Amazon FBA Case Study: A Combat Strategy For Successful Product Launches

In the last episode, we went over the ins and outs of creating compelling imagery for your listing.

We talked about photography, graphic imagery, and more.

(If you missed it, click HERE)

In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to launch your product. We’ll specifically go over:

• Launch theory and philosophy
• What not to do during a launch
• How to use launches to your advantage
• Methods, strategies and mindset
• Why huge launches aren’t necessary
• How to get initial reviews
• How to leverage PPC during a launch

The Method

The reason most people “launch” their products on Amazon is so they can rank well for important keywords to get the necessary visibility to, ideally, start getting good sales velocity.

We’ll discuss the different launch methods but understand the purpose of Project X is to help you find low competition, high demand products that don’t require a traditional “launch.”

Our method has been to fill niche gaps so that costly marketing and promotions are not needed in the first place.

The How…

First, what does “launch” even mean?

This word can mean many things with regard to selling products on Amazon. Most definitions include the following:

Giveaways or discount promotions – promoting your product with a deep discount coupon code over a period of time to stimulate purchase velocity.

The purpose behind this is to filter those sales to specific keywords (usually) so that organic rank placement improves and therefore more people see the listing.

The problem with this method is that it requires selling your product at a loss, which can get costly. Further, the rank benefits are inconsistent; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Furthermore, even when it does work, the benefits don’t always last.

The other issue is that if you are launching a product for a keyword that requires this type of strategy (likely because of massive competition) chances are many others are doing the same. This creates a perpetual cycle of constant promotion that becomes even more costly.

So, how do we stop this cycle?

Pick the right product.

Choose the right keywords.

This isn’t to say that traditional launch methods don’t work. They can work, but need to be used strategically.

Tim’s Storming the Castle Method…

Let’s imagine that you have a product and you want to get TONS of sales for it every day through high visibility by ranking page one for big keywords.

That “holy grail” of sales is a castle. You and your product are in a little boat at sea heading toward that castle. Between you and your objective, there are waves, the shore, and some land.

If you simply steer your boat up to the beach, then run straight for the castle, you won’t get far. Castle defenses will take you out. This is what those traditional launches typically do. They try to attack the big, main keywords with brute force.

A more intelligent method would be to land on the beach and then stop. From the beach, you need to regroup, rest and gather strength.

How that translates to our situation is; when you choose the right products, you can simply land on the beach and make sales. Sales will come in through nothing more than good optimization and minimal PPC. They do not require a big launch.

Beach objectives:

• First few initial reviews
• Rank page one for longtail keywords
• Refine PPC
• Some sales volume (two to five products a day)
• More inventory (or refined inventory process)

Getting to this optimal place on “the beach” should take a few weeks. Maybe 30 to 45 days. Be patient. This is where you want to be before pushing forward to the “land”.

When it’s time to push forward, you’ll be stronger and more capable of overtaking the land in front of the castle, getting you closer to your end objective.

Land objectives:

• More PPC (mid to short-tail keywords)
• Promotions (search-find-buy)
• More reviews (try the Early Reviewer Program)

A quick note on following up…

You are allowed to send a message (or two or three) to buyers on Amazon. Helium 10 has a tool called Follow Up that allows you to automate this. And it is entirely ok to ask for reviews when you follow up.

There are other ways of getting reviews too, however. For example, you could find reviewers on Yelp, or other platforms where people passionately review things.

You may also host meetups in your local area to meet face to face with customers and get reviews through networking. The sky is the limit when it comes to creatively growing your business.

At this point, more reviews and PPC targeting higher volume keywords will push higher ranking and likely more daily sales. You may be perfectly happy with the results here. You may choose to stay on the “land” and not storm the castle.

If you do decide to go for the “castle” at least you’ll be in a much more stable position, with a fortified “army” that is more likely to get the job done.

And going for the castle is more of the same things that got you from the beach to the land…

Castle objectives:

• More PPC (targeting short tail, highly trafficked keywords)
• More Promotions (search-find-buy targeting big keywords)
• More reviews

On the next episode, we’ll show you our own results using this NOT storming the castle method.

Until then, as an Amazon buyer, when do YOU leave reviews?