Amazon is an amazing platform and is quickly outranking its competition. In fact, according to their annual report published in 2018, Amazon Prime has more members – and at a higher retention rate – than Costco!
However, with new sellers and products being added every day, it is easy to get lost in the mix.
How you do make your products, brand, and listings stand out from all the rest?
With Enhanced Brand Content (EBC).
The What, Why, and How of EBC
Enhanced Brand Content (now referred to as simply “A+”) is a premium feature that allows you prime retail space on your listing to showcase the value proposition of your products.
Through this feature, you are able to further enrich your listing with visuals and text, answer commonly asked questions not covered in the regular bullet points, and modify the product description field.
This feature gives you a chance to increase conversions and traffic to your products, and may even reduce the likelihood of returns when a customer truly understands what they are purchasing.
The fact is, with more third-party sellers popping up every day on Amazon, you may experience issues with counterfeit sellers attaching your listings, changing your content, or, even worse, stealing your chance at the buy box.
In May 2017, Amazon launched a new Brand Registry program that provides you with powerful tools to protect your trademarks, text, and images. Approximately 60,000 brands worldwide are registered and have seen 99% fewer suspected infringements.
Brand owners who are approved in this program then have the ability to access enhanced brand content features and add them to ASINs in their approved brand catalog. We’ve compiled a list of 5 things to keep in mind as you create your EBC.
Clear, Concise, and Compelling
This extra space allows you to give your customers a clear picture of the value your product offers. Don’t be shy about pointing out what makes your brand stand out from the crowd.
While there are rules about what you can and cannot say in this section, you can mention (for example) that while other hacky sacks may come in a variety of colors, that yours are available in colors that also coordinate with your zodiac sign.
Story Time
Did you love going to the library for storytime as a kid? Do you love to snuggle up with the latest book by your favorite author and get lost in its pages now? There is a reason people love stories- they begin to feel connected to the characters and plot lines and get involved as the story unfolds.
The same is true for your brand. Tell your story! Describe how your brand came into fruition, who created it and why, what the mission and vision of the company is.
List your values, goals and any other details that will help your audience feel connected to you as a brand. EBC gives you the opportunity to tell your story both visually and with content, be more relatable to your audience, and stand out from the crowd.
A prime example of this is Progenex- a recovery supplement for athletes of all levels:
Up Your Keyword Count
As an alternative to alt text uses by other websites, Amazon allows you to add image keywords on the backend of your listing that helps your product appear in more searches. This is a good opportunity for you to add in keywords you didn’t have room for in your bullet points or title, and improve your ranking.
Let’s say you are selling high-quality balloons for special occasions, and one of your images depicts a child’s birthday party. Maybe you didn’t have a chance to mention this in your listing, so your image keywords could be a simple sentence like “party balloon at kids birthday table.”
Whatever you decide to write, make sure your sentences are written for humans, and not bots. Overdoing the keyword stuffing could end up hurting your listing more than helping.
Study Up
We’ve talked in previous blogs about the importance of knowing your product details inside out and backward, but we need to address it again. The better you know your product, the better able you will be to differentiate it from the competition.
Be as specific as possible when you are telling the stories of why your product delivers more value than competitors, and describe what exactly it is that makes it stand out.
Does it come in a variety of flavors, colors, or fabrics not available elsewhere?
Do a portion of your proceeds go to charity so that when customers purchase from you they are also supporting charities?
Touch on benefits your audience will find the most beneficial.
While you are studying up on the value of your products, do some research into competitors as well to see what questions customers are asking most. EBC gives you extra space to address these questions and concerns which helps your customers not only further their understanding of the product, but may also positively impact your return rate.
Mobile Matters
Finally, as you prepare your content, test the template you have chosen to ensure it is mobile friendly. The fact is, more than half of all internet shopping is done from a mobile device.
When you consider that 77% of Americans own a smartphone, and approximately 100 million U.S. consumers own tablets, taking time the ensure your listing is mobile-optimized is well worth the effort.
This last point is so important because statistics show that 40% of consumers will go to a competitor after a bad mobile experience. Taking the time to do this part right could be your opportunity to capitalize on consumer conversion.
Conversion Counts
Is EBC worth the time it takes to create? Let’s consider this example:
- You have an item that is listed for $129.
- Your conversion rate is typically 12%, so you decide to test it out with EBC and after 25 days you see your conversions rise to 18%.
- While this may seem marginal, if you have 1,000 people view your product page with your normal 12% conversion rate you have sold 120 units and made $15,480 in sales.
Not bad, right?
But, when you take the same example and boost the conversions to 18% due to your EBC, you’ve now sold 180 units and made $23,220. The numbers continue to grow from there. If you have 10,000 views at 12% you’ve made $154,800. But at 18% that number jumps to $232,200!
The point is that over the course of a year, those increases in sales – that once felt marginal – begin to really add up and make a huge difference in your bottom line.
Final Thoughts on EBC
We think it’s pretty obvious. If Amazon is giving you the opportunity to take up more real estate – you should take advantage of it!
Izabela Hamilton is the Founder and CEO of RankBell, a brand accelerator that helps Amazon businesses grow to 7 & 8 figures through driving organic keyword ranking and optimization. To learn more about how Izabela helps Amazon sellers, click here.
Original post from Enhanced Brand Content: What is it, and Why Should I Use It? – Helium 10
