Thanks to the saturation of the market and the ever-increasing cost of advertising, brands are tending to shift focus to more creative endeavors. In response, Amazon is handing over greater levels of creative controls to brands to manage their content.
As previously predicted, 2021 brought an enormous shift towards alternative marketing and advertising tactics. With the increase in the cost of advertising – expressed as ever-growing CPCs – combined with a flood of new sellers, it has become increasingly difficult for Amazon sellers to be competitive in the marketplace. New Amazon Marketplace programs including Amazon Live and Amazon Posts are becoming more and more popular with sellers of all sizes as they allow brands to differentiate themselves from their competitors while maintaining a reasonable margin.
Exploring Your Creative Side
2020 saw a shift towards video content and the rise of influencers. New platforms like Tiktok focus on user-generated content and encourage consumers to depend on video content to find new and relevant products. These emerging trends have changed the way Amazon users are choosing to showcase their products, with images and rich text no longer meeting the needs of the average Amazon seller.
Generation Z is used to being targeted with video content, and Amazon sellers are leaning towards this type of marketing content to showcase their products and to demonstrate how their customers can ultimately benefit. In 2022, marketing initiatives with a digital focus are expected to dominate brand experiences, including video capabilities and virtual reality.
Never one to fall behind the latest trends, Amazon has a reputation for testing anything currently in vogue – including video and interactive content.
A Focus on Customer Engagement
The improvement of customer engagement is the priority of Amazon sellers at the moment, with the platform shifting away from the traditional, sterile, and somewhat clunky mentality of putting the consumer first towards an ecosystem that is immersive, and which gives full creative control to brands, allowing the seller to determine how customers experience their products.
New Interactivity
Brands have already had the opportunity to make use of betas including Email Marketing, Brand Follows, Amazon Likes, and Amazon Posts to connect with and create a customized experience for their customers. Always focused on the customer, Amazon has traditionally lacked the ability to provide an experience that is both interactive and engaging. This has started to change with the introduction of Amazon Posts, which has given brands the ability to deliver shoppable content directly to their customers’ feeds in a similar way to Instagram.
Similarly, the introduction of the Brand Follows feature has allowed customers to follow brands of their choosing, receiving customized content, new posts, and other updates in a similar way to social media networks.
Full-Screen Videos
What started as a feature available only to sellers registered as a brand, full-screen videos are now available to all Amazon sellers. This feature allows product videos to be added to existing product images, so customers can access video content without having to find it elsewhere in the product listing.
It comes as little surprise that video content is so popular among Amazon sellers. Research has shown that videos receive as much as 21.2 per cent greater interactions than standard images. It’s predicted that video will continue to gain importance in 2022 and beyond.
Amazon sellers can add a video to their product listing by navigating to their Seller Central area, clicking on the Inventory tab, and then clicking “Upload and manage videos.”
Ryan Wright, who works as an Amazon Marketplace Strategist, has predicted that sponsored brand videos will become the most ubiquitous type of advertising on Amazon in 2022 and beyond, and will continue to expand its ever-increasing footprint. Dynamic marketing only recently became a major part of Amazon’s advertising offerings, and the current rise can be credited to the mirrored rise in importance on other platforms. Amazon sellers are seeing excellent results from dynamic forms of advertising and are enjoying the ability to showcase their creativity.
The Rise of AR, VR, and Other Forms of Mixed Reality Technology
Online marketers on Amazon and other platforms are always on the search for ways to improve their customers’ experiences and can utilize various forms of cutting-edge technology including virtual reality (VR) to do so. In conjunction with mixed reality technologies, VR allows retailers to showcase their product offerings and improve the user experience of their customers.
Look Out For New Social Media-Style Features
Today’s eCommerce brands can no longer afford to ignore social media apps. Their target customers are increasingly relying on such apps to browse for products among other types of content, and brands need to recognize the importance of influencers and social media marketing when seeking to grow a brand in 2022 and beyond.
Amazon has been leaning into its Amazon Live offerings over the past few years as it moves towards the influencer marketing sphere. Amazon Live gives enrolled brands access to live streamers who are ready to create content about the products and brands they’re enjoying.
Brands need to ensure they’re enrolled in the Amazon Influencers program and the Brand Registry to be able to take advantage of these influencer opportunities. Once set up, Amazon brands will have live streams featured directly on their product pages, allowing customers to learn more about their products by watching relevant videos and other user-generated content. The Amazon Live page will continue to showcase streams from Amazon Influencers, allowing viewers to browse the content offered by various creators.
Aim
Maximize your brand’s reach and build awareness by taking advantage of the multitude of creative options available.
Tip
Repurpose your existing content and assets to deploy new Amazon content types, such as social content for Amazon Posts or video clips for Amazon Live.