When shopping online, we all have our own mental checklists that we run through to determine the perfect “Add to Cart” product. From perusing photos to reading reviews, there are countless opportunities for click-worthy cart clinchers or instantly off-putting sale killers. While some errors minimize your ability to make a sale, others create major post-sale problems. Either way, they can massively impact your profit potential.
All losses or gains aren’t fully realized the moment a customer makes a purchase. Your products’ unboxing and early use are the moments of truth that can lead to a long and happy future or sinking regret and returns. If you want to maximize your conversion rates and minimize your losses, give extra attention to every deal-maker or -breaker detail whenever you upload or update an Amazon listing.
Trust Turn-Offs
While Amazon sellers once operated with automatically earned high trust levels just by selling through the marketplace, continuous bad press has slowly begun to erode customer confidence.
A typo isn’t merely a forgivable mistake in the fast-paced, fickle world of online sales. A little error can create big problems for your bottom line, demonstrating a lack of attention to detail that may make people think twice before purchasing from you. Even a small misspelling can instill a sense of mistrust that could push your customers right into your competitor’s hands.
But don’t fear! There’s a lot you can do to build relationships and instill trust right inside your listing. Before we dig into what you CAN do, let’s look at some of the biggest offenders when it comes to off-putting listing optimization errors:
- Outdated Marketing Tactics – Does your listing sound like an infomercial? Is your copy drowning in clichés? Customers are savvy to manipulative techniques and often opt to steer clear of aggressive salesmanship.
- Sloppy Language Skills – Spelling mistakes, awkward phrasing, and grammatical errors are red flags that indicate low quality and questionable reliability.
- Overhyped Features – If your product isn’t the best at something, don’t say it is. That may lead people to make a purchase. However, when they find out you were overly generous with your praise, it’ll just create negative feelings on their end and headache on yours.
- Neglecting Vital Information – Ensure you’re including all necessary info that customers want and need to know. Whether you’re leaving it out intentionally or accidentally, these omissions can be pricey.
Questionable copy costs you sales, your account health, lost goods, brand loyalty, and the list goes on. In contrast, correct, compelling copy improves your Amazon listing’s performance, builds stronger relationships with your customers, minimizes your PPC and marketing costs, improves your organic performance, lowers return rates, and more.
Establish Your Edge
Now that you have an idea of what to avoid when writing your listing, let’s talk about what you should focus on. How can you ensure that you’re connecting with your customers and taking advantage of every sales opportunity?
Clearly and completely describe your product.
When shopping online, customers need to use text, photos, and video to imagine what a product will be like in real life. This is probably why up to 20% of returns are due to missing or unclear product information. Help people easily understand your product, avoid confusion, and minimize your exposure to these types of returns.
Remember you have the benefit of knowing your product inside and out. Spending so much time developing a product makes it easy to assume that people will just “get it.” It can be difficult to know whether you’ve described a product to the fullest. What you think is obvious might not be so clear to someone else.
Take it into the real world if you’re feeling stumped or unsure you’ve done a thorough job of explaining your product. Ask someone that doesn’t know anything about your product to read what you’ve written and see whether it makes sense to them. Look at your competitor reviews and questions to see what people are contemplating alongside products like yours. Figure out what people care about, then make sure you clearly articulate this in your listing.
Turn a negative into a positive.
You may be wondering how returns could be a good thing for your business. However, ignoring the topic doesn’t mean they’re not going to happen. If you’re committed to creating a positive experience for your customers, that means learning from your mistakes.
Making it easy and painless to fix problems goes a long way to cultivating trust and loyalty. Even if you lose the sale, this can be a great way to win over brand advocates that will be eager to tell people what a great company you are.
Rather than getting down about returns, use them as an opportunity to collect information and refine your marketing efforts. Ask your customers for feedback and details that you can then add to your listing to prevent future confusion or mismatched purchases.
Edit everything.
Whether you prefer to rely on tools, your social network, or contracted help, be sure to review and revise your work before publishing it anywhere. Even if you’re a fantastic writer, another set of eyes is always helpful for avoiding little mistakes. If you’re in a rush and don’t have time to get help from someone else, read your work out loud and run it through a tool like Grammarly.
Use benefits to boost your conversions.
Now that you’re doing the basics, it’s time to add the edge that’ll make your customers eager to purchase. And one of the best ways to do that is by putting your product’s benefits front and center. People buy things to solve problems. Figure out what those problems are, then tell people how you solve them.
But problems aren’t the only elements to consider as you’re writing your sales copy. Every time you begin to write about a feature, ask yourself why that matters for your customers. For example, how does your choice of materials make peoples’ lives better? Keep asking why until you’ve established a clear, compelling benefit that will resonate with your target market.
Your listing is your sales pitch. And as all good salespeople know, making the sale isn’t about changing someone’s mind, it’s about providing the right information to make purchasing your product the obvious choice.
Craft Your Amazon Listing to Cut Costs and Supercharge Your Sales
Don’t fall into the trap of believing that no one reads, and then treating your listing as an afterthought. When your listing copy is careless, your conversions suffer. And when there’s a mismatch between how your product appears online versus what it’s like in real life, the costs are significant.
That’s why serious sellers make expertly optimizing their listings an integral part of their business strategy. Avoid expensive errors and boost your sales by giving your listing the attention it deserves.
Don’t know how to (or don’t want) do this on your own? Unsure if your listing checks all of these boxes? Contact Marketing by Emma to help you take your listing to the next level!
Emma Schermer Tamir transforms her insatiable curiosity into conversion-spiking copy. As co-founder of Marketing by Emma, she’s helped over 650 businesses from around the world to boost their sales and build their brands through authentic, compelling copy. Excite your dream clients and turn your websites, Amazon listings, and more into effective sales machines with the Emmazon team.
