Create Amazon Content That Drives Sales and Conversions
You’ve got a great product. It’s got a great Amazon detail page with descriptive bullet points and a detailed product description that are chock full of SEO-optimized keywords. Your images are excellent and manage to tell the product’s story better than the actual description. Your PPC ad strategy is dialed in and focused. You’ve got all this going for you, yet your sales and conversion have plateaued and need an extra boost. Cue Amazon A+ content.
One of the quickest and most effective ways to increase customer trust, boost conversion rates, and build your search ranking is with Amazon A+ content. Amazon claims that on average, A+ content helps increase the overall sales of a product by 3-10 percent.
Seems too good to be true? It’s not. As an Amazon Marketing Agency overseeing tens of thousands of Amazon products spanning multiple Amazon categories, we’ve found Amazon’s claim to be true time and time again.
But A+ content doesn’t just happen on its own. You can’t just throw something together and expect it to give you an extra 5% boost in conversion overnight. It’s got to look the part if it’s going to gain consumers’ trust and enhance your brand’s image. In this article, we’ll highlight additional benefits of A+ content and show you some things we’ve learned over years of helping brands sell their products on Amazon to give you the tools you’ll need to build your own A+ pages that look great and convert big.
Benefits of A+ Content
First, let’s talk more about the benefits of A+ content. While a 3-10% boost in sales and conversion might not sound like much initially, in the ultra-competitive world of Amazon selling, this is huge. And this boost might be exactly what you need in order to take your products to the next level.
The main aim of A+ content is to increase your conversion rate and boost your product sales. It helps persuade your customers into buying your product by providing a better understanding of the product and your brand, while simultaneously building brand trust and recognition. In addition, it gives sellers an extraordinary chance to set their products apart from similar versions sold by their competitors.
1- Grabs Attention
Think of your own shopping habits and experiences. Would you be more likely to stop and read a plain block of text, or a visually-appealing, feature-rich page of content? Amazon A+ content grabs the attention of potential buyers simply because they are most of the time used to looking at product listings that are cluttered or filled with paragraph chunks or text blocks that they no longer have the intention to buy.
However, with A+ content, the case is different. Its large HD images, feature callouts, and other formatted text appears enticing enough to grab the shopper’s attention and helps them make the purchase.
2- Puts the information where it will be seen
With a messier and cluttered look, or with simply a large text block description, there is a risk of losing a potential buyer and that’s exactly what happens with most of the listings. They either lack informative details or the good information is buried in a text block that the customer will never see. With A+, sellers are no longer restricted to bulky, big text blocks and it is easier for a buyer to skim the information that he or she is searching for.
3- Highlights the best of your products
One of the best benefits of A+ content is that you can display big, eye-catching images of your product. This gives a huge opportunity to highlight every benefit and feature of the product that you sell and give even more detail than is possible in the bullet points.
A shopper can get a comprehensive look of your product prior making a purchase, thus giving them the confidence to click the “buy” button.
4- Boosts conversion
Amazon itself states that product listings with A+ content tend to have up to 10% more sales. With the A+ feature, the content converts better, the product branding is higher, and the customer buying experience is drastically improved.
Appealing images paired with good content pushes on-the-fence buyers into making a purchase, thereby leading to an increase in ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) and reduction in ACoS.
Here at Streiff Marketing, A+ content is high on our priority list for boosting our clients’ sales and conversion. It plays a role in both our detail page optimization strategy and our PPC optimization strategy. It has proven time and again to be a major factor in helping us take a product to the next level.
5- Fight counterfeit products
A+ content makes you stand out by building your reputation and recognition. Customer knowledge about your brand shields your product from counterfeit as your buyers know that you’re the rightful owner of the product.
6- Uses proven marketing strategy
You might notice that most aspects of Amazon A+ content look like a conventional brochure. Well, this isn’t a coincidence. Without textual confines, which Amazon used to enforce on listings, the platform can now explore new color schemes, formats, and other strategies that marketers have utilized for decades.
7- Better reviews and reduced return rate
Customers want to gather as much information as possible before purchasing a product. A+ content accelerates their purchasing process by giving a better understanding of the product. As customers know more about your product, you can expect fewer returns after the purchase. Also, customers who are satisfied with your product tend to leave a positive review on Amazon.
Know that these features can’t be overemphasized in their potential. A seller who understands and knows the right way to leverage them correctly will enjoy its advantages when compared to others.
8- Opportunity to cross-sell your products
An A+ content page gives a seller a unique opportunity to cross-sell your products. Specific modules within the A+ content builder allow you to showcase and link to similar products from your brand, increasing product exposure and giving your other products a boost as well.
What is A+ Content
Amazon A+ content refers to a listing’s product description from the brand owner which allows them to tell their brand story with enhanced text and image content.
A+ content is a premium content feature, which allows sellers to change the product description of their branded ASINs by using rich texts, images, and videos.
The idea behind using enriched multimedia content is to enhance the user experience which drives high conversions and huge traffic to the listings.
In short, it is going a step beyond the usual content that sellers usually create, just to ensure that a potential buyer understands the product features more effectively and gets a sophisticated online shopping experience.
A Word About Premium A+ Content
You may have heard about Amazon Premium A+ content (or A++ content). This is one step ahead of the basic A+ content and is a great way to create an impactful shopping experience. This is a feature used by major vendors (think BIG brands). It’s an invite-only program and is very expensive. In this article we’re going to focus mainly on the standard A+ content. But don’t worry. The good news is that you can get just about all the benefits of A++ content without paying for premium.
Who Can Create Amazon A+ Content?
Up until last year, A+ was only available to vendors selling on Vendor Central. Now, however, any sellers who are brand registered can create A+ content for products that are part of their approved brand catalog.
What Does a Good Amazon A+ Page Look Like?
A solid Amazon A+ page will contain:
- Varied, multiple images of a product, including lifestyle imagery, different angles, and product close-ups highlighting important product features
- Precise, informative descriptions of major product features
- Clear and attractive lists of product features
- Concise paragraphs with clear, scannable headers
- A comparison chart highlighting and cross-selling similar products from your brand
- A brief description of your brand and brand values
So, here’s what you need to do:
1- Emphasize your product features
Start by asking yourself a very simple question – what is my product’s most unique feature?
Once you get the answer, write this down on a paper and ask yourself two more questions – what are the major benefits of using my product? And how can my product help customers in their day-to-day lives?
Keep in mind that “benefits” and “features” aren’t the same. Though “features” are important, “benefits” is something that will drive emotions. And when emotions evoke, they drive purchases.
2- Be precise and to the point
Even a non-skimmer will not want to struggle by reading through that whole lot of text just to figure out if your product is right for their needs. So, stick to a short and yet precise content, which will tell shoppers quickly about the product and make a proper buying decision.
Also, make sure that you start by adding the A+ content to the top-selling products first. Use this feature where the chance of getting a profit is higher.
3- Combine images and texts
Of course, high-quality images are useful in conversions, but you can actually do a lot more by adding some interesting texts, which highlights your product’s benefits or features. Adding this is a great approach, especially for skimmers who are searching for specific information about the product.
4- Leverage your product reviews
Reviews written by your customers possess a great value and you shouldn’t underestimate them. Before creating an A+ content, read through your customer reviews and even the ones posted on your competitors’ listings. Doing this will give you a clear picture of the type of content your consumers want the most and the questions they need answered.
5- Keep it error-free
Use of some special characters and symbols are forbidden while creating A+ content – this includes the copyright, registered trademark, and registered brand symbols. In addition, you cannot include a hyperlink to any other website (however, you can include links to your other products within the comparison chart module).
6- Pay attention to the image size and resolution
To avoid “rejection” from Amazon, make sure that your images are uploaded with the right resolution and size. Note that the image requirements are different, based on the module type you choose. So, read through their requirements thoroughly.
7- Use banners wisely
Banners are one of the best ways to split your product’s detail page. In fact, it shows it as a new segment to the buyer, attracts the buyer with HD images, and gives further information about the brand and product.
8- Proofread your content before submitting
Amazon can take up to 7 days to approve your content, but they usually do it much quicker than that. So, make sure to proofread your content before submitting to avoid having any errors go live.
9- Use comparison charts to cross-sell products
The comparison chart module within the A+ content builder allows you to link to similar products within your Amazon catalog, giving you an excellent opportunity to get your other products in front of customers.
10- Keep it more visual and less textual
A+ content is meant to grab attention and to be more attractive than plain text. This means that you should add a lot of interesting visuals and steer clear of large blocks of text. Text should be in simple terms and must convey the message directly to a shopper. Also, maintain a proper balance of a lifestyle photos vs. product photos.
11- Keep your designs uniform
Keep in mind that you want your brand and your products to create a cohesive story. To do that, your A+ content must be consistent throughout the layout. It should symbolize your brand’s extension as well as your website. Think of it as a big picture and the way you want to picture your brand as a whole.
Need Help Designing and Creating A+ Pages?
Check out Amazon’s A+ Content Manager Quick Guide to get started. Still not sure? Let our expert team take over and build your A+ pages for you.
What NOT to Do
- Do not use symbols or special characters like ™ or ®
- Don’t forget to check the module’s requirements like image resolution and size
- Do not give any contact information about the company
- Do not refer your business as a distributor or seller
- Do not mention any shipping information
- Do not use quotes from third-parties (example: references, reviews, etc.)
- Do not include any low-quality images
- Never use the same product photo twice
- Do not link to any other website
- Do not violate the Amazon policies or category requirements
- Do not mention guarantees or warranties
- Do not use debatable claims or opinions (example: “The Best” or “The Top”)
- Avoid using capitalization or bold in excess
- Do not use buzzwords like cutting-edge, green, or eco-friendly
- Do not submit the content with grammatical errors or spelling mistakes in it; Always proofread before submitting the content
- Note: Amazon rejects a product listing that does not adhere to its guidelines (link requires Amazon Vendor Central login)
Conclusion
Creating A+ content for your product listings is one of the ideal ways to grab more attention from customers and drive sales and conversion. If you’re looking for the perfect way to distinguish yourself from your competitors and convert more buyers, start with building some A+ content today.
About Streiff Marketing
We are a full-service Amazon Marketing Agency specializing in both Amazon Vendor Central (1P) and Amazon Seller Central (3P) services. Our expert team understands the difference between vendor central vs seller central and builds your strategy to optimize your Amazon brand storefront to maximize sales throughout the Amazon Marketplace. Our Account Management service includes everything you need to use Amazon fulfillment to succeed on Vendor Central or Seller Central, including account setup, optimization, reviews, SEO, pricing, advertising and more.
