#583 – Build An Unbeatable Amazon Brand

Can bold, provocative branding be the key to skyrocketing your success on Amazon? In this episode, we are joined by the insightful Emma Schermer Tamir of Marketing by Emma, as she unpacks the art of building an iconic brand that doesn’t just blend in but stands out in a crowded marketplace. Alongside Kevin King, Emma demystifies the elements of branding beyond mere logos and names, highlighting actionable strategies to boost profitability and customer lifetime value. Using the example of selling water, she makes a compelling case for unique value propositions and effective communication with target customers.

Discover how AI can be a game-changer for your Amazon branding strategy. We discuss powerful techniques for competitor analysis, from examining social media presence to dissecting customer feedback. Emma explains how AI tools can streamline this process, allowing you to build comprehensive customer avatars that include demographic details, emotional drivers, and cultural references. By examining the bold and provocative marketing strategies of Liquid Death, we showcase the importance of truly understanding your target audience and aligning your brand to meet their needs and expectations.

Creating and maintaining a cohesive and evolving brand identity is more critical than ever. Emma shares the importance of continuously updating your customer avatar to reflect the shifting behaviors and needs of your market. She further explores the concept of imagining your business as a person, ensuring that every aspect, from marketing to product packaging, aligns with this identity. Through the compelling case of Liquid Death, Emma illustrates how bold messaging and sustainability efforts can create a deep customer connection. We wrap up by emphasizing the strategic benefits of thoroughly understanding your competitors and customer preferences to cultivate a loyal and enthusiastic customer base.

In episode 583 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Kevin, and Emma discuss:

• 00:00 – Building an Iconic Brand on Amazon
• 02:06 – Copywriting and Branding Expert Interview
• 05:26 – Building a Profitable Water Business
• 13:14 – The Edgy Marketing of Liquid Death
• 14:44 – Differentiating Brand on Amazon With AI
• 18:08 – Powerful Branding Strategies
• 21:56 – Creating a Strong Brand Identity
• 30:02 – Effective Brand Storytelling for Communication
• 33:50 – Elevating Brand Strategy for Customer Connection

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

What’s involved in creating an iconic brand that’s going to differentiate yourself on Amazon. Today, we’re going to bring an expert guest who’s going to let you know everything you’ve got to do. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series of Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our monthly Freedom Ticket Extra Training. Now, these trainings that we do live are basically us bringing on expert guests who are going to train on a specific topic and then it’s going to go into your Freedom Ticket program. So for those of you who have Freedom Ticket, you can catch all of the old ones that we’ve done. Now this month, we brought along Kevin King and Emma Tamir, who is going to talk about differentiating yourself on Amazon. So what’s important is to understand that you can’t just have a random brand and be successful long term on Amazon without doing anything to kind of differentiate yourself or build that brand on Amazon. So Emma is going to go ahead and let us know what we have to do in order to have those building blocks for long-term success as a brand on Amazon. All right, Kevin, go ahead and introduce our guest for this month.

Kevin King:

Our guest today is one of the top people when it comes to copywriting. She’s not just a great list writer, a copywriter her company but she’s also really, really good at branding. And that’s what she’s going to be talking about today. I bet 95% of you actually don’t have a brand. I bet you don’t. You think you do. You probably have a name, you probably have a logo, maybe you’re registered with Brand Registry on Amazon, but that is not a brand. That is not a brand. Our guest today is going to be talking about how you actually make that a brand.

Kevin King:

When you think of a brand, think of Coca-Cola. If Coca-Cola, everybody knows that no matter what business you’re in, it doesn’t matter if you’re in IT, if you’re in hospitals, if you’re in whatever it is everybody knows that throughout the world. That’s a true brand. It stands for something. And if you just see part of their logo, if you just saw just the cursive L or just the little, the red color, you would instantly know who that is. Or, like Nike, if you just saw the swoosh without any names, without anything, or just part of the swoosh, you would know exactly who that is. Or Amazon, even with the smile. Those are real brands. And to get to that point is not easy. But if you can do that, you can crush on Amazon, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today and it’s going to be some valuable information. So I hope you pay attention and can implement some of what she’s going to be talking about into what you’re doing on Amazon. So if you would please welcome Emma to the stage.

Emma:

Thank you for that introduction, Kevin. I think you bring up such an important caveat to enter into this conversation, which is that most of us really misunderstand what brand is and really limit ourselves in a way that isn’t just looking at things in a more narrow context, but is also taking away opportunities that we have to be able to really grow and differentiate our businesses and drive profitability. And brand is an incredibly powerful tool for doing that, but it also requires a lot of thought, a lot of strategy and a lot of continuous, constant effort, and so in today’s presentation, my goal is to give you some really actionable, valuable tools that you can use to begin to really dig in to the nitty gritty of building not just a business but a brand.

Emma:

So what one thing can help you do? Everything from boost profitability to convert more traffic, increase customer lifetime value, dominate the competition, on, on and on and on. Of course, we are talking about brand. That is not a surprise. For a little bit of background about me, my name is Emma Schirmer-Temir. I am the CEO and co-founder of Marketing by Emma. That gentleman to the left of me is my husband and business partner, Erez, and since 2016, we’ve been helping businesses really dig in and figure out what makes them unique and then how to communicate that with their target customers so that they’re really able to dominate the competition on Amazon and beyond, on whatever channels it is that they are wanting to sell on. So take a look at this glass and I just want you to think about what you see when you look at it. And then I want you to think about is this something that you would build a business around? We can’t really innovate on the product itself. Sure, you can add electrolytes or flavor or make it fizzy, perhaps you can source it from a different place, but at the end of the day, water is water is water, and so if you were tasked with needing to sell this water and build a business around this, what are you able to do to actually build a profitable business If you have to compete in a flooded market like water and I would like to take a moment to apologize for the puns that are going to be following, because I cannot help myself and I love a good pun and water just lends itself to that.

Emma:

So we’re competing in a flooded market like water. Some of the things that might be running through your head are it’s too competitive. Why would I even try to compete selling water, you might say we’ll be the cheapest, which that’s going to prove to be really difficult, because you have large companies like Dasani and Evian and huge multinational corporations that have an economy of scale that you’re probably never going to have. Maybe you’re a rare case of you have a brand already and you feel like you can just lean on that. You know that people recognize you and so why wouldn’t they also want to buy water from you? You could take the approach of let’s just drive more traffic and be really aggressive with advertising and our marketing and we will just out market everyone else. Or you could take more of a content marketing approach and say we’re going to identify some key influencers and spokespeople and leverage their notoriety and fame to grow our business. And the problem with all of these options is that none of them are sustainable long-term solutions. Some of them could very quickly send you to running out of money and just not able to compete anymore. Others are very vulnerable to other competitors coming in and just being able to outmaneuver or outbid you, and we see even that star power isn’t enough to actually help a brand be successful.

Emma:

So by this point. You’re probably realizing that what we’re getting to is brand can actually be that thing that you can use to build a successful business, even around something as ubiquitous as water. So today we’re going to be going over the three C’s of building an unbeatable brand. Those are serving the competitive landscape, developing a customer avatar and doing a deep dive of your company identity. And when you’re able to do all three of these things really effectively, you begin to lay the foundations for something that isn’t just a business but is truly a brand, obviously with aspirations like Coca-Cola and Apple and all of those large companies, but even if you never achieve that level of recognition, you can still build a far more profitable and a far more sustainable business by doing these things.

Emma:

So, step one we need to survey the competitive landscape, so asking the question what sets you apart from all of the other people that you’re competing against? And we’re going through these three C’s in order, but this isn’t a situation where you do one and then the next, and then the next. I really want you to think about this as a constant loop where you’re continuously doing each of these things, and it’s also not a set it and forget it exercise. These are questions that you should be constantly revisiting, no matter what stage of business you’re in. So, whether you’re in the stage of still ideating and getting ready to launch your first product, or you’re a very established business and you’re trying to figure out how to stay competitive when now you have all of these copycats that have entered the arena, these are questions and strategies that you can use to continue to maintain that competitive edge or to really give your business a great shot at success from the get-go. So we’re trying to sell water. Here are a variety of different bottled waters that we are trying to compete against, and if we look at these, we see a lot of similarities. So most of them are blue, which is no surprise, since we associate blue with water. They’re also all very natural and sort of life-sustaining kind of names and imagery that’s being used. Life water, smart water. It’s more or less the same. Perrier is the exception of being in a green bottle, but it’s still really not that unique, and most of these are not something that you are going to feel committed to drinking. They’re just going to be whatever you can find that is most convenient for you. So if you’re at the airport, you’ll choose the bottle that’s the cheapest or the biggest or has a little bit of extra electrolytes, but it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Smart Water or Life Water.

Emma:

I don’t think that many of you feel a strong emotional connection to that Aquafina that you’re drinking, just because that was what was convenient for you. So what do you do? You could be like Liquid Death, and Liquid Death is a very they like to ruffle feathers with their marketing, so some of their, some of the content that I’m sharing today, may be a little bit edgy. So I just want to have you keep that in mind. But also, I don’t necessarily say all of this to tell you that you need to be incredibly provocative with your marketing. The reason why I chose this example is because it makes it very clear what they’re doing, so that you can identify how they are choosing to be different and how they are really thinking about all of these things. And so, even if you’re selling something and your brand, you want to be very gentle and nurturing and very comforting. You can do all of these things as well. It’s just going to obviously look different. So liquid death right off the bat. We see they’re in a can, which that’s not revolutionary. However, they are in a taller can and they look very reminiscent of either a beer can, something like Guinness, which, if you were to look up the Guinness logo, you would see that they are very, very similar. I think Liquid Death was heavily inspired by the Guinness logo or by a energy drink can, and that is on purpose. They almost want you to mistake their water for an alcoholic or energy drink beverage. So the lore has it that the founders of this water company, they were noticing that at rock concerts, musicians didn’t really want to be drinking water on stage because it wasn’t cool, it didn’t go with their edgy rock star personas, and so they were sometimes pouring water into energy drink or alcohol containers so that people would think that they were cool and drinking those other beverages, when really they were just trying to stay hydrated because they’re sweating from being on stage and jumping around so much. And so they recognized that there was an opportunity here to make water cool and to make water edgy in a way that hadn’t been done before. And so you see, these hashtags murder your thirst. Death to plastic. They are really leaning into this whole rock star, edgy, oppositional stance. That is totally the opposite, a complete contrast to all of these waters here, like if you’re thinking about how they present themselves and then liquid death. They couldn’t be more different.

Emma:

So we have to think outside of the bottle when we are looking at the competition. We want to read reviews, we want to look at how our competitors are showing up on social media, both visually, as well as the types of topics that they’re creating, content around, the language that they’re using and who they’re speaking to, and are there customer groups that are being left out or excluded from what’s happening in these other companies already, or are there interests that are not being identified with? Or are there other things and opportunities that you have that you can identify as a way to begin to start to differentiate yourself, because, ultimately, we need to be able to give customers a reason why they should choose us over all of the other options out there. And on Amazon this is even more important because, unlike a website, on Amazon you have pages and pages and pages of competitors that customers are deliberating in between, and so if you don’t help them understand why you are the best option for their needs, then it’s going to be very easy to lose out on that sale to somebody that has more reviews, or is cheaper or has better brand recognition. So this is where that starts and really getting clear on where can I build out my own little space within this category that I can truly own? And you can then take this to the next level by using AI. So using your favorite AI chatbot to review all of the reviews, for example, to be able to identify what people are saying they wish they had but didn’t, to give you profiles on what customers like and dislike and give you a lot of information to be able to start digesting all of these things, so that you’re not having to go one by one, by one, through reviews or through blogs or through ads or whatever it is that you are trying to begin to decipher.

Emma:

We’ve started to get clear about our competitive landscape. The next step of this is to develop out a customer avatar, and, if you’re not familiar with that term, a customer avatar is a profile of your target customer, the person that you are imagining when you’re thinking about your ideal customer, and this needs to be incredibly specific so that when somebody reads your customer avatar, they understand exactly who that person is not just their physical appearance, but all of the interests that they have, the emotional drivers that influence the decisions that they make, the cultural references that they use, all of these different aspects begin to paint a picture so that we are not just talking to a general, broad group, but so that we’re able to talk to a really specific individual. So who is your target customer? Liquid Death it’s just so fascinating what they’ve built because they know exactly who their customers are, so much so that people are tattooing their logo on their bodies. They’ve sold over $3 million in 2023 just on merch, in other words, products that customers are buying to advertise their company for free. Well, not even for free, they’re making a profit by having other people advertise for them, and so if we look at their social media and we go to the tagged photos on social media, we start to get a very clear idea of who their customers are. So we see somebody that they it looks like they’re at a cemetery. The bottom middle, it looks like, is somebody that’s in the back room, perhaps of a music venue or some other kind of grungy space, and so we’re getting a very clear picture of who their customers are, and we’re seeing that all of the things that they’re doing are done to speak directly to that customer, and that’s what makes things really much more powerful, because if they were just saying, drink water because it makes you feel better, it makes you feel good or it’s the essence of life, that doesn’t really mean anything, that doesn’t speak to any one person. But when you say, murder your thirst, that’s going to speak to a very specific group of people.

Emma:

And the other thing to keep in mind is that when you get clear about who your customers are, it also means getting clear about who your customers aren’t, and that is incredibly powerful because it gives brands the ability to say things to customers and to make choices that are going to absolutely delight and drive stronger connection with their customers, while also being unafraid that it’s going to turn other people away, and every single piece of marketing that Liquid Death does demonstrates this so clearly, because they truly have some very provocative boundary pushing marketing that makes a lot of people angry, but they do that because they understand that the people that get it it’s just going to make them like it even more. So we need to obsess over our customers and it’s not just thinking about who they are and building out that profile which, by the way, this is another place where you can incorporate AI into this process to begin to build that out. So if you have some details or even have, it doesn’t have to be just about your customer. If you have some general ideas about the kind of brand that you want to create, you can ask something like ChatGPT or Quad or whatever tool you prefer to build out a customer avatar for you based on that information, and what’s really helpful about that is then you have something to work with. So whenever you’re integrating AI into any of these steps, you don’t want to simply hand over the keys and let AI make the decisions for you about what kind of brand you want to build or what kind of customer you want to market to, but it can give you some really great insights, a really good starting point that then you can iterate on and think about and expand upon as you dive deeper, as you think more strategically and as you gain more clarity.

Emma:

Another point to consider is your customers may evolve over time. So for those of you that already have businesses, when was the last time that you built out a customer avatar? If it was two years ago, it’s very possible that either those customers have grown and changed and are thinking about other things in their lives, or maybe there are other customers that you hadn’t considered, that are a better fit for your brand, that are not really reflected in your marketing, and so this is also something that you want to be thinking about. It’s not static, just like we as humans are not static. And in tandem, then, we want to think about how we can apply this knowledge of the customer to all of the decisions that we’re making. So, if we are thinking about our Amazon listing and presenting the main features of the product, we need to be asking why those features matter specifically to those customers, because every single feature can have a wide range of different benefits that are going to speak to a wide range of different customers, and so when we are positioning our business and our brand on something like a product page, we need to be thinking about what those specific points are and what those filters are that are going to really speak to the customer in a meaningful way.

Emma:

And the last stage again, this isn’t a one, two, three, but a continuous cycle is to build your brand identity. So, exactly what you did with the customer avatar, you now want to turn on your business, and you want to be thinking about who your business is and how you want to present yourself and what kind of identity you want to embody in the world. And a really great way of doing this is to actually think about if your business were a human being, what would they be interested in? So truly building out that customer avatar, but for your business, so that every single person that reads that understands who your business is and who your business is trying to be. And this is incredibly helpful whenever you are working with contractors or a team. Having this tool helps people everywhere, from customer service to creative to product development make decisions in a more unified way that are going to embody how you want to be presenting yourself. Because if you just say we have a sense of humor, there are many different senses of humor, and a Seinfeld sense of humor is very different than a family guy sense of humor, and so those little nuances are incredibly important when we’re thinking about choices of design, of choices of language and any way that the business is going to be interacting with other people in the world.

Emma:

So, as I mentioned, if your brand were a person, how would you describe them? These are a few little snippets from Liquid Death’s website and you can see that every single piece is so clear about who they are and how they want to present themselves. So you’re not signing up for the newsletter. They’re saying want free horror scopes. You’re not just joining a fan club, you are joining the Liquid Death Country Club, which includes selling your soul to join the club. One of their merch items is I believe they call it a flasket, which is a casket-shaped flask. So all of these choices are with a strong sense of who they are and they’re embodying it visually and they’re embodying it with the way that they are communicating and it all tells a story and it is all in line because if they were to just say, sign up for our newsletter or join our fan club, sure they would get, I’m sure, people to sign up. But when they take this extra step to say, want free horoscopes or sell your soul, those are things that have a sense of humor and that are going to speak really strongly to who their core customer group is and through that they’re going to get a chuckle. They’re going to be excited about it. They’re going to post about it online. They’re going to tell their friends about it, and so that extra thought, that extra depth of strategy makes all of these things have so much more impact than simply filling a space or checking a box on a website.

Emma:

So you need to go bold. You need to really. I mean, look at this image. We have a monster, liquid death with heads floating around. They say one of their hashtags is death to plastic, and that’s another thing that’s quite interesting with their whole mission is they also have a sustainability bend to them. So their cans aren’t just in cans because they want to be different. There is intentionality and thought behind putting them in cans, because they have chosen aluminum for its infinite recyclability, so it’s a more recyclable material than plastic. So they are differentiating both aesthetically, but also on the substance itself, and making choices that they can then communicate about through all of these different efforts that they’re taking. So with something like water, but also with almost any category that you’re selling in, it’s very unlikely that the product itself is going to be all that different. Of course, I’m sure some of you are inventors, some of you have, probably you have patents on really amazing things that you’ve created, but I imagine that there are also a lot of other people here that perhaps there’s a little bit of differentiation within your product, but not enough that that in and of itself is going to be a strong enough reason for customers to want to buy your product over the myriad of other options out there. And so by doing this, by digging deeper, by being clear about what makes you different, who your customers are and who your brand identity is, you are able to give people a reason to want to choose you, not just because you’re the cheapest, not just because you were the first one to pop up, but they specifically want to buy from you. And then you need to make sure that that is consistent and cohesive across all of the different places where people might be encountering you. So if you say that you are committed to sustainability, but your product arrives in a lot of excess packaging, that is not in line with who you say you are and what you say you care about. And customers are going to recognize that, especially if the reason they chose you is because sustainability is also a core value that’s really important to them.

Emma:

And through all of this, you can also dig a little bit deeper, develop out a distinct voice, utilize different aspects of storytelling and a lot of other things that are a bit meatier to get into than what we have time today. However, if you would like some recommendations of books, I would strongly strongly recommend building a story brand as a book to check out if you want to take all of this to the next level and bring in storytelling not just to your about page but really how you position and present your entire business. So we have the three C’s, we have the competitive survey, we have the customer avatar and we have the company identity, and then we want to balance the equation. And so on the other side of that, we want communication, we want connection and we want conversions. So when you’re combining all of those C’s together, that’s what the outcome is. We are giving people opportunities to connect with what we’re doing in a way that makes them want to continue coming back to tell their friends about their products, so that you’re not just that product that they bought on Amazon, but this brand that is so awesome and you absolutely have to hear all about it. It’s also even when you are putting together something like a product page or a website. We can sometimes make the mistake of thinking of that as just something static, but a really effective piece of marketing actually helps to facilitate conversation so that when somebody is looking at it or reading it, they’re thinking about themselves and they’re reflecting on the problem that they’re trying to solve or the excitement that they’re going to feel when they finally get this product. And so by doing all of these things, you are able to really encourage more communication. And then, of course, what we’re all after more conversions. So actually driving more sales. 

Emma:

And you want to be infusing these into everything that you’re doing, including your premium A plus content, your brand story, your product images, your storefront, your website, your social media, your customer service, your packaging. Anything that is interacting with another human being in the world is contributing to how people perceive your brand. It’s as Kevin mentioned at the very beginning. Your brand is not just your logo, it’s not just your colors. It is all of these things building on each other. It’s evolving and changing over time, and the more intentional that you can be about it, the more impactful of a brand you can build and you open up a whole world of possibilities and potential. I would also love to take a moment to offer you a free listing analysis. So, if you’ve heard all of this and you’re like, wow, this sounds really great. I think I’m doing this okay, or not at all. You can scan the QR code or go to marketingbyemma.com/freeanalysis to get a free analysis, meaning that we will take a look at your listing and identify some of those things that you can do to make your listing that much more impactful. And if you want to do those yourself, fantastic. If you would like our help, we would be happy to explore that with you as well. If I can leave you with one final thought, it’s to really encourage you to bring curiosity to all of these things. So to get curious about why are customers choosing my competitors over me? What are those things that our competitors are doing better that we can be inspired by, not to copy, but to think about and use and strategize to create an even stronger business? And what is it that my customers care about that I can use as a way to be able to drive stronger connection? And how can I maybe be a little bit bolder with my branding, knowing that it might turn some people away, but that the end result is having a more loyal, committed group of customers that are excited to buy from me over and over and over again? With that you would like to reach out? Here are all the ways that you can find me.

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