Prime Day 29:42 – Nate And Solo Stove’s Gameplan For Prime Day 30:13 – Mike’s Gameplan For Prime Day 31:03 – Kseniia’s 60-Second Tip 31:28 – Nate’s 60-Second Tip 32:44 – Mike’s 60-Second Tip ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, I’m gonna give you guys my top strategies on how to prepare for Prime Day. And we’re gonna listen to three sellers out there who have been crushing it as Amazon sellers, and including one who was a nine figure seller, who had a 3000% sales increase on Prime Day. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: If you’re like me, maybe you were intimidated about learning how to do Amazon PPC, or maybe you think you just don’t have the hours and hours that it takes to download and sort through all of those sponsored ads reports that Amazon produces for you. Adtomic for me, allowed me to learn PPC for the first time, and now I’m managing over 150 PPC campaigns across all of my accounts in only two hours a week. Find out how Adtomic can help you level up your PPC game. Visit h10.me/adtomic For more information. That’s h10.me/adtomic. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. This is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Bradley Sutton: All right, guys, we’ve got a special episode today because we are getting ready for Prime Day. All right, so Prime Day is coming up and for some sellers, this is one of the biggest days of, of sales for the year. So we obviously kind of like want to know what do we need to do to get ready for Prime Day, at least on like the advertising and maybe keyword analytics side. What are the things that we can do in order to make sure we put our best foot forward? So I’m gonna be giving you guys my top tips, and then later on in the show, we’re gonna invite three different sellers on here who are at different stages. You know, we’ve got a six figure seller, a seven figure seller, and a nine figure seller. A couple of them were able to 530000% x 30,000, 3000% x Their pri, their regular sales on Prime Day one seller was actually down on Prime Day. Bradley Sutton: So we’re gonna learn what mistake that he that he made and that he’s gonna correct this year so that you guys don’t make that same mistake. So, but first, before we get into that, let’s go ahead and get into my top strategies. How many people have brand registry who are currently selling on Amazon? All right, so what does that mean? If you have brand registry, you have access to search query performance and brand analytics. So what you can see with search query performance, I’m gonna want you guys to go back and take a look back at the week. All right? So go back to either your brand or the ASIN level as you can see on the screen. And you are gonna go to the week of 2022, July 10th, all right, because that was the week that Prime Day was. And then you are gonna sort this list of the keywords by search funnel purchases and sort it by ASIN count. Bradley Sutton: What that number means is you are, you now have a list in descending order of the keywords that generated sales during that week for Prime week, all right? You’re gonna be able to do that in brand analytics as well for your competitor. So in search, career performance is mainly for your own products, but then take your top competitors, throw the ASIN into brand analytics, and then again, go to the week last year from when Prime Day was, and then see where were your competitors. One of the top three clicked products during the week of Prime Day. Next strategy here, check for all of the keywords a product was ranking for. So if you’re a Helium 10 member, you can see the difference here of when you’re looking at brand analytics. And then when you’re looking at Cerebro, Cerebro is taking a whole month of information. Bradley Sutton: So you wanna look at the historical trend of prime month instead of Prime Week Brand Analytics, Search Query Performance is going by week in Cerebro. We’re looking back in a month. So you’re gonna put July, those of you who are elite members, you can do this. You want to go to July, 2022, and this is gonna show you all of the keywords that you and your competitors were showing up for in organic and sponsored ranks on average for the entire month of July. You’re gonna want to take a list of those keywords. Next strategy, check your historic budget utilization. So what you wanna do hopefully you were downloading your reports during Prime Day last year for all of you who are new sellers, Hey, make sure to download your reports this year so you can have it, because you might not be able to see it in Seller Central all going all the way back one year, right? Bradley Sutton: Cuz you can only see usually a few months of information. So make sure to download your information. So if you did that or in Adtomic, you can go back a year or even two years to see what was going on with your advertising. You can’t do that in Seller Central. So what you wanna do is, like, right here, here are the, I put Adtomic to the two days of Prime Day last year, and I could see that my budget on one of these campaigns was $30 a day. I only spent $50. What does that mean? That means I obviously didn’t hit my budget on that campaign, but there’s a couple other campaigns, as you can see here, that I clearly hit the budget and we even went a tiny bit over the budget. So this is gonna give you an idea about, hey, you know what, for these products or these campaigns, I better keep an eye on this. Bradley Sutton: I might want to think about increasing my budget during Prime Day this year. Now, once you make that decision, you can actually make bulk changes to your budgets. Or maybe you’re just like, you know what, I wanna make sure I don’t run a budget on any of my campaigns. All my campaigns are super profitable. I just want to bulk change for Prime Day this year. So what you’re gonna do is right before Prime Day, the day before Prime Day, you can go into Helium 10 Adtomic and then select all the campaigns you want to increase your budget and select bulk actions and so just with one, a couple of clicks, you are going to be able to change all of your budgets. You can do something very similar in Seller Central. That’s the in the advertising campaign manager right there on the right hand side, there’s an option where you can select multiple campaigns, and then you can do a bulk edit adjust budget. Bradley Sutton: Now, let’s say you don’t want to do it. You don’t wanna have to remember to turn off your budget. So all of those is gonna change your budget. Like maybe you’re doubling your budget, right? But after Prime Day, maybe you want to go back to what it was. If you don’t wanna have to do another bulk edit, well, maybe the tool that you can use, it’s actually something in Amazon Advertising and Seller Central, it’s a Budget Rules. This is fairly new. A lot of, you might not have seen this before, but if you go into your Budget Rules and then select settings, you can actually schedule certain budgets. You can pick a custom date, or you can choose the date of Prime Day. You can also do this during special holidays, like you can see there. You could have done this on Memorial Day as well. Bradley Sutton: So that’s if you want to not have to worry about going back and changing your budget, but the only drawback on this is you can’t do it in bulk. You have to do this kind of campaign by campaign. So there’s pros and cons of each way. Let’s keep going here with some more strategies. I showed you guys about the top performing keywords I showed you guys about checking for the historical keyword ranks of a product. Now, take a look at this one. You wanna determine if your competitors were getting sales from organic or sponsored search, all right? So for example this is what you want to do, get your top competitors. So hopefully you did the other steps first, right? So get one of your top competitors. Now go into Helium 10 Keyword Tracker and put their ASIN in your Keyword Tracker. Bradley Sutton: A lot of people think Keyword Tracker is only for your own products. No, no. You can track any product on Amazon, yours or not, in keyword Tracker. And then you can actually see the historical ranks. So remember in the previous steps either through through Amazon or through through Helium 10, you’re checking what keywords were driving sales for you and your competitors. You know, maybe you found that in Search Querey Performance for you. Maybe you found it in Brand Analytics for your competitor. Maybe you found it for you or your competitor in Cerebro historical data. Add those keywords and their products into keyword tracker. And guess what? Even though you, you weren’t tracking those keywords back then, guess what we probably were. If this is a keyword that was at least like viewed and had a search volume of like 1000 or 3000, we were probably tracking it even way before you. Bradley Sutton: So what you’re gonna see is you are gonna be able to go back in history in keyword tracker, you click on the graph, and then you click like all time or one year and then zoom in at the very day level of Prime Day last year. Guys, this is like, I hope your mi your minds are being boggled right now, guys, because this is mind boggling stuff of what you guys can do. I mean, people can’t do this. Who, who do Facebook ads and stuff like that. It’s not as easy as just like a couple clicks. Like, like we’ve made it here. So you, you can see where was their sales coming from? We already determined through our other steps, competitors were getting sales from his keywords. Was it from organic sponsored or both? Bradley Sutton: Take a look at the top one. I know it’s hard to see if you have a small screen, but that was a keyword coffin shelf. And this is one of the competitors, right? You can see that they were getting sales from both placements. Look at that. They were organically positioned, one and two, and they were sponsored rank fluctuating between like two, pretty much they were one sponsored rank there as well. But take a look at the bottom keyword there. I did the same thing to this competitor’s listing, and one of them, the coffin decor, they were at the top of page one, so they’re probably getting their sales from the organic rank, but look at their sponsored rank there. They were on page two, so they were probably not getting any sales from sponsored rank. So this is gonna give you some crazy amounts of visibility to understand exactly how your competitors were making sales from search. Bradley Sutton: Was it from PPC? Was it organic? Was it both? So super cool stuff here. Let’s keep going. Find the keywords that converted for you in PPC last year. Take a look at the screen here. I have Adtomic going. You, you’re not gonna be able to do this in Seller Central, unless, like I said, hopefully you downloaded your reports last year, but if you were selling last year and you were using Adtomic, go in there, set the date range of Prime Day and find all of your profitable keywords. Like here, I put, hey, I wanna look at the keywords that had less ACoS of less than 40% and had at least one PPC order it. I’m just pretending that that was my, my my kind of like breakeven point and then now instantly I’m gonna see all of the keywords that drove sales in PPC for my product. Bradley Sutton: And then what I’m gonna want to do is I need to put these keywords into Keyword Tracker to make sure that I am ranking highly for these keywords still. Now, it’s important that you get an early start. Like whenever Prime Day is gonna be, if your organic rank is low, you’re not gonna increase your organic rank in a couple days if you wait until then. Start now with, with perhaps trying to increase your organic rank by having some aggressive PPC to hopefully get your organic rank up so that by Prime Day you are already there at the top of the page. Only a couple more strategies here, and then we’re gonna have some cool interviews. But another Helium 10 tool is Inventory Heat Maps and Sales Heat Maps. So go into Helium 10, go into the profits tool, and then under inventory heat maps or under Heat Maps go to Sales Heat Maps. Bradley Sutton: Go to the Prime Days in July of last year and take a look at where your sales were. Look at that top screenshot there. That was one of the coffin shelves and you can kind of see those bigger circles are showing where the sales were at the time. Where my heavy duty sales were. Now what you’re going to want to do is you’re gonna want to look at your inventory heat maps now and make sure you have enough inventory distribution. I’m looking here and not, I had a lot of sales last year in the Washington area. You guys see that there in the northwest. But look, now I barely have any inventory in Washington, so I’m probably gonna want to send more inventory to Amazon and hope that they’re gonna distribute it a little bit more. Bradley Sutton: So this is another thing that you can be doing in the weeks leading up to Prime Day to make sure you have enough inventory distributed around. Another one you can do is check your competitor price history. Like did they lower their regular price or did they have a sale price going during Prime Day? You can actually do that. Go to any of your competitor listings. And then with that Helium 10 chart right there that has a history of their prices, what I want you to do is you’re gonna click on one year or all time and then take a look at Prime Day last year, go to July of last year, and then you could see. Look at this customer. Look at this coffin shelf. They lowered thei…

Full show notes at the publisher

Helium 10 Buzz 6/14/23: Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime Back | Data Outage | Seller Payouts Frozen Jun 14, 2023

Show notes

In this jam-packed episode, we cover all the latest news in the E-commerce space like the return of Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime, the difference between indexing and ranking, and more!

#463 - How To Improve Your Listings For Foreign Marketplaces Jun 13, 2023

Show notes

Join us as we catch up with Jana Krekic, renowned expert in international market expansion, as she shares her latest tips and best practices. In this power-packed episode, Jana discusses the growing relevance of AI in our industry and addresses concerns about its potential threats. She delves into the challenges faced by AI tools when it comes to translating texts and emphasizes the enduring importance of the human touch.Jana emphasizes the crucial role of translations when selling to foreign marketplaces and highlights the significance of translating your main image. Stay ahead of the curve as Jana reveals the trending international Amazon marketplaces and prepare to be intrigued as she unveils her groundbreaking new service, AMOR. Don’t miss this insightful SSP episode that will revolutionize your approach to global expansion! In episode 463 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Jana discuss: 01:55 – Catching Up With Jana Krekic 03:10 – Is AI A Threat To Jana’s Business? 04:41 – The Problems Of AI Tools With Translating Texts 05:29 – “The Human Touch Is Still Important” 08:24 – You Need Translations When Selling To Foreign Marketplaces 09:41 – Translating Your Main Image Is Important! 12:14 – Trending International Amazon Marketplaces Right Now 14:43 – Difference Between EU Sellers And US Sellers 18:46– Talking About Jana’s New Service – AMOR 24:53 – Having Your Own Website/Domain And Benefits Of SEO 27:35 – Optimize Your Titles For Amazon Mobile 29:37 – Jana’s Healthy Habits And Habits Outside The Grind 30:10 – Include Turkish Keywords In Your Listing’s Backend ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we talked to the foremost expert in the entire world in international marketplaces, and she’s gonna give us all the latest on what’s the best practices for expanding outside of our home marketplace. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: Do you wanna see how your listing or maybe competitor’s listing rates as to best practices for listing optimization? Or maybe you wanna compare a group of ASINs or Amazon products to see how they compare to each other. Maybe you wanna see within seconds the top keywords for a single listing or a group of listings. You can do that and more with the Helium 10 Tool Listing Analyzer. For more information, go to h10.me/listinganalyzer. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And going to the other side of the world today we’ve got Jana back with us. Are you in Serbia right now? Home and Serbia right now? Jana: Yes. I’m home in Beltway and Serbia. That’s right. Bradley Sutton: Excellent, excellent. Now guys, we’re not gonna go too much into her backstory. I got some notes here from Mhel, our podcast coordinator who looked up when she’s been on the podcast before. So, like her origin story, first time she was ever on the podcast, if you wanted to look it up, go to episode 99. And then she was back again in 229, and then she kind of had like a, a preview episode that she did with her husband Lazar last year you know, before Sell and Scale Summit, and that was 356. But, but now she’s, she’s back here by herself. So kind of like the third time really, the other one kind of didn’t count, but back up for the third time. Jana, how’s, how’s it been going? How’s 2023 been for you so far? Jana: 2023 has been actually pretty, pretty good. I would say 2022 was not the best year, honestly. And I think a lot of sellers and service providers have been affected by various issues we’ve had the last year. But I kind of feel like this year, like everything is kinda going back to normal at least when it comes to sellers and service providers and software tools and all that. I think it’s been overall a very good year for us. Bradley Sutton: Now, lemme ask you just right off the bat here you were on the show last year, but AI wasn’t even a thing last year. I think the, for, for the average person who might be just watching on the sidelines, they might think agencies like yourself translation very human based agency. Like, oh man people like YLT must be scared they’re gonna be irrelevant. Yeah. Because now we can get just AI to do whatever these agencies and listing optimization places and translation places did. But is that the case? Are you, are you having to fire 90% of your staff because now you are irrelevant in 2023? Or what’s the real situation? Jana: Well, I mean, I had to disappoint everyone, including Kevin King who approached me at one of the parties in Vegas who was like, Jana, are you, like, are you guys done? And I’m like, well, that’s a great conversation starter, Kevin. So yeah we’re definitely not done. And actually, like, we’ve been working with very big enterprises this year, including Nestle and a lot of their supplement brands like Vital Proteins and Solar Vitamins, Crocs national Geographics. We’ve been just like working with a lot of the very big brands. We kinda focus more on enterprises now. And what we’ve seen is that they still trust us, but I’ve actually, cause I’m really of course interested in that, and that is definitely going to affect the future and also like what we are doing. Jana: But just not as of like right now. And five months ago I’ve tested a couple of best Amazon list INTEGRION tools. And at that time, I tested Copy Smith what was it? Percy Copy Monkey Jasper and Power Listing. And none of these tools were great for translation. They were okay when it comes to like the listing creation because all these tools, like all the AI tools are now created to create something outta nothing. And I think they’re great, like for them to get like a topic. And then they have like the whole storytelling is like all up to them, but it comes to translations. The problem was that if I’ve if you were to give the text, like, let’s say not do like a product listing with a title and the bullet and so on, the AI tool would only take certain portions of text and then translate it as it wants and create something completely different that was not in the original listing because this is how AI was programmed to think outside the box and to create completely new content and not to focus and improve the already existing one and to localize it not even like, use the keywords and other things. Jana: So I would say that I think the developers are definitely focused on creating something outta nothing and not just like focusing on doing the content improving it, localizing and putting keywords in it. I don’t think they’ve focused on that yet. So that’s why I think you still have like the like the human touch is still very important. And when it comes to translations, it’s still how it was. I mean, you can use Google Translate or you can use gt, but you’re gonna get like a mediocre translation with no localization and no keywords at all. Sometimes, like if you even like asking like, could you use the keywords like from Google, like they would use it, like something that you would get from Google AdWords or like Google Trends, and this is how they would embed them, but this would not be anything that’s like kind of Amazon friendly. Jana: And from this point, like us using AI tools would not help us because if we were to use it, we would have to dedicate twice as much time to fix it and to make it like an Amazon style according to that Amazon style guidance, then to create something that would work. So for now we haven’t found something that would help us. Of course, I would wanna integrate as soon as there’s something out there that will make our lives easier and will speed up our work. But for now, AI tools are not focused that much on the translations. I think they’re more into copywriting and just as I said, like doing like articles, PDFs, doing your slides doing bunch of other amazing things. I’m a big fan of ai. I use a lot of prompts and to help myself on like a daily basis and also like create pictures and stuff like that. But when it comes to translation, I would say that it’s still not dead advanced or advanced at all. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now you know, I think you’ve been on here a while. People understand that you do deal with translations, but I think the tendency might be that people think, Hey, yeah what I would need a translation company for and rightfully so, is to, to make my listing, like, Hey, I’m selling in Amazon, Germany, and now I want to go to Amazon USA need to make it in English. And we shouldn’t just use Google Translate, but I was looking at your website today and it’s kind of like, you don’t really realize nowadays how much different things you need translation for. So not only is there the listing, but there’s a plus content, and then there’s the ads like it’s not gone are the days where it’s just, Hey, let’s throw in our you know, just a PPC or targeted keyword and target a product. Bradley Sutton: But you’ve got copy that you have to do, like on your sponsored display ads and your sponsored brand ads and your sponsored video ads. You’ve got your brand store, your packaging, chat bots, if you use it follow up emails your website. And I’m, I’m looking at all this stuff. I’m like, oh my goodness. Yeah, there’s like, there’s like a really a lot more involved nowadays when you want to sell in another foreign language marketplace. Which of these is the second most common then when you just say as a the second and third most common after just like, Hey, let, let’s get our listing up on another platform. Jana: Yeah. Well, I would say like, when it comes to content, definitely, like the title Bullets A+ Content, it’s the most important one because this is like your content, it represents brand, your products and so on. But main images now that could be localized according to the country you’re selling are very much important. And especially now, like if you go to Amazon, you’ll see that the title is moved to the left. So like they cannot emphasize even more on the main images. And a lot of times these images are left in English and they’re not translated to any other language, which is a very big mistake. Because like we had also like a really great case study where we could trace and follow like the changes that made like big impact, just like putting German language on main images really made a big difference. Jana: I think they had 60% increase in conversion and I think like 65% or 70% increase in profit. So that, that was really, really impressive. And they’re like a bunch of other brands that can tell you that, that actually when they change the language or the main image that they kinda like spike the conversions even, even more because I think that a lot of people still don’t speak English. And you know, like the Harvard Business Review says that only 50% of people speak English. So you’re basically targeting every other consumer instead of like every single consumer out there. And just like those main images are very important because sometimes people will not even go through listings if they don’t understand what’s on the main images. If you’re selling beauty products or supplements and people are like, not sure about these ingredients, oh, there’s a grammar error. Jana: Well, I’m better not like drink this collagen, I maybe like take another one. Cause I’m not sure if they’re doing a good job. And people will judge your listing, especially in Germany. They’ll judge your listing, I’m sorry, they’ll judge your product according to your listing. And also they had like a brand, it had like fantastic content keywords. And then fifth bullet they said, we’re offering German support 24/7, 365 days a week German support, blah, blah, blah. Local like speakers. And that fifth bullet was full of grammar errors. And then people would be very suspicious about if you are telling the truth in the rest of your listing. And if you are legit, as you say, and also like from all of the international marketplaces, Germany still is the marketplace that gives out the most refund. So you really, really have to be careful about the content and about what you say and how you present your brand and your product, because Germans are very picky. And then when they see something is weird, they might move on to the next listing. You know, that’s something that I’ve noticed. And that happens quite a lot. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Interesting. Now, just in, in general you, you have probably the most experience than anybody in the world as far as different marketplaces and every time I’ve, I’ve had you on this show, I’ll ask you, Hey, what are the, the newer ones or what are the ones you think people are sleeping on? And you’ve talked about Amazon, Japan, and then there’s a couple European marketplaces that before they even launched people were already, you know really trying to hit you up for translation. So you, that you knew there was a lot of demand now we’re in the middle of 2023. There hasn’t been too many in the last year that, that Amazon has opened, but what about just either Amazon marketplaces or other marketplaces. Bradley Sutton: What’s trendy now outside of the normal USA, Japan, Germany, you know marketplaces. What are having some meteoric is that, wait, how do, how do you, what’s the word I’m looking for? Meteoric. Is that a word? It goes like a meteor. I don’t know what you said. Meteoric. I, I need translation for English cuz my English is isn’t is not great, here’s why it was good to have a translator. But what are having some like really big time rises in the marketplace world these days? Jana: The Meteoric rise? Bradley Sutton: Meteoric there. Thank you for help with my English. Jana: I think I think a lot of people have unfortunately been disappointed with the two new West marketplaces, Amazon, Poland, and Sweden. And honestly, like when people ask me, Jana like, what should we do next? Should we do Polish? Should we like Sweden? What should we do? I mean, yes, you can like do translations for those marketplaces, but like, do you really wanna spend your money like running PPC ads that are not bringing any sales? So I would say at this point, like to forget about Amazon Poland in Sweden, because Amazon has not been pushing them a lot. They haven’t focused on these marketplaces enough. Like Amazon Netherlands is a small one, but it’s doing better now, much better than two years ago when I think I last talked about it because they’ve been like focused on it. They wanted to push out bull.com being their main competitor at the time. Jana: But now what we’ve seen is that a lot of sellers that did translations, they’re now choosing allegro.pl instead of Amazon in Poland. Because Allegro is bringing them some results, Amazon Poland isn’t. I’m still expecting really good results from that marketplace. I just don’t know when is it gonna be the time that Amazon is gonna say like, okay, like now we’re gonna focus on this one. We’re gonna push this marketplace and we’re gonna like, you know make people earn money on it because that’s why people are there. But I would say that Poland and Sweden are definitely out for me if you ask me like where to sell in Europe, but what’s been very interesting is the Italian marketplace. And then if you like go through like a Bloomberg reports and all the other business reports, you’ll see that e-commerce has skyrocketed during last year and this year as well. Jana: Now Italy is also like a very small marketplace, but people seeing amazing results with selling in Italy.…

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#462 - PPC Tips, Pivoting Product Niche, & More! Jun 10, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, we welcome back the dynamic duo, Shan Shan Fu and Schrone Hardeman. These two amazing Amazon sellers have been making waves in the industry with their strategies and success. In our exclusive interview, we caught up with Shan Shan and Schrone to find out what they’ve been up to lately. They shared insights into how Schrone keeps his profits steady and how Shan Shan’s brands are performing today.Additionally, they discussed a lot of PPC strategies and tips. Schrone also addressed the common fear of overspending in PPC and shared his best tips for new sellers. Shan Shan highlighted the importance of networking in her business journey and discussed the challenges faced in selling inside women’s clothing categories.The “Tripe-S Crew” is back and ready to inspire and empower sellers once again, so stay tuned for more groundbreaking strategies and achievements from this dynamic duo. In episode 462 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Schrone, and Shan Shan discuss: 01:26 – Let’s Welcome Back The “S Crew” 02:14 – What Is Shan Shan & Schrone Up To These Days 04:03 – How Schrone Keeps His Profits Steady 07:39 – Diving Into The Market Share Inside His Category 10:26 – How Shan Shan’s Brands Are Performing Today 13:06– There Are Two Types Of Sellers… 14:14 – The Amazon PPC Math Technique 19:11 – Dividing Your PPC Into Two Cycles 25:23 – “My Student Has A Fear Of Overspending in PPC” 28:38 – Schrone’s Best Tips For New Sellers 30:14 – How Networking Helped Shan Shan’s Business 31:25 – Problems In Selling Inside Women’s Categories 32:55 – “The Opportunity Is Disguised As A Setback” 33:57 – Benefiting From The “Taylor Swift Economy” 35:15 – How To Reach Out To Schrone Hardeman 35:22 – How To Reach Out To Shan Shan Fu ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today, we’ve got some former guests back on the show to talk PPC strategy and more. Now, both have inspired others on previous episodes with their story of how they became Amazon Sellers. One was a military veteran turned six figure seller, and the other, an immigrant to the United States, who recently has had her clothing line featured along the likes of Louis Vuitton. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Did you know that Amazon sometimes loses or damages some of your inventory? Usually they reimburse you for this, but sometimes they might miss things. That’s where Refund Genie comes in. What Helium Ten’s Refund Genie does is we go check out your reports and see if Amazon owes you any money, and then we give you the reports that you need to submit to Amazon so that you can get your money back. If you haven’t run this, you can have hundreds, if not thousands of dollars that Amazon might owe you, especially if you’ve never used this before and you sell a lot on Amazon. So, to find out more information, go to h10.me/refundgenie. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Bradley Sutton: We’ve got a couple serious sellers back on the show, and I like to call this show kind of like the, the Triple S show. You know, like at Helium 10, we’ve got tons of, of S’s everywhere. First of all, this is the Serious Sellers podcast. We’ve got the Serious Sellers Club. We had Sell and Scale Summit. You know, to go along with that, we’ve got Sean Chan and Sharan Triple S. I’ll almost start wearing my Triple S sneaker today. I got my s hat, I got, I got the, the s logo here on my jacket. This is actually the logo of the DJ Slushy who makes our opening for the podcast that little song that you guys hear. So we’re just all about the s today. How’s it going? My Triple S crew? Schrone: Yeah, it’s great. What’s going on with you, Bradley? Shan Shan: Hey, Bradley. Bradley Sutton: I’m doing just great. Awesome. Now, you’re still in Texas. I see you there on the famous the famous sofa there. Shan Shan, didn’t you move recently? You’re not in California anymore, are you? Shan Shan: No, I left San Francisco and now I’m in Miami/New York. Bradley Sutton: I think everybody from California is moving to to Florida, and I dunno about New York. I don’t hear about much people moving to New York, but but Florida for sure, Texas, a lot of people are moving to. Whereabouts in New York? I used to live in New York back in the day. Shan Shan: Oh. So there’s a thing called Snowbird, where you live in New York in the summer and Miami in the winter. So I don’t have a place place, but I have a sublet at the Upper East Side. So, yeah, just I’m actually hosting an e-commerce dinner tonight at Soho House. So trying to penetrate this e-commerce world in New York, which is quite robust. Bradley Sutton: Cool, cool. All right. Now we’re not gonna go too much into everybody’s backs stories. This is actually between them, about the third or fourth time they’ve been on the they’ve been on the podcast now. The last time they were on the podcast, they were actually, you know, they’ve been on the podcast by themselves before, but the last time I had them on together and that was the first time they had even met each other. That was episode 344. So if you guys want to catch up with what they were doing a little over a year ago, then check out episode 344. But I said, Hey, let, let’s bring them back. You know, it’s been a year. Let’s see what exciting things these individuals have been doing. And, and not only do they still sell themselves, but they also, have branched out more and more to, to helping other sellers. And so, like, I like talking to people who are in the industry like that because they, they sometimes you know, come across a lot more things than just if we were working by the by ourselves. So let’s start with Schrone. First of all, how how’s your own business been going the last year? So kind of steady, we down, we up, what’s going on? Schrone: Okay. So a revelation came about, you know, after the the Great Depression called Covid, you know, where everybody was quarantined me being in the maternity area and the people having nothing left to do but procreate. So I had a boom during the covid and didn’t realize it was because of Covid. So last year, the last two years I’ve had a drop, but I’ve been steady. And the reason I’ve been steady is because of how I maintain my profit. The way I do profit is I use the previous year’s profit for the current year’s salary. That way I can never go under, you know? Bradley Sutton: Okay. Schrone: So for the last two years, I’ve been pretty much steady at a decrease from 2021. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So your profit then is steady, but your revenue is maybe down a little bit you’re saying? Schrone: Right. I’ve dropped from about 450,000 a year to about 300,000 a year. Bradley Sutton: Now, did you suffer, like on the inventory side, like maybe you didn’t plan for that, or, and thenyou suffered a little bit extra inventory, or, or how did that work out for you? Schrone: So, yeah, because I did not recognize it was a boom for me. I did pre over order. So hey, some of the troubles that you gotta overcome is access inventory, and I currently have about 1500 units in my garage next door. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now for you I know you’ve had like different variations of your products. Didn’t you launch like a separate line, or, or is it still pretty much you have one product and just a whole bunch of different variations? Schrone: So last year, I launched a premium version of the same product that I have maternity bills. Okay. It’s a little bit more expensive and it gives the, the mom a lot more support. That launch has been slow, but it has not been a failure. So I’m waiting on that to pick up and move with that. But it is a premium version of the same product with more colors and more sciences. Bradley Sutton: Have you looked into expanding the brand out or possibly starting another, another brand, or you’re kind of just like happy, happy where you are right now since you are profitable and plug it along? Schrone: So the, the purpose for me to start my whole business was to support my family. And by the grace of God, I’m doing that right now. And I this may sound weird to a lot of people, but I do not have high ambitions of becoming rich. Right. I’ll take it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take it. But I don’t have high ambitions of becoming rich. I am very happy that I’m able to take care of my family and that’s where I’m at right now. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay. Interesting. Now you know, for your niche, I’m not sure if you’re using like the regular market tracker or not, but like, have you been, been checking, like, are you keeping kind of like your market share, but just, you know, the size of the pie has gone down? Or your slice of the pie gone down in addition to the whole entire pie? Schrone: So my, my biggest thing is finding out why. So when I dropped in salary or dropped in revenue, I had to discover the why. And in that process I did find out that the whole category dropped. So it was definitely an economic reset, if you will, instead of me just losing profits. So everybody across the board dropped about 30% down, dropped down about 30%. So as far as ratio of the pie, I still have that being one of the top five sellers in my category. But everybody has dropped. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, sometimes when, when you’ve got mature products, you know, and I say mature, like, like you’ve, you know, you’ve, you’ve been there about three, four years. Now, you know, like if there’s a successful niche out there, a lot of people kind of figure that every single time it’ll just get saturated with sellers from factories, you know, be it, be it from China, be it from India, be it from wherever and you’re not gonna be able to sell anymore at a decent price. And, you know, I’ve actually had a couple of, of smaller niches where we’re just got, you know, to the point where it wasn’t profitable as much. Now, you know, you’re still plugging along, you’ve kept your slice of the pie. So has that not happened, or you haven’t gotten involved in any price wars or how come you are still selling the same product that, that you were, you know, three, four years ago? Schrone: Yeah. So that, that was a major concern for concern for me about two years ago. We did have a rush of new sellers, possibly from factory, and they were selling at half the price. And I was thinking like, I have two options. Stay strong with my integrity of the value that I see from my product or succumb to what the category is pushing towards. Well I’m thankful that before that happened, I found my category before that happened and the process, or the time before it happened, I, I gathered six thou almost f almost 6,000 reviews. Which gives me the social proof to keep my prices where they’re at. And I have not raised my prices or lowered them for five years, and I’m still able to sell based off the strength of my brand. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Cool. Now let’s switch to Shan Shan on there. You know, similar to Schrone, you had a product that was kind of boomed also by, by Covid, you know, like masks, I remember way back in the day. But you know, you, you, you, you saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and were already pivoting away. What about you, the la the last, the last couple of years? Like, how, how have your brands been doing lately? Shan Shan: Yeah, so the last time I talked to you guys, my face mask sales, which was my first product was tanking. And I had to desperately get a new sustainable product category up there before it totally tanked. And I did it, I tripled sales from my non mask products since last time I saw you guys. But the face mask went to zero. Cause face masks went down, but everything else went up. It’s still, there was an overall increase, but not by a lot. But it showed me that your sales can triple and if it can triple this year, I’m on track to at least double. And then some fun things have been happening. New York Times reached out and asked me to send mys to a Ghana to a fashion shoot in Ghana where I was going to be paired up with like Louis Vuitton and Chanel and all the big brands on their big winter accessories feature. So the, so in it’s hilarious, in the, in the feature says Louis Vuitton dress, $5,000 Chanel sweater, you know, $2,000 and millennials emotion types $15. Bradley Sutton: That’s something you’ve always been good at that, you know, for those who don’t know, like two episodes ago when we, we first did her fullback story, that was how I how she got on our radar is I actually saw her on kind of TV as it where it was like CNBC or, or one, one of these shows did a special on her story, and then she had mentioned Helium 10 in there, you know, using Helium 10. And I was like, but you seem to like have this magnetism towards getting featured by, by big media here. Shan Shan: Thanks. Yeah, it’s an honor. And and I guess, you know, what I came out of that is, hey, fashion that’s edgy for millennials and Gen Z can be affordable too. So that was fun. And now I live in Miami and New York and trying to build a community with other e-commerce founders in the area as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now last time you, you were giving us some, some, some cool strategies about how you kind of like do your product validation on Etsy. Are you still doing that where you try and launch first on Etsy and then hit some certain numbers before you go to Amazon? Or are you just doing both simultaneous or what’s your strategy, your marketplace strategy these days? Shan Shan: Yes. So I realized that there’s two types of sellers in this world and I’m gonna really simplify it. Their sellers are very conservative and they just expand within their existing successful niche. Just like little variation changes here and there, and it’ll succeed and it’ll make more money, but it’s not gonna make that much more money. Then there’s sellers that go really hard on one product. They launch one product and put ton of ad spend and ton of capital in it, and just like, fingers crossed and succeeds. And sometimes it does, and it catapults. But that, that requires high capital. It’s high risk. So I couldn’t figure out which one I wanted to do. So instead I decided to do both, and I launched simultaneously more women’s clothing, which is arguably one of the toughest categories. And then I also decided very recently to launch in non clothing categories as well. And, and we’ll see how that goes. It hasn’t launched yet. Next time I come back, Bradley, I would love to tell you how that went. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Let’s I know both of you guys have, have a lot of strategy or a lot of, you know, opinions and things behind this next topic, but I wanted to talk a little PPC. So let’s start with Schrone. Now you mentioned something in our group chat you know, kinda like, I guess one of your own terms, but, but it’s something that that could apply, but you said PPC math, you know, so that’s not exactly a common term. You know, that that’s common in the Amazon industry, but, but I kind of like the sound of it because it’s like, all right, good. Well, we’re gonna talk about something some a little bit unique here. So, so what do you define as PPC math Schrone, and how does Schrone: That help you? Right. So yeah, that is something that I coined and it’s very, it’s once you know what it is that aha moment, right? Because when I’m in the Helium 10 Facebook groups chatting, and I see people that say, you know, my budget has gone in the first three hour…

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#461 - Norm Farrar’s Crazy Influencer Challenge - Part 2 Jun 07, 2023

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In this episode, we continue our conversation with Norm. He also takes us through his journey as an Amazon Live influencer, revealing strategies for successful influencer collaborations and the key to boosting brand visibility and increased sales.Do you want to be your own brand ambassador? Norm addresses the common challenge of finding the right influencers, highlighting the pitfalls and misconceptions surrounding influencer marketing on Amazon. He also walks us through the process of signing up for the Amazon Live program, ensuring you have all the information you need to get started. Gain a deeper understanding of how influencers can impact your brand and learn best practices for successful collaborations.Also, Norm shares important information about the New FedNow Service Program, discussing its potential impact on online businesses and how sellers can leverage it to their advantage. In episode 461 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Norm discuss: 01:31 – The New FedNow Service Program 02:49 – Diving Into Norm’s Influencer Challenge 05:23 – Norm’s Amazon Live Page And His Tips 11:52 – How To Make Money From Amazon Live Videos 15:17 – How To Sign Up For This Program 19:01 – Finding Influencers: Many Brands Are Not Doing It Right 23:36 – Understand The Process Of Influencers On Amazon 26:00 – Norm’s Gift For Our Listeners 29:05 – How To Find Norm Farrar In The Interwebs ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today is part two of a two-part episode series where we’re talking to Norm, and he’s got some eye-opening strategies about having to do with being an Amazon influencer, doing Amazon lives, and understanding how the whole system works at a level you’ve never heard before. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think Bradley Sutton: Sellers have lost thousands of dollars by not knowing that they were hijacked, perhaps on their Amazon listing, or maybe somebody changed their main image, or Amazon changed their shipping dimensions, so they had to pay extra money every order. Helium 10 can actually send you a text message or email if any of these things or other critical events happen to your Amazon account. For more information, go to h10.me/alerts. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. What else can you tell us? Norm: Another thing, there is a new program that I only became aware of it just recently, and it’s another game changer for e-commerce businesses, and that is the new FedNow, have you heard about this? Bradley Sutton: FedNow? No. Norm: Check it out. Bradley Sutton: Maybe I have, but I just don’t. It’s ring a bell. It’s Norm: It’s a platform that the government is implementing in July. They were gonna implement it a little while ago a couple months back, but they decided not to. But this is for money laundering, and now this service is starting in, I think it’s either the beginning or the end of July, and it is gonna change the way that we do business on the internet. Bradley Sutton: Is this related to what, you know, Amazon was having everybody re-verify their information recently like sellers had to like reprove who they were? Or that’s completely unrelated. Norm: I’m not sure. I probably might have something to do with it, but I’m not sure. Bradley Sutton: That’s interesting. Norm: So if you’re listening and you’re an amazon seller, e-com seller, do any business on the internet, you wanna dive into FedNow. It’s gonna change things. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. There’s a couple, another tip for us. Now, you had sent over a message before, you’re doing some kind of influencer challenge, and that’s all you said. So like, what does that mean? What does an influencer challenge? Norm: Well, you know, Kelsey, you’ve been on the podcast, so Kelsey’s my son and, and my kids every year give me a challenge of some sort. Usually it’s, you know, lose weight or something. This year we were talking with Gracey Ryback, she was at a Mexico event. And I said to her, I wish I was like you. And she goes, well you are. You’re an influencer. I said, I’m not an influencer. And you know, I have like no zero followers for product influence. And so my kids came back and they gave me a challenge on the podcast, said, oh, why don’t you become a product influencer? And I said, oh, God, I can’t, that’s too much work. And so anyways, I said yes, which was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Norm: And so the challenge was get to a hundred thousand followers by December 1st, so zero to a hundred thousand followers. And what we’ve done is gone out, learned to be an influencer, and really trying to show Amazon sellers what they need to look for. What are some of the pitfalls? Do they wanna be their own brand ambassador or do they wanna do a side hustle and can you really make money at it? So it’s taken a lot of work. And we’re doing three times a week, Bradley Amazon lives for 90 minutes to two hours. Bradley Sutton: Let me follow you. Norm: Oh, good. Bradley Sutton: Hold on. Lemme go to. Norm: It’s called Lunch With Norm Deals. Bradley Sutton: How do I go? Is it amazon.com/live, right? Norm: It’s forward slash I think it’s just– Bradley Sutton: That worked. All right. And so I’m on browse, like, where is their search? Let’s see. Gracey’s the only one I follow actually on here. Let’s see. Alright, Lunch with Norm. I got, I’m gonna, let me just show my screen here to the people watching on YouTube later. So how do I find somebody on here? Alright, I think I found it here. I just typed in Amazon Live LWN deals. And then I recognize this right here, right here. Norm: Oh, there we go. New Speaker: The results, click here and voila, learn. Launch With Norm Deals, big beard, bigger deals. I love it. Give you a follow. Let just take a look also. Okay, hold on. This is something I was curious about. So these little one, one minute videos here. Yep. What are these? These are not Amazon Lives. Norm: Gotcha. Okay, so this is what a lot of people don’t realize. If you don’t, and I’m gonna just back up and then I’ll tell you about this. Everybody who’s starting out in Amazon, you have to fill, you have to have that slide deck filled, six images and at least one video. And I’ll give you a reason why. If you don’t put that one video, it could be the simplest video out there. You’re missing out because people like myself that I learned, if I’m an influencer, if I’m registered with Amazon Influencer, I can create a shoppable video, which will make me money. So just to give you one example. I showed an espresso machine. Somebody asked me to review this coffee here. Okay, so it’s espresso coffee, and I needed a machine, so I needed to buy one. I went out, I bought one, and I said, well, since I have this machine, I might as well do a video on it, a one minute video. So I did, and within two weeks, 50 of these machines sold. And then after that, another 20 have sold. So I’ve sold 70 of these, my espresso machines. Bradley Sutton: When you say I’ve sold, that’s because like you left like a video, but it’s not your listing, right? Norm: No. So what happens is you’ll notice that if you have a video and you can see this quite a bit, so as long as you have one video on your listing, so in your product listing, your slide deck you have a product video, you have a demo, anything that you put there it will allow Amazon’s algorithm to pick up the shoppable videos that influencers have done and they place them. I don’t have any say on it, but they place them on the listing. And people get this mixed up, you’ll see the related videos underneath and you’ll see a lot of people there, but those for the most part aren’t influencers. The people that are influencers usually, like they do a nice job. All I’m doing is, Hey, this is a Coke, can, I just bought it. Norm: This is why, this is how it opens. I enjoy the taste. I can’t promote it. And it’s all done. All I do, my little spiel is I shoot from my beard down and I just use my hands and that’s it. It’s just nobody sees my face. In fact, when I do any, I do I do beauty products. Yeah, there we go. So I do bu beauty products, and if I do usually do a beauty product, and then they do have to see my face, I put a beauty mask on and you know, I’ll do it that way. So it’s just a little, it’s fun. But these are things that I learned that I would never really have known about until I took this challenge up. So it’s good for my brand to know it because if I didn’t have that listing when I launch, that’s part of my launch. I’m gotta have, I don’t even care if I go to Animoto or Canva, put up something cheap, a slide just transitioning, just something. So the algorithm will pick up and put the influencers videos up there. And this is where a lot of people aren’t talking to influencers. You know, they’re not doing it well. Bradley Sutton: How did this work? I’m still having trouble understanding the process here. This, this coffee machine, did you actually buy this? So you bought it and then you recorded this video. And I’m assuming you already had your own influencer or Amazon Live account. Now you posted this video as a review, or you hit on the listing itself. You add video,? Norm: So if you type in my espresso, it’s a real, it’s a horrible video, but people liked it. Norm: I don’t even know if there’s a search, but where Bradley Sutton: View my storefront? Wait, that’s not it. Yeah. Oh yeah, maybe it’s here. See Ethiopian coffee here. I see a bunch of knives. Norm: So if people come and they buy, like somebody just bought a hundred dollars knife I get a commission for that. There’s the beauty mask. I use. Bradley Sutton: How can you even fit a beauty mask on you? Wait, I don’t, I don’t see that coffee machine. Oh, Norm: There’s probably– Bradley Sutton: Did I pass it? Norm: There’s probably a page button. Bradley Sutton: Maybe I passed it here. Well, let me just pick one of these other ones. Yeah. Cause I’m assuming it’s the same thing. I like Ethiopian coffee, so let me, let me click on this. Oh, I think that is, Norm: That’s Kelsey that did that one. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So then I see here’s the product down here. Yep. So let me go to their listing. Okay. Norm: All Right. And guess what? And so, so you, you bought this product or they sent it to you, or what? Yep, Norm: They sent it to me. Here it is. Right here. Okay. Bradley Sutton: They sent it and then you went, or your son went to this listing. And then, let’s see. Lemme see Norm: If I can find, Nope, we didn’t do Bradley Sutton: Anything. Nothing. You didn’t do anything? Nope. How did this video? Yeah, see, here’s your video right here at the bottom under videos for this product. Now Norm: Go up and go up Bradley Sutton: Okay. Norm: To their page. Okay. Or the product listing and guess Okay. They have a video there. Click on the video. Let’s see. And you’re gonna see right there, Bradley Sutton: There it is. Related videos. Yep. Norm: That will never Okay. Come up if you don’t have, like, you won’t see the, you see all the other videos that were down there? Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Norm: Mine is the only one showing because I’m an influencer. Bradley Sutton: So you, this video you uploaded on your own, like, like influencer whatever you call it, portal. I, I guess you could say I uploaded it and then you tie it to the asin. Norm: Yes. So when I uploaded this video, so I created a video and we upload it and it gi it gets an affiliate link attached to it. And so anytime that anybody watches that video for 30 seconds and they go and buy, then I get a commission from it. And what what was really interesting is that there’s, there’s different ways to make money. You’ve got your Amazon Live, which for me takes a lot of work for okay, return. Well very little return right now because I, I, the followers have to build up. And then you’ve got the shoppable where you can do 20, 30, 40 shoppable over a weekend, post them and immediately start making cash immediately. So the trick for shoppable videos is that you have to follow the guidelines and you get three attempts. If they, if they, the first three videos that you upload, if they get rejected three times, you’re not gonna three strikes and you’re out. Norm: Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta know the guidelines. And then once you do that, once you’re approved, you can upload these videos, you can do a bunch at a time. In fact we just were we, Amazon even reached out to us to go and become, it’s part of their, their new influencer challenge where that coffee video that you just saw, Kelsey did it. It’s more like a TikTok video. And if they select it we, we can do up to 50 videos if they select it over the next month or two to show you get 50 bucks per, and they, this is the new style they want rather than just a finger pointing. They want more of that. Tiktok look like you would have an inspire. So then there’s, then there’s just the affiliate program where you can have your wishlist. Norm: So there was a lot on what you were just looking at. You saw a lot of videos. But there are wishlists that if Mother’s Day coming up, I’ll have a wishlist with videos or images that I want to promote. And if anybody clicks on that and buys anything, then you get a some money. Now, one of the things I was really skeptical about because I literal literally started with zero followers. I had followers on the lunch with Norm side. You know, those are Amazon sellers or E-com sellers. Sure. But on the product side, who’s the old guy? You know, who, who’s, who’s this guy? Yeah. And I had to start building up and building up and building up, and it’s gaining momentum, but can I make money at this? And I could only do this so long. I’m not doing this full-time, but can somebody make money doing this as a side hustle? Norm: And my conclusion is yes, and it wouldn’t be bad money. If, if you’re dedicated to doing this and you, you can get people to send you product and you want to do these videos, or if you buy products, like, I’ve got two Mevo cameras, a Sony camera, I’ve got these ring lights, I’ve got the Sure mic. I can take any of these products and upload a video now that I’m registered as an influencer. And if the algorithm picks it up, that Sure mic, let’s say it’s three or 400 bucks, I get three or 4% of that. So anyways, it, Bradley Sutton: So wait to, to sign up, like, like at the very bottom here, it says, are you a brand interested in live streaming? Learn? How is that step one or a step one signing up for the Amazon affiliate program? This Norm: Is, this is one of the reasons why man, it is confusing to sign up. So the first thing that you should do is sign up for an affiliate account. Okay? So get that affiliate account you know, get your list going, and then you can sign up for the influencer program. Now if you don’t have a social media following you know, and I don’t know if that’s a hundred or a thousand, but if you don’t have that, that social media following, or you don’t have websites that are going to promote products, cuz they’re gonna ask you for that, then it’s probably not a good thing to do right now. However, there is a tip, there’s a little trick. If you want to go and buy an Instagram account, maybe in the pet niche and you’re selling pet products you could, you can use that to show Amazon that you have 10,000 followers. Norm: It’s very easy to do. You can go, there’s a bunch of different sites that you can go to. But that’s, that’s one way that you can do it.…

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#460 - Expanding To Retail & Google Business Profile Strategies – Part 1 Jun 06, 2023

Show notes

Welcome back to The Serious Sellers Podcast! In our latest episode, we had the pleasure of hosting a special guest for the fourth time. Norm Farrar, a seasoned expert in the Amazon industry, joins us to discuss some exciting topics and share valuable insights. Tune in to discover what Norm has been up to lately, including his strategies for getting Amazon or E-commerce brands into retail stores and the latest strategies in marketing your brand inside Google Business Profile.Is your brand or product ready for retail? Norm delves into this question, providing practical advice and highlighting the importance of being prepared before taking the leap. Additionally, he shares his experiences and candidly talks about the challenges faced when dealing with certain buyers in the retail industry. Norm also brings us up to speed on the latest developments with Google My Business and Google Business Profile. Find out what’s new and how these tools can enhance your online presence and increase visibility for your brand. Make sure to stay tuned for Part 2! It’s an episode you won’t want to miss! In episode 460 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Norm discuss: 01:09 – Another 4-Time Guest In The Serious Sellers Podcast! 02:52 – What Norm Been Up To Lately? 03:36 – Getting Amazon Brands Into Retail Stores 07:34 – Consider Independent Retail Stores 15:33 – Is My Brand Or Product Ready For Retail? 20:46 – “Some Buyers Are Jerks” 22:30 – What’s New With Google My Business / Google Business Profile? 30:59 – Norms Healthy Habits & Hobbies Outside The Amazon Grind 32:52 – Make Sure To Upgrade To Google Analytics 4 34:04 – Stay Tuned For Part 2! ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today is part one of an information and strategy packed two part episode with the Beard Guy, Norm. Now, in this first episode, he’s gonna be talking about how to get into retail stores in order to get up to three quarters of a million dollar purchase orders, and also the latest with Google Business Profiles and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium Ten’s Index Checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton. This is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And now, I believe, if my math is correct here, for the fourth time, I think you’re only the second person who has ever been on the podcast four times. Cuz you know, we have a guest once per year and we don’t bring everybody back. You know, it’s by popular demand, you know? So Norm, I’m pretty sure Kian was the first, but now the second person to ever be invited back total of four times, Norm Farrar. How’s it going? Norm: It’s going great. What an honor. Four times Bradley Sutton: Love it. I love it. I don’t know. What’s that? Three times that trifecta. Four times. Is there a word for that? Norm: I don’t know. Lucky? Bradley Sutton: I like it. Well, my dad always says better lucky than good sometimes, right? That’s right. So guys, we’re not gonna, you know, since he’s been on here before, we’re not gonna go into this full backstory. I took the liberty of writing down his old podcast number. So if this is your first time you’re hearing Norman, you wanna learn more about him very first time he was on the podcast was episode 80, so make sure to check that out. You can get his backstory. And then in episodes 211 and 327, like I said, about one, one per year. He was sharing a lot of good tips on, you know, Google my business and Amazon Post what it was just getting started off and press releases. And so, you know, last time we talked about Google Business profile, and I’m sure we’re gonna be talking about some, you know, things that are up to date there, but tons of information in those episodes. So make sure to, to give those give those a listen at your leisure. But anyways, we’re here now in, in the middle of 2023, and we want to see what’s been cooking, you know, for you. So, so how’s, how’s the last beer? The last beer? Yeah. Have you been drinking a lot of beer? Norm doesn’t drink at all. Last beer he drank was probably never, but yeah. How has the last year been for you? Norm: It had its challenges. You know, Amazon’s not always acting the way I want it to. But, you know, you have to learn to be resilient and you have to find different channels, and, and that’s what I’ve been doing. So I have been exploring Walmart quite a bit for the last two years. Carrie and I have been, you know, talking back and forth about that getting heavily into retail. So now retail, what do Bradley Sutton: You mean by retail? Like, like, like brick and mortar or Yeah, Norm: Yeah. Getting into bricks and mortar. So not literally, but you know, trying to get the brand on. Yeah. And Bradley Sutton: You could sell brick and mortar in brick and mortar, I guess you like, get a product in Home Depot or something, but that, yeah. Norm: I guess you could. So no, it’s, it’s been great because I’ve been learning just a process on how to go and approach all the big box stores as well as the mid and the independent retailers and have seen, well put it this way, you know, when you have a single purchase or, you know, a weekly purchase, okay, you might sell a hundred, a couple of thousand, whatever it could be. Well, you get a purchase order from Costco or from Walmart, whatever. They’re talking, well, I showed one we were on the cruise together, the online sellers cruise. I showed one that I picked up the day before I left, and it was $279,000 for this one buyer. Bradley Sutton: This is one of your products or like a client’s product or? Norm: No, I represent a few brands. So this is one of their brands that were on the marketplace. And sometime in the last seven days, there was another one that I just showed. I showed up for 710,000. Bradley Sutton: Hold on l let’s take that quarter of a million dollar one. Yeah. Walking back, was this originally an Amazon? Only brand. Okay. So, so they’re an Amazon only brand. What they reach out to you and like, Hey, we’re interested to get into retail, or you were looking at their account like, Hey, why, why don’t we get this in retail? Walk us through how this happened. Norm: Okay. So I talk a lot about retail. And so one of these Amazon brands a good brand, I reached out and, you know, asked if I could do anything with them with the brand. And I said, yeah, this is what I can do. I’ll introduce you to a bunch of retail buyers. I’ve got a enough experience and a big enough database that if anybody is looking for pretty much any buyer in and all the main retailers, I could pretty much do an introduction. So what I started to do was create these emails, craft them so they were worded properly help guide them with their with their catalog. So you wanna have a wholesale catalog to show the buyer. So just got them retail ready. And then it doesn’t happen all at once, but it could happen in the first month. Norm: It could happen in three months. But all of a sudden buyers start to get in. We got one today from the toy the senior brand developer dev, the senior brand manager in toys at Walmart saying, Hey, do you have any toys that you can introduce us to? So, yeah, we just, we take those and we ship ’em over to the buyer. Then the buyer it’s their prerogative if they wanna respond back to the buyer or not, or to the seller. If they do, they’re, they’re just dealing directly with them. So yeah, we’ve got quite a few brands into the retail market recently. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I mean, that’s what I’ve always been, been preaching. You know, before Helium 10, I was working for a company that was mainly in retail. And you know, I, I’ve said this story a lot of times, but I’m always proud of myself. Yeah, I brought their sales from like one to 3 million, but that’s nothing compared to, you know, they’re, they’re in every Walmart and, and every retail store. And I, and I got them into like a bunch of grocery stores and the POs dwarf, what is going on on Amazon. If you think about, hey, there’s 4,000 Walmart stores, you know, each store has to have, you know, quantity on the shelf. And so, you know, each store is buying a few cases of the product. You can do the math about the kind of numbers that that show up. So, so like that takes kind of like special people like yourself. I know, like, you know, my old company, we used to use brokers and stuff cuz you, you can’t just like go knock on the door of, of Walmart or Kroger or something like that and say, Hey, introduce me to your buyer. I wanna, I wanna show this to them. So like, you know, how have you, how did you get to the point where you, you actually can go in and do that? Norm: Yeah. One of the things that you know, we do preach is that if you want to go and use a distributor, by all means go ahead. Because they have this grouping of retailers that they’re already in. So if they’re a toy distributor or supplements or whatever it is that’s a fast track, you pay a little bit extra for that. So if you do have the margins that are built in, then great. When I first started working with distributors, this is when my family owned manufacturing companies, so we would be working with them and, and we had all the margins that we needed to build were that were built in. So we made a nice little profit, but to do it on your own, these are just, we’ve just searching the internet, trying to get into different buyers. Norm: Linkedin does a great job, but more importantly, you can knock on a buyer’s door. But if you don’t set up and talk the lingo one of the things I would recommend is learn the, the language of retail. And if you can do that, that’s great. If you come off that you’ve never done this before and you’re a hack, well, they might just put you in the other pile. People that can, that, that come retail ready, they have the proper packaging, they have the right catalog, and their emails are properly written then you’ve got a chance and that’s going direct. And again, I’m not, I’m, I I’m not even naming my service. I’m, I’m just telling people this because I, if they’re gonna do it and they wanna have a chance, they’ve gotta look professional. And another big tip is that when you get that buyer and they do send you an email, if you’re gonna wait more than 24 hours, forget it. Norm: You’ve gotta get back and forth to them. And one fear that I’ve seen a lot of sellers in Amazon have is that, well, one big one is cash flow. I’ll talk about that in a sec. But the other one is how do I, I I only have so much inventory, and if they want to have a container load, which will never happen on your first order, but if the fear is, oh, they’re gonna order too much, it’s gonna kill my Amazon listing, that’s gonna go down the tubes, and then I’m not making that much profit on the other, and I don’t even know if I can get all the inventory to them. So what you can do is when you, when you do get that initial po you can talk to the buyer, they know that first of all, you’re gonna get a test po, then you’re gonna get something that’s probably more regional, a few more stores, then it’ll spread out, and then it’ll spread out. Norm: But during that first time you can let them know that you’ve, you’re gonna create better retail packaging or that your product, we just ordered enough product from China, it’s gonna take a month to get here. There, there’s no problem, there’s no problem with that. So anyways, those are just a, a few tips. And then cash flow, you gotta be careful. Sometimes I tell people if they really want, or if they’re really cautious about cash flow, which you should be you can always go to independent independent not grocers, but retailers. I, I live in a small hick town, you know, more cows than people. And we have a pet store independent, we have the variety stores, we have all these independent stores in town. They’re still, I mean, they’re not dead. Some people think they might smell funny, but you can go and approach these people and say, Hey, you know, I have this really great soap, and if they wanna be a little bit different than buying Dove or Irish Spring, and they want a natural soap, all how much is a case? Norm: So you give them a case, or your minimum order quantity might be two cases. And guess what? They pay with a credit card, a credit card. Now what I found, if you do have a bit of cash flow and you work out all these terms with your, with the buyer, okay, right at the, during the contract, and you, you know, if it makes sense, great. If not, don’t be afraid to negotiate. They might come back with what’s best for the chain. And you come back with what’s best for you and you’ll, you could meet somewhere in the middle. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So, you know, should I be at like, at a certain level before I even start thinking about this? Or, you know, maybe I’m still newer on Amazon, but I’ve got like rock solid pricing. So I’ve got decent profit margins, I’ve got amazing packaging, retail ready packaging you know, I might even have products stored here at my own warehouse or something. Like, am I ready to go? Or do these buyers wanna see some kind of, so, you know, online history, whether it’s on walmart.com or amazon.com before they, they can see you. Like, how much does that help? Where you can show like your, your, your resume, your your product resumes. Like, look, I’ve been a best seller on Amazon, or I I’ve sold $1 million in the last year on Amazon. Like, how much does that matter? Norm: It really does depend. Like for Walmart, for example, I know this for a fact, like to get onto the Walmart marketplace, they’re looking for seasoned sellers. So they’ll look at your Amazon or they’ll look at your Shopify and bring you over. Now the great thing about going onto the marketplace, they have bees basically pitch fest twice a year. And if they see that your online product is selling, you could get invited to it. But if you want to get down there in front of Walmart and you’ve got a really great product, same thing. As long as you can get in front of the buyer then you might have a chance getting in there, going online for any retailer. Think of it, all these retailers right now have online marketplaces for the most part. If you’re in the pet business, well maybe pet value if you’re target, target.com is actually fantastic platform if you can get approved for it. Norm: But you can check out all of those and get onto those marketplaces. But if you want, you can target it. I’ve seen, I wouldn’t say new sellers probably should probably stay away, but mid-level to advanced sellers. If, if you can show that you’ve got a good product, it’s well-branded. And this is, you know, we’ve talked about this before, just making sure that your branding is consistent and Walmart wants you to have this community, this brand community that they’re trying to build. Well, this is just another level where that retail purchaser or that buyer wants to make sure that you are, your, your brand is consistent with whatever that store is, right? If it’s not, they’re, they’re just gonna pass you by. So if they can go and take a look at your Amazon listing, they see that you…

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