Most of us are not in a position to host something as huge as Amazon Prime Day in our respective businesses. But there are quite a few things we can take from the mega-seller that can help us get people excited about our business and spending an influx of money with us.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Amazon Prime Day is a day (this year, two) where Amazon reveals deep savings across their many departments on specific items. They have Lightning Deals that are available at a specific time and when they sell out, they’re gone (except for a waitlist on some items).
Prime Day uses a lot of the same psychological selling drivers that stores do on Black Friday. Even though you may not be able to replicate their efforts on the same level that they do, you can incorporate a lot of the tactics to achieve greater sales results in your business. In this article, we’ll show you how.
Lessons from Amazon Prime Day
Here are some ways you can do what Amazon does even with a small business budget.
Scarcity
This is the main purchase driver on Prime Day. First of all, savings are only available for 1-2 days. Second, items sell out. People feel the need to make emotional purchase decisions quickly, especially on lightning deals, because they see the status bar, which illustrates the percentage claimed (of the deal).
How you can incorporate this idea: if you have a website, you can add a discounted product or service for a short period of time. Use a status bar to indicate time left in deal or quantity of item left. This gives people a reason not to put the purchase off.
Big Reveals
Amazon doesn’t tell everyone all of what will be on sale on Prime Day. They may leak a few items. This year it was mainly their own electronics/devices, but for the most part, they build things up to a very exciting reveal. By keeping the exact deals a secret, they generate a lot of buzz and logins to their site.
How you can incorporate this idea: Use social media, your website, your blog, and email marketing to tease your audience about your big deals. But don’t tell your audience what they will be ahead of time. Tell them when they will be ready or when the reveal will occur. Use a countdown clock to drive excitement.
Enlist Bloggers and Social Media Influencers
Another thing Amazon does is enlist the help of influencers to talk about their products or make guesses about what will be on sale. Some examples are leaked, and in Amazon’s case, that generally turns into an article or blog post. If you have a smaller business, local new sources may cover your special sale but only if it’s significantly driven by loss leaders at a time when other things aren’t going on. However, reaching out to local couponing and frugal moms may provide a lot of coverage.
How you can incorporate this idea: build these relationships before your sale. Contacting a savings blogger the day before and asking them to talk about you isn’t likely to work. Instead, get to know these groups and organizations before you host your special day. Provide value and build the relationship and they will return the favor. Remember, if you’re allowing them access to information others don’t have, they can look like stars to their tribe by breaking the “story” early. Think of ways you can make them look amazing to their audience.
Set Aside a Day
Again, selecting a one-day event (or even a few hours) drives action and causes people to drop what they’re doing to check out what you have. While you likely won’t announce all of your deals ahead of time, you do need to announce when the savings start and end. This places urgency behind their actions.
How you can incorporate this idea: Publicize the day and times of the savings across all of your digital marketing.
Livestream the Event
Amazon incorporated video this year, livestreaming product demos. These videos are now available to watch on the site. While at times it resembled a cable shopping network with demos, some videos showed professional interior designers doing things like patio makeovers and featuring the products they used or organizational experts. getting ready for college and the products they suggest bringing.
How you can incorporate this idea: a lot came together on these videos so it might not be doable for a small business but what you can do is videos on how to use your products or services, demos, or Q&As. You can also take a cue from Amazon and find ways to tie products or services you sell together. Create interesting examples. For instance, if you sell pet items, create a video of a pet birthday party and the things you might buy for it or a video on taking your pet on a trip and all the products you need. Becoming a one-stop solution for people is very appealing to busy consumers these days.
Also Buys
This is not something Amazon does just for Prime Day. They do a great job of this year-round by making suggestions based on your shopping history. They also suggest items that are influenced by what you’re looking at. Amazon also presents you with a list of items that other customers who were considering the item you’re looking at ended up purchasing. This can help people make decisions or justify an upgrade.
How you can incorporate this idea: most basic online shopping carts offer this functionality. It may not be as slick as Amazon’s but you should still take the time to enable this feature. It’s likely that when you add things to your electronic store you can also add similar items. Use this feature to show them similar but more expensive items or items that are used together like a high-efficiency light bulb if they buy a lamp.
Exclusive Deals
Prime Day is all about Prime Members, which makes those who have given the mega-company an extra $100 for membership feel pretty special. Making this day just for Prime Members drives people to buy Prime memberships as well just so they can get the deals.
How you can incorporate this idea: While you may not be in a position to sell “prime” benefits at your business, you can make this sale or special day open only to people on your email list or in your special VIP club. Your VIP Club could be something as easy as a free sign-up providing their emails to you. They get access to amazing deals. You get the ability to stay in contact with them in the future.
Offer Something Free for Doing What You Want
Amazon receives a lot of orders on Prime Day(s) and even though they have an amazing operations network all over the country/world to ensure they don’t have a log jam, shipping coordination can pose a problem. If everyone wanted it next day or two-day shipping, there could be a crunch. So Amazon offers people a reason to defer shipping. They provide a $5 credit on Prime Now (their grocery delivery service) or $1 credit for a digital good (like a movie rental). They reward their customers for doing something that helps them.
How you can incorporate this idea: think about what your customers could do to help you streamline certain parts of your business and then offer them an incentive to do that.
You can also use this same idea when you want someone to try a new service. Maybe you’re offering delivery for the first time and so you wave the first delivery fee for them to try it out. Whatever you decide, the point of this idea is to drive action in a direction you want by giving your audience something in return.
Amazon can be quite the challenge to small business but there are also a lot of worthwhile lessons we can learn from them to bring in more revenue.
Contact our team to find out other ways to help you grow your bottom line through promotional marketing.
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