Show notes for this episode:

 

1. HTML tags for description:

 

- bold and unbold -  <b>YOUR TEXT</b>

- line break - <br>

- bulleted list and end of list -  <li>BULLET 1<li>BULLET 2<li>BULLET 3</li>

- italic and remove italic - <i>YOUR TEXT</i>

 

2. Site that lets you convert your HTML to see what it will look like to customers: http://htmledit.squarefree.com

 

3. Example listing that doesn't talk about product benefits (missed opportunity to convert more): https://www.amazon.com/Grass-Fed-Keto-Creamer-Collagen/dp/B07D3DKLJP/

 

4. Example of listing that lacks branding vs. one that's making a very deliberate brand choice, and is enjoying a lot of success along the way: (minimal branding) https://www.amazon.com/Melitta-Buzzworthy-High-Caffeine-molido/dp/B07KS1RQY5/ vs. (strong branding) https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rifle-Coffee-Company-Medium/dp/B076DKX8WS/

 

5. Example of a well-optimized listing that we helped launch last year, and that's currently the #1 Best Seller in Toys and Games: https://www.amazon.com/SplashEZ-Sprinkler-Splash-Wading-Learning/dp/B07MNMT3M7?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

6. Special code for 2 free photo text ($80.00 value) with any listing optimization service: use code ECOMFREEDOM at checkout

 

7. Free listing analysis: https://marketingbyemma.com/pages/freeanalysis

 

8. Website: www.marketingbyemma.com, Email: emma@marketingbyemma.com, Facebook: www.facebook.com/marketingbyemma 

 

 

 

Ollie:

Hey everyone. How's it going? It's Ollie here. Very, very warm welcome to another episode of the eCommerce Freedom Podcast. Today I have with me Emma Schermer Tamir, and Emma has been working in the marketing space for 10 years.

 

She's been doing a lot of stuff in the eCommerce space, specifically with copywriting to help people really promote their products on Amazon, and she's worked with some really, really exciting brands to help them increase their sales by creating better listing.

 

So I wanted to bring Emma on the show today, really just to ask her and get really clear on how to create an incredible listing. You know, something that really stands out in the marketplace so your product really jumps off the page when customers are shopping and just increases your sales.

 

Emma, it's really awesome to have you here on the show. How are you doing today?

 

Emma:

Hi Ollie, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to speaking with you today.

 

Ollie:

Likewise. Absolutely. So what I'd love to start with - I usually start with this with guests - is just by asking about your story. I mean, could you give us like maybe the cliff notes version of what's led you to being in the position you are?

 

Emma:

Sure. I think really, it boils down to curiosity, and that extends to everything from living on four different continents, to just being constantly curious about what makes people tick. And that's one of the things that really drew me into marketing.

 

Well originally, it was that I had strong writing skills and as a writer, there are not that many ways that you can build a career around that and actually make money. So I sort of fell into marketing. But what has kept me in marketing for all of these years is really that intense desire to figure out why people make the choices they make and then how you can use that information to achieve the goals that you want to achieve.

 

And you can do a lot of that through writing and particularly in the eCommerce space, you don't have a store and then on Amazon in particular, you don't even have a supplementary website to be building these relationships and excitement. So you have one listing to do it all, and to try to figure that out and work within the confines that Amazon creates is endlessly fascinating to me.

 

Ollie:

Yeah. Having those limitations really forces you to be creative, doesn't it? Because you can't just build endless web pages and talk about your brand and everything. You've got like a very small space where you can do that and you have to do a lot with kind of a little bit of a resource.

 

So today we're going to break down everything you need to do to use that space to the best of your ability. So what kinds of things do you do? We talked briefly before, you mentioned you have like, a copywriting agency. So what stuff do you work on day to day?

 

Emma:

So we work a lot on Amazon listings. We also help clients create brand stories and websites, even packaging texts, all of those fundamental marketing, writing pieces that communicate who your brand is and also have a very clear understanding of who your dream customers are.

 

Because if you're just thinking about yourself when you're doing your writing, then you're missing that critical piece of good communication, which is an exchange between two people. And so having a clear understanding of your customer is just as important when you're doing all of that work so that you can really start to develop a meaningful relationship.

 

Not just sell them a onetime purchase, but make them want to come back and look at the other products you're selling or to be a repeat customer. And to tell their friends about it. And that's where it can get really fun and interesting. And all of those little subtleties of what word you use can have a big impact on how you're able to achieve that.

 

Ollie:

Yeah. And that's the magic isn't, it really is knowing how to draw people into your brand, especially when you're selling on Amazon. Because when people buy stuff from Amazon, they're thinking about Amazon. They're not always thinking about you as a brand on the platform.

 

So let's dive in then. What I'd like to start with perhaps is, what's the overall aim you have when you're putting together a listing? What are you really trying to achieve?

 

Emma:

Obviously what we're trying to achieve more than anything is to make a purchase. So to get that person to add that item to cart. But there are a lot of different things that are operating simultaneously in order to achieve that. And so that's kind of the short term, immediate goal.

 

But obviously the longer term goal is to really begin to lay the foundations for a relationship with the customer, which is more challenging to do then when you're on Amazon as opposed to selling on your own website. And particularly because it's just really recently even that customers are even starting to realize that the products they're purchasing on Amazon aren't necessarily being sold by Amazon.

 

But there are third party sellers that are selling a whole host of different brands. And so that's kind of a revelation to a lot of customers, but it's also made certain things extra important for Amazon sellers, primarily building that trust, because alongside of this realization that there are third party sellers on Amazon, are lots of stories about counterfeit goods, about products that are not meeting safety specifications, and all of those different things make people a little bit less trusting right off the bat as they were in the past.

 

And so you want to be really thoughtful about everything you're putting out there because you don't want to create any opportunity for someone to have any suspicions that you're not who you say you are or that your quality isn't what you say it is. And so you need to be thinking of that from everything, from the photos you create to every single word that you put on the page.

 

Ollie:

Yeah. And this is something we're not always thinking of when we’re first starting a business. It's so easy to get caught up in just wanting the sale, just going for the sale, doing anything you can to get the sale, but really, long time, especially if you want to grow, the relationship and that trust is everything.

 

So are there some key things you can do before you even start to make your brand seem more trustworthy or maybe some things not to do?

 

Emma:

Yeah. So first I would recommend, before you ever try to start writing a word on a page, is to give some thought to what it is that you're really trying to achieve with your brand. And also who you're selling to.

 

So when I was speaking earlier about this relationship that you're building, because that's going to start to influence the type of words that you're going to use, the phrasing that you're going to use, even the sort of tone and energy behind what you're writing so that if you are selling to somebody that's a working parent and you know, a millennial working parent let's say, and they're constantly juggling a million different things, they're going to respond to a very different style of writing.

 

Then somebody that's perhaps a grandparent. And a lot of times when I get information from clients and I ask them who their target market is and they say, oh, well, parents to grandparents between the ages of 20 to 60. And that's so broad that it's not really making it as compelling as it could be.

 

When you start to think about, okay, well a grandparent is going to have a very different set of, you know, like they were taught different rules on parenting than what is being taught now. They have a different slang that they use. They have different considerations that they're juggling.

 

And so if you're trying to right to both of those people simultaneously, then you're probably going to create much more generic and much less compelling copy than what you could if you are bold enough to take a little bit of a stand and say, okay, this is who I really want to sell to.

 

And don't think of it in terms of limiting yourself and that you're saying that all of these people aren't your customers, right? It's that you're making a clear choice that's going to really communicate effectively with these people and that if these people love it, then a lot of other people that don't even fall into that group will also begin to pay attention and want to love it as well.

 

Ollie:

That's so true. Yeah. It's funny ‘cause I had a chat with someone about branding a few episodes back, someone called Patrick Gentempo. He was saying this very similar thing.

 

Take a stand, you know, and don't worry about polarizing. Just be specific in your targeting and it can have a bigger effect than just trying to please like you say, everyone of all ages of all backgrounds and demographics because then you end up just attracting nobody. Right? So that's such a good point. Really think about who it is you're selling to.

 

Let's get into the details then. So let's say you decided your avatar is like you say, maybe a millennial parent and you've got the product that you want to sell to them. I don't know, let's say it's a baby sleeping bag or something, right?

 

Before we even start to write the listing, there's a whole SEO and keyword element that we have to think about. So how do you approach that? How deep do you go into these keywords and how many of them do you weave into the copy as you're writing the listing?

 

Emma:

We go pretty deep. And I would say that don't get too caught up on how many words you're trying to incorporate because there are a lot of different factors that you need to be considering. Everything as basic as what your character limitations are.

 

So some categories have really short bullets and they're not allowed to write them longer than 100 characters. Others have a lot more leeway and can go all the way up to 500 characters per bullet. Though I would strongly encourage you not to make bullets that long, but what you want to be thinking about when you're conducting your keyword research and compiling your keywords are a few different factors.

 

So one thing is you want to make sure that you're not just going after those really high search volume keywords that are either not as relevant as they should be to your product or are just so incredibly saturated and competitive that it's going to be very difficult and very expensive to really rank on those keywords.

 

But what's interesting is when you start to dive into the keywords a little bit deeper, you'll realize that a lot of those medium and long tail keywords and other those longer phrases of you know, three, five, seven words, those actually a lot of times contain those shorter keywords with the high search volume.

 

So you can kind of get a two for one deal where you're going after a less competitive term, but it also has that other more like higher searched term within it. So it's not that you're ignoring it, it's just that you're not making that your primary focus.

 

But you also want to think when you're writing your listing about what keywords make sense to incorporate in something that's going to be customer facing. So if you have a really awkward phrase that just, there's no way that you can make that work in a sentence, then you may want to consider putting that into the backend search terms.

 

In addition, a lot of times you can find really interesting [inaudible] that are in Spanish or you know, other languages. Those you also wouldn't want to put into the front end of your listing unless perhaps you're selling some, you know, Cinco de Mayo products or something like that where it would make a little bit more sense.

 

But otherwise that would be pretty off putting to a customer if they're reading your listing and then all of a sudden see this phrase in another language and then you just want to make sure that as you're gathering this list, you must have a list when you write your listing. If you're just hoping or expecting that you're going to use the keywords that you need to, then that's going to be setting you up for failure.

 

This is really what's making sure that you're going to be helping to get the traffic that you need. Because if you don't have traffic, then you're not going to have conversions. Those two things work very closely together. But you also don't want to go so crazy with incorporating keywords that your listing ends up reading like a big mashed together blob of keywords that take away from being able to understand what your product is.

 

Ollie:

That makes so much sense. We don't want to just stuff keywords into the description and just write baby sleeping bag over and over and over again and all the different variations of it because people will just look at it and probably just leave the page, you know, quicker than even you can even count. Right.

 

So I was really interested in what you were saying about medium and long tail keywords. I'm sure most people listening know exactly what you mean, but maybe some people aren't too sure.

 

So let's say we had a baby sleeping bag or I don't know why I've chosen this product, but I think I still want the other day or something. So maybe the really high volume search term would be sleeping bag. Maybe the medium one would be small baby sleeping bag, and maybe the long one would be soft, small baby sleeping bag for toddlers. Is that kind of what we're looking at here in terms of those things?

 

Emma:

Exactly. And what you'll notice with that sleeping bag is that if you're going after sleeping bag, then in fact you're going to be, and if you're running PPC campaigns, you're going to be putting your product out there in front of a lot of people that have no interest at all in a baby sleeping bag.

 

Because I would assume that most people that are searching for sleeping bags are searching for adult size sleeping bags. That's a little bit more of a niche product. And so it will get you more of the right traffic to be thinking about those medium and long tail keywords that are specifically focused on customers that are looking for what you're selling, not just sleeping bags as a whole.

 

Ollie:

Right. So you want to make a list of relevant keywords. Let's say you've got a great list and you've done a bit of research and you've got some not too competitive, not too generic keywords, you've got a list. Next thing you probably start working on would be the title, right? So do you have any tips for creating a good title?

 

Emma:

Yeah, so think about first and foremost that different people are going to see your title differently depending upon the device that they're on. And so making sure that regardless of the device that somebody is on, they're going to be getting those critical pieces of information.

 

And so when you're on mobile, your title is going to get truncated somewhat. And there's not a hard and fast cutoff, but it's typically somewhere between 55, 60 to 75, 80 characters that your title will get cut. And so that means that that first part of your title, it's really, really important that you're clearly articulating what your product is.

 

And additionally, let's say that you're selling a two pack of something that typically is only sold singularly. And so your product appears more expensive and if you're saving that two-pack information for the end of your title or you're not even putting it in title, then people are going to be looking at your product and they're going to be looking at a competitor's product. And they may look very, very similar from the title and the images, but yours is substantially more expensive.

 

And so if you're not including that information, then you're not helping them actually make a better decision. And instead you're hoping that for whatever reason, they'll just be curious and they'll click into your listing and then maybe they'll discover that.

 

So thinking about what those critical differentiators are so that when somebody is quickly glancing, and also keeping in mind that you know, on Amazon you're seeing all of these products and the photos can look very, very similar and the titles can look very, very similar and there isn't that much information to go off of.

 

And so it's really important that you're putting those critical details in the earlier part of the title so that you can set yourself apart so that people will want to click into your listing. And then that's where you really have this opportunity to communicate what's so great about your product. But if you don't even get them to click in, then anything else that you do isn't going to have the desired results.

 

Ollie:

That's awesome. That's interesting. I'm happy you said that ‘cause that kind of mirrors… what I usually tell my clients is like when you're doing the listing, always put the thing that separates your product from everybody else's in the title because then it gives the customer a reason to click and then like you say, they can see the bullets and the description and they would never see that stuff if you didn't put it in there.

 

So one question I have about a title is, should you put one of your keywords in the title? Does that matter?

 

Emma:

Yes. You know, different people have different sorts of case studies they've done on how much ranking juice title has versus other parts of the listing. It definitely is important for SEO purposes. And so with your title, one or even a few keywords, again, making sure that you're aware of what your character limits are.

 

There are some categories that only allow even 80 characters for example, and you really want to make sure that you're following that because Amazon can suppress your listing if your title exceeds what you're allowed. So make sure that you check your category style guides before just putting a title up there, but wanting to find a way to incorporate those keywords.

 

But again, not making it read like this list of baby's sleeping bag, small soft baby sleeping bag for a toddler. You know, we've all seen those sorts of type titles. They're not particularly helpful. They're a little bit confusing and they seem very weird.

 

So it's sort of like a puzzle. You want to find a way to fit those keywords in in a way that reads naturally and is also still providing valuable information to the customer so that it's not taking away from either the readability or just the space that could be used to clearly communicate your products, benefits and features and everything.

 

Ollie:

I love it. I've heard people say that the title on Amazon should almost be like a headline of an article, you know, which should contain the critical information, but really what you want to do is grab someone's attention and have them want to read more. Is that a good analogy?

 

Emma:

I would say that's definitely a good analogy and particularly I'm assuming that if you're selling on Amazon, you've also been a customer on Amazon and if you aren't, then you should spend some time experiencing Amazon as a customer.

 

Because what you'll find really quickly is it can actually be really difficult to be a customer on Amazon sometimes because you type in your search terms and you see all of these products and they look identical and you're trying to figure out how do I choose between these, I don't even know what the difference is, and so you're going back and forth between different listings trying to say, okay, well this one is 50 cents more and I think it's saying this, but I'm not 100% certain.

 

And so if you can make a really compelling case starting with your title and then carrying that through and reinforcing it throughout the rest of your listing, then you're actually helping to eliminate a lot of that frustration and fatigue that customers might experience when they're trying to, to choose between products that seem so similar.

 

Ollie:

Love it. Awesome. That makes so much sense. Okay, let's move on to photos then. So how do you create a good set of photos to grab people's attention and are there any do's and don'ts with photos?

 

Emma:

So for photos you want to think about a few things. You want to think about the different points that somebody is going to be looking at your photos, and the different types of people that are going to be looking at your photos, and how can you utilize that space to achieve your end goal, so again, of trying to make that sale.

 

So everything from what are those critical details that somebody who's not going to read your listing but will look at your pictures, what do they need to know? Because there are some people like that - they'll scan through the photos, they'll look at a few reviews, maybe they'll briefly touch on your bullets, but they're not really going to give a detailed reading of everything. So you have those customers.

 

Then you also have the customers and they're going to go through your listing with a fine tooth comb and they're going to look at every single part and they're, you know, they like to do their research on products that's fun for them.

 

And then you have people that fall somewhere in between. And so all of those different people are most likely going to be looking at the photos. So for the people that are just looking at the photos, you want to make sure that they clearly understand the key benefits and maybe some of those important features of your product that they're not going to get if they're not reading your listing.

 

For the people that are reading your listing very carefully, you want to make sure to reinforce some of those things that are either the problems that are leading them to search for a product like yours in the first place, or even what the benefits might be of this product or the experience that they can expect to have once they've been using it, whatever, you know, all of those different things.

 

Ideally lifestyle images are a really great way of doing this. But lifestyle images that are just a pretty picture aren't fully achieving that goal. So thinking about how you can incorporate text in your images is a really important thing that you can do to make your photos so much more impactful for all of these different kinds of customers.

 

Thinking about what message each image is trying to communicate and then how can you communicate that both on a visual level as well as with a little bit of text. But when I'm saying that, I'm also not giving you free reign to put a bunch of text onto your images.

 

So you want to keep the text that you're incorporating short, sweet to the point. You don't want to make people have to zoom in to read the text. Instead, you want to think about it almost as a magazine ad that summarizes that message that you want to give in a way that's very quick and easy to read and works well with the visuals. And by doing that you can really take those photos and turn them into a great sales tool.

 

Ollie:

Awesome. Yeah, they can be such a good sales tool as well ‘cause you can visually represent what is so valuable about your product and what's different about it. And it's so difficult sometimes to do that with words.

 

So do you always recommend getting professional photos done?

 

Emma:

I would say it would depend largely on your skills and time. If you are not very confident at taking good quality photos with good lighting and being able to use Photoshop and all of those things, then I would say it's worthwhile to invest in a professional photographer because people are going to take your photos and look at them and if they're grainy or poorly lit or just look low quality in some other way, they're going to, I probably think that your product is also lower quality.

 

So a lot of times we'll make those associations, even if we're not actively aware that we're doing that as customers. And so you want to make them think that you are a company that really invests in quality and that you're going to respect your products. And that way by investing in images that are really going to make it make look as good as it possibly can.

 

Ollie:

Yeah. And that's what it's about. At the end of the day, it's about the end result, isn't it? If you can get there without hiring someone and paying, you know, whatever, thousands, then all the better. But if you, there's no way, and then sometimes it's much better to do it professionally for me, I've done both.

 

I've done it professionally in some products, some products I've just used an iPhone, got some really good lighting and then got someone to edit it and the end result has been great.

 

So yeah, it's just about the end result isn't it? As long as it's presented well. All right. So let's move on to bullets then. So do you have a formula for bullets? Do you have any do's and don'ts for those?

 

Emma:

Definitely. One of the things that’s a really small thing that everybody can easily do is, I really like the all-caps headers for each of your bullets. And what that does is, it makes it really easy for customers to quickly understand what each bullet point is about.

 

So again, when we're going back to that idea of that there's different types of customers that are going to be giving different degrees of attention to your bullets and everything about your listing. You want to make it easy for all of them.

 

So let's say that for.. we'll go back to this baby sleeping bag analogy. Let's say that for me, I have a vegan household and so it's really important to me that the sleeping bag that I buy does not have down filling, you know that it’s some sort of down alternative, and that this product does not contain any other sorts of animal products that might go against my purchasing preferences.

 

And so if that's important to me, I'm going to want to look at the listing and be able to hone right into the bullet that's talking to me about the materials. And so if you're not utilizing those all caps headers, then suddenly my eyes don't really know where to go to find that. And when that happens, I might kind of, my eyes might be darting all over the place and that could lead to a potential for me to start to feel a little bit frustrated.

 

My attention to wander a little bit. Maybe my eyes even go to one of your competitors that's advertising on your page and their title says down alternative baby sleeping bag. You know, those things happen. So you want to avoid that at all costs. So first and foremost, thinking about how you can really.. what are those five points that somebody must know about your product? And then having very focused bullets.

 

Don't try to cram too much information into your bullets. I think that it's also sellers a lot of times assume that the bullets are the only part of the listing that somebody is actually going to read. And that's not the case. On mobile, the description appears first, so you can't just throw the description away, but you also can't assume that the bullets are going to be the starting point and that somebody is going to be looking at.

 

So those bullets, they don't have to communicate everything. They just have to communicate those five points that people must know so that they either satisfy those immediate needs, like knowing that it's a down alternative or that their interest is peaked enough so that they want to continue to scroll through, read those reviews, look at your description, look at your photos, and then ultimately click add to cart.

 

So don't try to go too crazy there. I like to shoot for roughly 200 characters a bullet as sort of a general rule maximum. That also enables you to make sure that you're indexing properly for your list listing because you do want to be incorporating keywords into your bullet points as well.

 

Just like the title, don't go too crazy and stuffing a bunch of keywords in. And then once you have those five points, being really clear about not just thinking about your product in terms of features to something like download alternative but in terms of benefits.

 

So what is the benefit that using down alternative gives? Is it that people can feel good about this product because it aligns with their ethical choices that they've made to go cruelty-free? Is it that perhaps people that are looking for download alternative sleeping bags for their children? Is it because their children have lots of sensitivities and allergies and so they're really wanting to make sure that their child, that their skin, is going to be only exposed to the very highest quality materials that won't be irritating?

 

So you want to be thinking about how each of those features of your product, what the true benefit is to the customer. And it's not always immediately obvious what that benefit is, but the more time and the more thought that you can give to that, the stronger that your listing is going to be.

 

Ollie:

That's so true. All right then. So let's jump to the final part of the listing, which is the description. So they give you a lot of text in the description and sometimes I think it can be daunting to know, it's like having a blank piece of paper.

 

How do you use that space wisely? So do you have any tips for maybe formatting it? Anything that has to be in there? Any other general tips for the description?

 

Emma:

Yeah, it's so funny cause you say it's daunting and I suppose in some ways it is, but at the same time you should also get really excited about this because that the description allows you to present the information in the way that you want to present it.

 

You can use some very basic HTML tags to format your description and you should be doing that, because it will make it much easier to read. I can even give you a short list, Ollie, of the HTML tags that you can use and you can put those into the show notes because it’s probably easier to read those than to just say them.

 

Ollie:

That would be great. Definitely.

 

Emma:

Definitely utilize those HTML tags to make it more reader friendly. But let's think maybe you're selling a cosmetic product and so you have some really stand out ingredients that you're really proud about. Like let's say it has aloe vera and it has chamomile and lavender, and each of these ingredients have some really special benefits to them.

 

Well, if you have your bullets, then you're going to have one bullet about your ingredients. You're not going to have one bullet about aloe, one bullet about lavender, and one bullet about chamomile. So you're going to have to try to cram all of this information into one bullet and it's not really going to read very nicely.

 

And so then probably what you'll do is speak more generally about your ingredients, but in your description where you can format things, how you want to format them, you can create a short bulleted list of your stand out ingredients and then you can give some individual attention to each of those ingredients to communicate why you've chosen those specific botanical extracts as opposed to some others.

 

So that's just one example. The description is also a really great place to utilize a little bit of storytelling to tell your customers a bit about your brand and to use that space to not just sell the product, but to really sell the end experience that customers can expect.

 

And then whether you're just selling one product but you have bigger ambitions or whether you have a product catalog already to start to help people understand that you're a brand that they want to get to know a little bit better. So in the beginning of your description, you can, what I oftentimes recommend is to set the stage.

 

So to think about what is that experience that made someone go to Amazon, to type those search terms, to arrive at your product, and how can you speak to that experience and then help to paint a picture of what the better future looks like once they have your product in their lives.

 

Ollie:

That's so cool. And then what that does is that makes the product more than the sum of its parts as well. It puts a story behind it. You know, ‘cause I saw, I think I was just doing some product research in America, USA Amazon. And there was a product I think was in the arts and crafts niche and the brand, were giving a percentage of the proceeds to a charity.

 

And in the description they broke down, you know, all of the things they were doing and the products they were choosing and why they were choosing them and why they decided to give this money to a charity.

 

And all of a sudden, you know, they're not just selling, you know, a crochet set or whatever it was. You're buying into their whole ethos and their story and the story behind the business. And it really makes the project product seem a lot more special than, than just, you know, a piece of wood or whatever it might be.

 

Emma:

Definitely. And that's something that I see sometimes, there are brands that do that unsuccessfully. And there are other brands that do that really well. So don't just say that you're donating to a charity just because you think that that will increase your conversion rates.

 

If you are wanting to say that, make sure that you're actually backing it up and then provide a little bit more information that helps to support why you made that choice and how you're contributing and why that cause is important to you. And then that gives you an opportunity to form that connection.

 

And again, when you're thinking about a space like Amazon and you only have so many ways to differentiate yourself, a lot of times that story and that branding piece is really one of the only things that you have that you can use to build that relationship.

 

And so another example that's really interesting and I don't even think they have the best listings in the world. It's a company called Black Rifle Coffee Company and they are a veteran owned coffee company and they sell pretty pricey coffee, I think it's roughly $17 for 12 ounces of coffee.

 

So it's, it's not cheap, but their whole.. everything that they put onto their listings is about their mission, what they believe in, how important it is for them to support not just hiring veterans, but supporting other veteran causes and having a lot of this strong patriotism so that actually the majority of their listing is really about their brand.

 

And in their eight plus content, they just have one little blurb about the specifics of their coffee. And they're very successful on Amazon. And so that just shows you that people want those kinds of brands to get excited about.

 

And so if you can do that groundwork to find a way to really have something that you believe in and then that other people will believe in, then that's when really incredible things can happen.

 

Ollie:

That makes so much sense. Cool. So we've covered all the areas of the listing. So is there anything else, Emma, that you're thinking that people really need to know about when it comes to building a listing and telling people about their products on Amazon?

 

Emma:

Yeah, so make sure that you’re doing a little bit of quality control, so don't just write something and then slap it up there. I'm amazed at how often even large brands have put listings up that have typos or other little errors. And when we're going back to the beginning in our conversation about trust, those little errors may seem small, but they're a red flag to customers.

 

And so you don't want to give them any opportunity to question your integrity or your quality. And so make sure that you're reading everything through a few times, giving it to some other people to read before just putting it online. And also don't treat your listing as this static thing that is done and then you're never going to have to touch again.

 

Highly likely that at some point down the road, whether that's in a couple of months or in a year or whatever the case may be, that your marketplace will have matured somewhat. Search terms that people are using may be different. The things that customers care about may have altered slightly. The ways that your competitors are approaching things.

 

Maybe they're copying you and so then you need to figure out how to continue to differentiate yourself. So don't treat your listing as this one time thing that's done, but rather as this constantly evolving tool that if you give it the attention that it will continue to serve you well as you grow your business.

 

Ollie:

That's so important. Yeah. Just constantly optimizing and tweaking it into the future. Awesome. All right, well you've given so much incredible information. I'm sure people have probably already opened up their seller account and started tweaking things on their listing while they've been listening.

 

So you mentioned that you wanted to give some free gifts to the listeners and to the community. Do you wanna break down how we can access those and what they are?

 

Emma:

Yes, definitely. So first of all, I'll give you a link for what a really good listing looks like so that people can take a look and see what all of these things look like instead of trying to just imagine what they might be through listening to this. So I'll give you that listing.

 

And then as far as free offers, I put together a coupon code for two free photo texts with any listing optimization purchase. And so that's helping you to find a way to really make the most of that photo real state, like what we were speaking about. That's an $80 value.

 

And then I am also happy to offer free listing analysis and that is something where you provide your listing and then we will give some pointers about things that you should consider to really make the most of your listing and optimize it for maximum customer excitement and conversion. And so I'll provide you both, the code, as well as the link that they can use on our website marketingbyemma.com.

 

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. So guys, if you want to find those links, go to the show notes of this episode. If you just go to ecommercefreedom.com, find the episode with Emma, should be fairly recent on there. If not, you can search for it. And you'll see those links. And Emma, if people want to get in touch with you, they can go to marketingbyemma.com and I assume there's some kind of contact form on there as well. Is that right?

 

Emma:

There is. There's a contact form. Also, please feel free to email me emma@marketingbyemma.com. We're also on Facebook and we would love to hear from you. We'd love to help in any way we can, so please don't be shy about reaching out with questions or concerns or anything else that you might like to chat about.

 

Ollie:

That's very generous, Emma, you've been so helpful and really shared so much stuff with us. Really, really appreciate it. Thanks so much for your time today.

 

Emma:

Thank you, Ollie. This has been great and yeah, thank you.

 

Ollie:

You're very welcome. All right, catch up soon.

 

Emma:

Bye.