Why do some product listings on Amazon show up as the first search results? Why do some listings get more sales and reviews than others? Can Amazon be helpful to product marketers who already have a dedicated e-commerce site?
Joining us to address these questions, and more, is Tim Dworianyn, an e-commerce expert whose agency, Awesome Dynamic, has consistently doubled the sales of several businesses on Amazon for the last ten years. Awesome Dynamic is also our go-to resource for Harvest Growth clients who need to grow sales on Amazon. If you want to know how your business can perform better on Amazon, this episode is for you. Listen to it now!
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
The exact strategies that a product marketing business used to double its sales every 12 months for several years.
The implication of including Amazon in your marketing and distribution mix.
Growing sales on Amazon using ethical techniques to avoid penalties.
How to make an Amazon product listing that stands out, ranks highly, and converts.
And so much more!
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you choose to listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands that now total over $2 billion in revenues? Set up a free consultation with us today!
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
Jon LaClare: Today's guest shares exactly how his agency helped a product marketing client double their Amazon sales in the first year they worked together and how they've at least doubled their business every year since then for the past several years. If you want to know how your business can perform better on Amazon, you're going to love this interview.
Speaker: Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know. Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now, here's the host of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare.
Jon: Welcome back to the show today. I'm really excited to be talking with one of our favorite vendors. Tim Dworianyn works for Awesome Dynamic. Now, they're a vendor that helps out a lot of our clients with Amazon efforts. As many of you know, our company, Harvest Growth, we specialize in video marketing, video production, and then marketing media on Facebook, Instagram, other digital platforms, as well as national TV.
When we have a need, and many of our clients do, to also market their products on Amazon, Awesome Dynamic is a top resource for us that helps out many of our clients. We'll dive in today to talk about Amazon as a platform and some advice for you if you are on the platform already and need to improve, or if you're looking to get on for the first time, Tim is a true expert in this field, as is his company, and we'll dive into some of those details as we get into it. First of all, Tim, I want to welcome you to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Tim Dworianyn: Thank you, Jon.
Jon: I'll let you do a little bit more of an introduction. Your company, your agency is called Awesome Dynamic. Can you tell us about Awesome Dynamic and what you guys do?
Tim: Absolutely. Awesome Dynamic, we started quite a while back, is actually a company started by my brother, who was mostly doing SEO and web development. We had found that our clients were really wanting to get their products sold through some kind of e-commerce platform. While it can be beneficial to develop your own website and look at driving traffic there, Amazon was really starting to grow about 10 years ago. That's when I came on board to his company to really help guide the transition towards helping our clients get listed on Amazon, help them market their product on Amazon, and really just expand from that point to now also doing Walmart. We really do just about anything within the Amazon or Walmart platforms, everything from listing creation, content optimization, PPC, advertising management, video development, in terms of figuring out what the right strategy is for you, all the way up to account management and training.
Jon: Fantastic. 10 years is quite a tenure working in the Amazon world. Obviously, they've been around for 20-plus years as a company, but as I've seen it, we've been in the product space for a long time. It really is around 10 years ago. It's been the last decade that growth has really skyrocketed and it's become such an important platform. They were big before, they're massive now and getting more and more important for product marketers.
You mentioned Walmart.com as well. When we talk e-commerce, that typically means, for our audiences' benefit, e-retailers or retail e-commerce like Amazon, like Walmart.com, and that's certainly where your expertise lies as a company. What do you see as some of the differences maybe between Amazon and Walmart.com so far?
Tim: We see Walmart as almost where Amazon was about 10 years ago. At first, when we saw that Walmart was really starting to push their marketplace for third party sellers to sell on their platform, much like you do with Amazon, it was very early stages and really wasn't standing out amongst anyone else, but over the last, I would say, two to three years, we saw that they were really becoming a significant presence within the e-commerce space. We therefore decided that we were going to more or less officially start supporting it for our clients.
We had been doing it more on an unofficial capacity for a number of years before that. While Walmart isn't as big as, let's say, Amazon is in the e-commerce space, they're absolutely growing and bringing some possible, much needed competition to the e-commerce space.
Jon: Absolutely. I like your comparison like Amazon was 10 years ago. I think 10 years ago it was big, Amazon was, but it was easier maybe to be successful than it is today. You've got to do a lot more just because there's more competition, but it's a little more of the Wild West with-- Walmart, obviously, is a massive company, but their e-commerce side is newer. It's different. You can potentially find different paths to success, but important really to do both.
Let's jump back real quick to Amazon. Why do you think-- I guess we could talk either platform, but if we think e-commerce, so if I'm a product marketer and I've got a website, it's doing well, why is Amazon important? How does that drive a difference or drive growth for a business that may not be on Amazon?
Tim: Amazon is one of the first places people do a lot of product research and it's usually the go to place that someone will look at. Being on Amazon is really important in the first place, but also showing up at the top of search within Amazon is just as important, if not more, at that point.
Jon: Absolutely. That's a good point. The product research, for example, we do a lot in the TV space as well as other platforms, and it's amazing how many people, when you've got a solid Amazon presence, even though we'll put the website everywhere and maybe not even mention Amazon. On Facebook, you have a button that clicks you right directly to the website, but you'll still get a good percentage of traffic that goes right to Amazon. They search for it there, as you said, it's where they research, it's trustworthy for the most part, reviews on Amazon, so they feel-- Also free shipping, Amazon Prime, et cetera. There's a lot of benefits that heavy Amazon shoppers, people that shop a lot there, there's a reason they go there. As you said, important to be there.
Tim: Yes. We even suggest to a lot of clients that they think about driving a lot of their marketed traffic towards Amazon instead of their own website, mostly because there's a lot of trust and conversion rates can be a lot higher when they end up going to Amazon because of that trust factor, because of the benefits that buyers have.
Jon: Have you had experience or success- Some of our clients have had mixed results. -of driving traffic into Amazon from other places. I know you guys specialize in Amazon itself, but do you see some of your clients seeing success? Whether it's we see it from TV, but also from Facebook, Instagram, but there's some nuances to it. What have you seen in terms of driving traffic in from outside sources?
Tim: Clients that is implementing a well rounded solution of driving traffic both from within Amazon's own advertising and marketing options as well as outside of Amazon are the ones that tend to see the most success on Amazon, but also just e-commerce in general. It's not just a one stop shop you just advertise on Amazon and that's everything, but you really should be trying to play the whole field.
Jon: Do you see some things that people should watch out for? One example that I've heard sometimes is if we send a lot of traffic, let's say from Facebook into Amazon, it may convert at a lower rate than internal Amazon traffic and that can push down your listing and the ranking. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Maybe other techniques that people should be aware of as they do focus on sending traffic in.
Tim: Absolutely. There's a term that Amazon likes to throw around a lot called relevancy. Amazon takes the relevancy of your product listing when it comes to helping it rank in search results. So yes, if you are driving to traffic that ends up not converting properly, then that can certainly hurt your overall ranking. That's why it's so important that not only do you have your message and everything proper when it comes to driving that right traffic to Amazon, but also having a great listing that is properly optimized and improved so that those viewers turn into purchases.
Ever since we started working in Amazon 10 years ago, that has always been the core thing before you really focus on much else, is making sure that you have a solid listing that is able to really convert those views into sales. Amazon has been doing a lot to improve their product listings, such as A-Plus content, the ability to add videos to your listing, and really just a lot of other options to help make sure that the buyer really, truly understands what they're purchasing and giving brand owners and sellers an opportunity to convey that message properly and get those sales.
Jon: Awesome. When you guys work on a listing, what are some things you focus on to really make sure it's going to be a high-performing listing?
Tim: We always start with keyword research and competition analysis. That's going to give us an idea of what customers are really looking for on Amazon and what niches within the Amazon platform are really not being met properly. It also allows us to see what others are doing within this space so that we know what we really have to live up to in terms of the quality of the content that we create.
At that point, it's really a matter of creating a compelling copy that is not only able to convert viewers into actual buyers, but also ones that are able to target those keywords so that it is showing up higher in search results. At that point, it's really a matter of just having great imagery. That has been a really important part. There's a lot of people who now shop on mobile as opposed to desktop platforms, and mobile users are going to first and foremost only see the title, the image, the price, and that's about it, before they have to scroll down, so they're not going to see a lot of your written copy that you have developed for that listing.
It is almost just as important, if not more important nowadays, to have infographics and images that are able to convey those important selling points about a product within the imagery itself because some will just swipe through those pictures and make a buying decision right then and there based off of what they see there. Videos are becoming just as important nowadays, Amazon's video play is really big nowadays, they're adding more places to add videos, not only to the listing but an advertising and other marketing opportunities, so having all those bases covered is going to give you the best chance of getting those conversions.
Jon: Absolutely. One of the clients-- We've sent clients your way over the years and vice versa, and we're so grateful for that. One of the clients you brought to us that was doing really well on Amazon let us know that upon your guidance, you guys helped us to figure out what type of video to produce or shoot for their listing, their sales doubled. I was flabbergasted. We've heard many results since then right now that we've learned really that process through you guys, but it is amazing the imagery or video, how that can really impact a listing like that, and obviously, we hope to see many more like that and we have quite a few since where it's just these results go up when you've got great images to be able to share with the audiences that get to Amazon.
Tim: Yes, absolutely. It's really been so impactful having those graphics and video and everything to cater to those people who- that really resonates well with them.
Jon: Absolutely. Outside of the listing, you talked to some great advice on really how to make a listing stand out or perform or convert well. What else, what other maybe nuggets of strategy that you guys focus on to help a campaign work? Outside the listing, how do you get people within Amazon to see your clients' pages?
Tim: Advertising on Amazon has been a really important part of the overall sales process, and again, 10 years ago, you were able to create a great listing that had fantastic SEO and you could convert sales through there and be ranked really well, Amazon has really become a pay-to-play space nowadays where you do need to leverage their PPC advertising or even some of their other advertising opportunities depending on what is viable for your particular situation.
That said, advertising is always evolving. They're always adding a lot more options in there, and it's something that is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing within the Amazon platform. It's important to make sure that you keep on top of not only the latest strategies and ways to be able to set up your advertising within Amazon, but also it's important to make sure you keep up with optimizing it so that it is cost-effective to run and also getting you those views and the growth that you really want within the platform.
Jon: Yes, that's a great point. We had a client a long time ago that we helped get on Amazon just from a very basic standpoint, we are not an Amazon agency internally, and did set it, forget it, it performed actually pretty well for a long time, and we brought them over to you guys once they really grew and to really fine tune that campaign, and likewise those results have skyrocketed because they have the resources, the ability to pay attention to it, so we were doing everything else outside of Amazon and you guys have really helped to skyrocket it, and it took that attention, it's not as simple as it maybe once was years ago.
Tim: Yes. We use a combination of both manual techniques and strategies with third-party software nowadays to actually manage a lot of the day-to-day bid adjustments and things that are really necessary to help make sure that you are not only winning against the competition but doing it in a profitable way.
Jon: Yes. That's a great point. Give me examples of stories, products that have come across your desk over the past 10 years that really stand out, have seen great success on Amazon.
Tim: Yes. Going back to about when we started this whole thing, we had a client that was selling pretty much on just their e-commerce platform that we were helping with their website and SEO, and this is how we really fell into the whole Amazon space, is they were accidentally selling on Amazon and making about $300,000 a year. Not a bad situation to be in. They made different acrylic and plastic products, and as a manufacturer, they had the capabilities of producing a lot of products, developing a lot of products in-house that met the needs of certain clients, and with our help of improving their listings, helping them develop different- helping them really develop new products that seem to match what the audience really needs within Amazon, we were able to help them double within the first year and pretty much more than double every year that we've worked with them beyond that.
That was mostly just based off of focusing on great imagery, good listing content, in terms of having optimized listings, a great copy that focuses on the targeted keywords that you need for the products and really just focusing on what really needs to be done so that you can maximize the traffic that is within the Amazon space. We've taken a lot of those things that we've really learned over the years and continued to add more services that we do on top of that, that really helps our clients succeed.
Jon: Fantastic. Great story. Like you said, it does take work, it's not an easy solution, but it's certainly a process that can be repeated, especially when you have the expertise and experience that you guys have. Tim, are there any resources that you find or have found helpful in your marketing career, especially over these past 10 years that have helped you to be successful?
Tim: Being in this space over quite a long time, we've noticed that there are a lot of blogs in a lot of conferences that have become very useful to us, and specifically, we've found that different conferences that are put on over the year, there's like a boost conference that's really helpful for networking and really trying to meet other people within this space and trying to learn as much as possible about the Amazon platform, there's also different blogs out there like the Helium 10 blog that is very valuable, they cover a lot of the stuff that we don't, that helps a lot of people succeed on Amazon. There's also just a lot of subreddits that are extremely helpful of a lot of firsthand knowledge being shared by other sellers within this space that has been very helpful. There's a ton of podcasts and there's a ton of blogs and everything that are out there.
It's sometimes hard, though, to find things that go beyond just a lot of the basic cookie-cutter solutions. What we have found is that we have internally developed a knowledge base based off of our experience in working within all of these different accounts that seems to go far beyond what a lot of our clients are really looking for when it comes to a lot of those different resources. We do have our own blog as well that has a lot of very useful information that can help clients succeed as well. Jon: Is your blog just on your website, awesomedynamic.com?
Tim: Yes, awesomedynamic.com, you'll be able to find that blog link right on there.
Jon: That's great advice, finding the right resources like your blog and some others out there that are really on the cutting edge, because it does change, Amazon, like any other platform nowadays, changes sometimes on a daily basis, so staying on top of those trends and understanding what works today as opposed to even a month ago is so important as you get through this. That's a great set of resources to think about and to share. Well, is there anything, Tim, that I didn't ask you think could be helpful for our audience?
Tim: Just if you ever do end up wanting to work with an e-commerce consultant like Awesome Dynamic, it's really important to make sure you really know who you're working with. We've found that a lot of clients are working with e-commerce consultants that really just do not meet their needs, and it's important to make sure you do your research to- and this comes with any consultant or agency that you end up working with, make sure you do your research, look at their case studies, look at their reviews, and especially when it comes to Amazon or Walmart, make sure you really work with a company that has a lot of experience and is very careful to make sure that you work with an Amazon's policies.
That is a really big thing, as there's a lot of black hat, gray hat tactics that are implemented out there and it is just so risky nowadays to try to use those because we see accounts being suspended and I can tell you that almost every client that is really careful and works with us, we rarely ever see an account get suspended based off of the recommendations and actions that our clients take.
Jon: That's fantastic and it is true, it does happen. If you try to do it yourself, honest mistakes happen. You call it black hat and sometimes there are people that do it on purpose and some people stumble into it, doing something incorrectly and you can get dinged for that from Amazon. They take things very seriously for sure, so it's great advice. I will say, if anyone has any questions, please reach out to awesomedynamic.com. There's contact information on that website to reach out to Tim or someone from his team to learn more on how they might be able to help you. You can always reach out to us at harvestgrowth.com as well if you want to hear about our experience and our clients that we've shared with Awesome Dynamic over the years and any personal stories you'd like to hear. Tim, I really want to thank you for the time you took today, this has really been valuable. I took some great notes and I'm sure our audience did as well. Wish you the best of luck. Thanks so much.
Tim: Great. Thanks, Jon.
Jon: For the listeners, please visit awesomedynamic.com, if you want to learn how to perform better with your Amazon business. If you liked this episode, you want to learn more about how you can profitably grow your consumer product business in Amazon and outside of it, please subscribe to our show. Or you can set up an appointment right from our website, harvestgrowth.com, to speak directly with a member of the Harvest Growth team in a free consultation to learn the process that has worked for hundreds of businesses since 2007.
[music]
[00:21:10] [END OF AUDIO]