Expert Marketing Tips for your Amazon Business with Hannah Giro, Founder of PR Brand Marketing
Hannah Giro from PR Brand Marketing joins Two Sellers and a Microphone to discuss Amazon marketing and what Amazon sellers should be doing to improve the marketing of their products on Amazon and their Amazon business.
Learn more about PR Brand Marketing or Hannah, go to https://prbrandmarketing.com/
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Expert Marketing Tips for your Amazon Business with Hannah Giro, Founder of PR Brand Marketing
– Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode 51 of Two Amazon Sellers and a Microphone. Today, Chris and I have a special guest with us. Hannah Giro from PR brand marketing. Hannah, how are you doing?
– [Hannah] Good, good. Thanks for having me here, Dustin and Chris.
– Oh yeah. We’re glad to have you on the show. Glad to have you. Tell us a little bit before we get started. Are you located in New York?
– [Hannah] Yes, in Brooklyn. Lots of sellers apparently live in Brooklyn. It’s a big area.
– [Hannah] It’s a thing on Amazon.
– Yeah. Well, Chris and I talk to Amazon sellers all the time and it does seem like, a lot of them are in the Brooklyn area.
– [Hannah] Yeah.
– It’s a hot spot. Well, cool. Well, before we get started do you want to give us just a little background? How did you get involved in the Amazon space, to begin with?
– [Hannah] Sure. So I actually worked with a bunch of private label sellers while I was actually in college. I graduated with a degree in marketing management. And so I, worked for sellers for like, a year. It was really nice getting to know the products, but at some point, I felt like, it was very repetitive working with the same brand continuously. And also, I noticed a lot of sellers lacked marketing. So one day I had an idea, you know what? I’m going to start my own brand on Amazon. And I love the branding, love the packaging aspect, the logo, all that good stuff. Two things I did not like. Number one, dealing with overseas, like, with Chinese. ‘Cause you have to like, work at night and also communicate with them and get your shipping goods, all that. And also I didn’t like it, was just posting things on Amazon and keeping track with like, all that. But I really loved the marketing and branding aspect. So I thought, you know what? Let’s start a marketing company. And I never thought it would get to where it is today. So like, I’m completely, really grateful and all that.
– Okay, and what year was that? Where were we at during the year?
– [Hannah] Let’s see. The company has been around for four years. Well, we just hit, we’re starting our fourth year. I was in college in 2012, probably around that time. So throughout those years, basically.
– Gotcha. That’s good to hear. So obviously 2020 was kind of a bad year for a lot of people. And so, but we’ve seen a big increase in e-commerce sales. like, Amazon sales have been going up, sellers have been seeing their sales go up, What was your year like, for 2020? Did you start to see a surge or did you people pull back a little bit because they wanted them maybe keep the money a little bit tighter in their business? What 2020 like, for a marketing company like yourself?
– [Hannah] So, let’s start from January. January is perfect. No difference whatsoever. And then I remember like, in February, like, early February this client was like, “Listen, I have these goods that I need “to get pictures of, graphics, listing, and all that.” I’m like, “Hey, what’s the product?” He’s like, “Face masks.” He was like, “This is going to be the hottest thing ever.” I was like, “One second. Face masks?” He’s like, “Look at China.” I’m like, “Okay, but that has nothing to do with us. “Like, we’re in America. “Like, COVID, we hear about it, it’s fine.” All of a sudden I start seeing more and more like, these masks, then like, hand sanitizer, another client came and out. And then like, during like, March, that’s when like, all of a sudden that’s it. So that everyone knew about face masks, hand sanitizers so that I definitely saw an increase. So we started doing a lot of, packaging for these products, labels, and what I did see also was for a plan of action. I would say I did probably like, 15 plans of action for people that are, like, selling above market value and all that. So, that I definitely saw an increase with that. But a lot of sellers, like, a lot of new sellers actually came about towards the end of like, 20 20. I would say like, three even. So that’s how the ad industry definitely grew that way.
– Yeah, and plan of actions, touch on that a little bit. Sellers don’t even know what that is. So, what happens there, or why would somebody need a plan of action?
– [Hannah] Okay, good question. So when it comes to the plan of actions, this is when someone, like, did something wrong but there’s a bunch of different people you, let’s say, for example, people are selling expired products on Amazon that are the data’s like, less than 180 days before it’s expired. So, Amazon is going to send them a notice. Someone is selling defective products. Now a lot of people are selling used or old as new. So every, I would say like, a few months Amazon comes up and says, “You know what? “Now we’re going to clear our Amazon cache “and see who is violating Amazon’s rights.” So during, I would say there was like, an authentic, price gouging was a lot during COVID.
– Yeah, yeah. For sure. People were raising their prices on central needs. I even think there are some lawsuits out there now. But now we’re in 2021. What are you seeing now? Are people positioning themselves differently? Are they more focused on trying to liquidate those products now? Because the market’s so saturated? What are you seeing to start the year? So, right now, I see a lot of people are coming up with new products. So I’m ordering a lot of research and see what exactly is making money. I feel like, from my clientele at least, mostly by realizing, okay this is product is really, like, a hit. Let’s spend more time and money and brand ourselves. So we’ve set up quite a few, like, logos and packaging. You’ll realize that they can’t just stand out there. They have to focus on branding because otherwise, it’s just another product out there on Amazon.
– Yeah. You make a good point. And we haven’t even really touched on that. You have a ton of services, like, on your site. I mean, I’m looking at your site now, PRBrandMarketing.com, for anybody out there, but you have a lot of offerings. Touch on some of your services. Like, you got started, what are some things you got started with? And you’re adding more, I’m sure. But yeah, just feel free to touch a little bit on some of the services that you do offer.
– [Hannah] Sure. So one of our most popular services is Amazon listings. And we are, like, a one-stop shop when it comes to private label sellers. So we would do like, the photography, take pictures of products. Then we would add graphics. Our designers are super talented. They focus more on manipulation ’cause it gets really expensive to hire models and stuff. So everything’s like, through Photoshop. We have writers that specifically work on content like, the title, the bullet points, descriptions and search terms, keywords, all that. And in addition to that, also the enhanced brand content. So, EBC and the graphics. When-
– That’s a lot.
– Yeah.
– That’s a lot.
– [Hannah] We deal with all that. So, that’s that. But like, when it comes to like, an Amazon seller, like, when people always ask, like, “What should we focus on when writing a listing?” There are three major points. Number one, you want to make sure that it’s aligned for Amazon. So it follows the algorithm, the algorithm for Amazon. So, it has all the search terms and keywords so that people can actually find you organically. Additionally, it should be each tell the customer exactly what the product’s all about. So all the features. Like, what differentiates our product? And lastly, it should really also compel the person to buy the product. So, with sales, use a different, like verbiage so people can hit add to cart and stuff.
– So, I’m a seller, Dustin’s a seller. We’ve got our listings created, we’ve done the titles, we’ve got good images. We’ve got the bullet points. What is the next step for marketing? What should we now be focused on? Because we’re doing PPC, we got the images you get the titles, bullets, all that stuffs, EBC. We got all that. What would you recommend we kind of position ourselves next? Should we do small Amazon marketing? Do we need to do some influencer marketing? Where are you seeing sellers after they are at that stage? What’s the next thing they’re doing?
– [Hannah] A lot of people want to now keep their customers, especially if your products are repeats. So a nice way to increase reviews is to have, like, a product insert after an honest review. So like, it doesn’t violate Amazon’s terms and conditions. And then you can always use like, a promo code so people can like, QR codes do really well these days. I was actually discussing it last night on Clubhouse, which is like, the hottest thing right now.
– Yeah, I’ve been trying to get on that thing! I’m waiting for an invite.
– [Hannah] Really? Hit me up afterward. I’ll send you an invite.
– Okay, okay.
– So yeah. There was like, a bunch of different sellers on one of the groups last night, and Bradley from Helium 10 we were discussing it like, in regards to QR codes, a lot of people are doing it and they’re actually scanning people. And like, I have heard this trick from someone. If you put it to our code on the insert, you could connect it to Linktree. Do you guys know Linktree?
– Yes.
– Okay, awesome. So you could like, get like, reviews, so specific link for reviews, for websites, customer service and just like, a nice, organized way to get people to leave reviews and to communicate with them. And you can always use a promo code this way. You can drive traffic to your websites and so forth.
– I like that. So, let me go through the cycle. I get a product insert. I put a QR code on it. From what I’ve been always doing, I’ve been going through, is that QR code then opens up Facebook Messenger to get them to subscribe to Messenger. Where this is different is this is going to open up a Linktree, and give them options on like, either visit your site, call, contact us, join our email list. Am I right there?
– [Hannah] Correct. You bought it. You got it. Simple as that.
– That gives them more options. So if they don’t have Messenger, you’re probably going to capture that contact information a little bit more accurately or better because you’re not limiting to Facebook. So once they commit to, let’s say they visit your site. This is where you can go down a rabbit hole. Once they visit your site, if you’re running Facebook ads, you’re retargeting them in Facebook feed, but they’re also getting them to maybe answer their email address on your sites. And then you can also send them an email to promote your other products. Am I right there?
– [Hannah] You got it. like, email marketing, user manuals. I saw two different YouTube links, social media sites. It’s endless with how much you can actually gather from that QR code.
– I’m gonna have to try that.
– Yeah.
– Because I’ve been going, straight Messenger. And if I could direct that traffic to a website, or email list, or VIP section on Facebook, whatever, I think that’d be a little bit better.
– And I think it’s interesting because a lot of people don’t realize when you sell on Amazon, that customer is not yours. You really can’t keep marketing to them. And so what you’re talking about is the ability to take that traffic from Amazon and convert them into your customers for life through your own website. What you’re doing, how effective have you seen all this stuff for your clients? Are you seeing a big increase in their sales off Amazon now from these tactics?
– [Hannah] Yeah, so actually it’s funny you’re saying this. Two days ago, a client shared with us that we actually use that same tactic, an insert card, and he wanted us to promote his user manual. So people can, it was, like, a kitchen set and it was really complicated. There are like, lots of different parts. And he wanted to avoid negative views because a lot of people are just commenting on it saying it’s really complicated. So, he was able to do that through that QR code. And we were able to focus on getting positive reviews, having negative views come to the seller directly versus Amazon. And he doesn’t have a website yet. So right now, that wouldn’t work for him. But if you have your own website, definitely it’s a nice way to gain customers for life. I would say, like, let’s say if your product is like, vitamins. Things that people buy consistently and it’s repeated over, that would do really well for it.
– Yeah, I ordered my vitamins on Amazon and the last one I got, I don’t know if this even violates Amazon’s rules or not
– I’m sure it does.
– It has the giant coupon on the packaging, right there on the label, to go to their website. And you’re going to get $7 off the next order from their website. But yeah, I mean, that’s the game now. I mean, for people that are looking to diversify, to make sure that they maintain their customers that they’ve acquired through Amazon and be able to remarket to them. And like Chris said, when you launch new products, the ability to just send them out to that email list is huge. It’s really important.
– [Hannah] Exactly.
– What about other types of marketing? like, what are you doing with the Facebook marketing or influencer marketing? Where do you see those as a part of someone’s business right now?
– [Hannah] So it’s not a service that we offer right now. However, I do see a lot of people, like, they hit really great influencers, especially nowadays on TikTok, it’s like, the hottest thing and it’s done so well. I feel like, on Instagram it’s like, people put stories and they promote a product but here it’s like, they utilize the product so well. So it’s almost like, it doesn’t look like an ad. It just looks like, Oh my God, I need that. ‘Cause that TikTok influencer has it. So it’s really important to gain, more specifically, one good influencer could really change the whole, the life of your business, because they could promote it and do really well with it. At the same time. It’s like, the influencer says something negative about your brand that can also be detrimental. So it’s really, you want to have a good connection with your influencer too, specifically for your field.
– That’s interesting about TikTok, because I’ve done a lot of influencer marketing but mostly through Instagram and YouTube. Wat about TikTok makes it so different as a platform where it’s more effective?
– So, on TikTok, I guess these are, like, the options of, number one who like, people that you follow, and there’s another, like, just, you know how back then a day like, Instagram had, like, you can just follow random people? like, see people’s feeds? Or like, saturate into it? But here you can literally scroll, and like, it’s 15 seconds and it’s just so engaging. They put like, music on it. So it’s like, the new hype. People are like dancing. So like, let’s say, for example, someone’s doing, like, let’s say morning vitamins or something. Someone’s like dancing and using the vitamin and like, promoting it, and like, showing it for a second and people are saying, “This works so well.” And there are comments. So I feel like it’s more engaging. It’s like how Instagram used to be.
– The story.
– Yeah, like, a couple of years back.
– I’m not on TikTok at all, so this is all over my head.
– [Hannah] There are so many apps. There are so many apps, like.
– I’m stretching to join Clubhouse, so.
– [Hannah] Clubhouse has, it’s amazing. It’s amazing.
– Let’s talk about that. Tell us, ’cause I know it’s kind of new and a lot of people are trying to join it, on a waitlist, and you gotta get an invite and stuff, from what I’ve heard, it looks like, just like, a big like, social gathering, like, that’s online. This is from what I gather from it. What exactly is this Clubhouse?
– [Hannah] All right. So think about, first of all, let’s discuss the marketing for Clubhouse. It’s a secluded group of people that are connected specifically on audio and just hearing from great minds. So now, you want to get on, because it’s almost like, putting candy up to a child and saying “You can’t have that.” And now the child wants that candy and is going to do whatever it takes to get it. So, you’re on a waitlist, so now finally, you have someone that’s going to give you an invite. You’re falling for it. Now you’re going to spend time, understand it more, and get on it. Now, there are different groups, different clubs, and every room is discussing different topics. Let’s say free commerce, Amazon, motivation, you name it. And there’s like, Damon from Shark Tank was on it. Gary Vee, Grant Cardone, like, of great people are constantly on it. And just free advice. And people genuinely want to help. Like, if you’ve heard something great you can just reach out to the person. And then they really want to help you and play on that right track.
– So, it’s like a Q&A? So, if I had a question and Grant Cardone’s in it, he can answer it?
– [Hannah] So, he can. So, there are moderators that will, you have to kind of raise your hands, and then they kind of pick on you. It’s almost like class, is the idea. Once they pick on you, you’re able to ask your questions, there’s like, a few moderators on that specific class that you can say, you know what? This person has experience, we’ll say, on Amazon selling. Let’s direct the question to them. This person has experience in this category or whatever. So, you can just ask the questions and get the answer.
– Well, I’m excited to try it out. I’ve been trying to get in. I’ve been hitting up people on Instagram, like, “Hey, you got an invite?”
– [Hannah] Go for it. You know what? Send me a thing. I’ll definitely get you in it.
– That’s it. I appreciate it.
– [Hannah] But one thing has actually, it connects to your Instagram as well for messaging, which I find kind of annoying because I don’t want random people to message me on Instagram. ‘Cause I feel like, like, that was my last resort as far as like, why I went private. But you can’t actually, when you want to connect to someone you have to just send a message on Instagram and they’ll just respond to your messages there. It’s almost like LinkedIn with like, having a full bio about what you do, what makes you so special. And you’re not promoting your brand. You’re really promoting yourself, your expertise. What makes you different than the next person? Now I’m curious about the job, like, they carry, you’re not selling your services. You’re selling yourself, really.
– It’s almost like it’s a live podcast.
– Like, kind of what we’re doing here but a different platform where you’re just kind of on and people can ask questions from there.
– [Hannah] Exactly.
– I like it. I’m going to be all about it.
– [Hannah] You know what? I was saying, like, once you get on, you’re spending three hours consistently just listening to other people, being amazed. Like, at some point you’re like, okay, you know what? I got to go back to work. It’s pretty cool.
– I like it. Okay, kind of got a little off track there. But Clubhouse is a big thing right now. People are talking about it. So, it’s something to check out if you’re out there. Check it out. Okay, so Amazon, we talked a little bit about what sellers should be doing, focus on their listings rite titles, images. These are all things that you do, you have services for. They can contact you. Ad so if I’m a new seller, I got a sample, I got a product, I need to get a listing created. What what’s the best way to get in contact with you?
– [Hannah] So the best way to contact us is through our website, www.PRBrandMarketing.com. Or my email which is info@PRBrandMarketing.com What I would do is I would sit with the seller for, let’s say, 10-15 minutes. I’ll go through exactly what needs to be changed on their listing and show them different ways of how it could be better optimized, there during that consultation. And then we’ll send like, a proposal, our portfolio, and we could assess exactly what would be the next route on how to optimize her listing.
– Very good. So, you’re going to create the listing, and then if I need images, do I need to send the product to your office?
– Yeah.
– Your office? Okay. And then you’ll take photos and go from there?
– [Hannah] Exactly. So we have photographers here on site, and they’ll just pick the pictures for you. You deal with one project manager, who’s someone different from me, and she will just kind of deal with the clients. We work with graphic designers here, and this way we’ll just make it a smooth easy process because obviously, Amazon sellers are super busy and they just want things now.
– And what about videos? Do you guys help sellers do videos as well?
– [Hannah] So we help with PPC videos. And it’s basically that I would say less than a 30-second video you see on the actual Amazon page. When someone clicks on it, you’ll see it. But the thing is with these videos, they only do really well if you have someone that knows how to manage it. Like, I’ve done really great video for someone but they don’t know the first thing about actually managing that PPC video. So it’s really important to work with someone that knows how to do it. And yeah, so we will do those PPC videos, but not like, user manuals or anything like that. That’s all.
– Yeah. Well, that’s where Sellozo comes in managing those video ads. And we’ve seen video ads perform really well. Like you said, if they’re managed right, they perform very, very well because you can really differentiate yourself through video.
– [Hannah] Exactly. Yes. It’s also definitely, we’ll do a monthly contest, we’ll go with you guys, and, you guys do your magic there. I guess just a couple of things about just the listing in whole. From your perspective, what is the most important thing for a seller with their listing? I mean, there are so many things that you can do to separate yourself. Obviously, Chris and I talk about images all the time. How important the image is, how important your title is. Just of those things and then video and all of this and then A-plus content, in your experience, what’s the most important of those? And in order, how would you rank the importance?
– [Hannah] So first things first, you want to have a real hero image because that will attract this customer to your page. The example I give is almost like, look into real estate, is having a home, like, having an empty home and having a home that is staged with a bed, beautiful furniture, a nice painting job. All that only increases buyers and elevates and makes people want to buy your home much more. The same goes with the listing. When you have really nice images, you have great content, that will sell more. So, you can drive as much PPC traffic as possible. But if you don’t have a good landing page that’s it, you lost the customer before they even started.
– That’s a great point that we that’s the first thing when we’re talking to somebody and they want to start running ads, we want to look at their listing. And if it doesn’t look good, There’s no way the ad’s, you’re just going to burn money. Cause your listing is not going to convert at the level you want. That’s a great point.
– That’s where we’ll send them over to PR Branding.
– Exactly!
– Tell them to look at them.
– Figure this out over here! These sellers need some help.
– [Hannah] Yeah, yeah.
– There’s so much to it. I think when people are starting to sell, especially when you’re starting to sell on Amazon, it’s overwhelming. And you might think you can just throw up a picture, throw up a title, and it’s gonna start selling, but that’s not the case. And I mean, there’s so many things that you need to do to your listing, all the things that we’re talking about, and it takes someone with experience to do it right.
– [Hannah] Yeah, so you want to, so it’s actually, people always say like, “Oh, I had someone hired in-house to do it.” Like, they’re always trying to like, level the cost to see if it’s like, cheaper to hire in-house than hire like, a professional. But then they realize, you know like, I have a client actually that does over $40 million on Amazon and they have, I believe it’s him. And it’s just a brand that they just put their name on it and, and they just hire us for all their listings. And I was like, one day I had a conversation with him. I was like, “By the way, isn’t it cheaper to hire in-house? “Just, you’re sending us so much.” He was like, “Hannah, trust me. I did the math and I realized it’s much better to have a professional do it, less time, and I could just focus on sourcing versus tending to every small thing that needs to change.”
– You do make a great point. Like, some of these sellers will try to do it on the cheap, and we talk about Fiber, and we talk about Upwork. There are still good services on there, but if you keep cheap this out you’re going to be spending more time, like, trying to direct them and exactly what you want. And I’ve found that. So it’s, it’s a lot easier to just be like, “Hey, here’s my product. “Here are a few of my keywords. “You go with it “and I don’t have to give you any direction. “I don’t have to give you like, “step-by-step on how to do it.” I’d be willing to pay for that. Like, I’ll pay it off. And I don’t want to have to spend time on Skype trying to teach you how to do everything with Helium 10 and all that stuff. like, it’s better to hire that out and let somebody else manage it. It’s worth the cost because you’re going to just spin your wheels and continue to pay and go back and forth. It just takes a lot of time. So I’m with you, I’m with you you got to hire it out, and sometimes it’s worth it.
– [Hannah] Exactly. Yeah. That’s where we come in.
– Exactly.
– They don’t want to deal with the Chinese thing.
– We don’t want to deal with like, that side. That’s their job. But like we love the marketing. I feel like, it’s a great opportunity to work with so many different products and brands. And at this point it was like, okay, there’s not one category that we didn’t come across. And we were like, oh, I don’t remember if you asked me that, alright? But yeah, it’s all good.
– Well, this has been great. I appreciate you coming on. We’re gonna, I already shared the link in the description. We’re gonna put it on here again. People want to get in contact, simply just go to their website, PRBrandMarketing.com. There’s a contact us button at the top. Simply click on that. And you’ll be given where you could submit a form and Hannah and her team will reach out to you. So, they’ve got a ton of services on there. I just looked at their portfolio earlier today. This looks a little bit upgraded, so that’s nice to see. A lot of different features here, storefront, enhanced brand content, brand deck, images, inserts, listings. So there’s a bunch on here to check out. but yeah, go to their website, PRBrandMarketing.com. Even if you just have a question, you can simply contact them and they’ll put you in the right direction. So if you’ve got something you’re stuck on, definitely reach out to her too.
– [Hannah] Thank you guys.
– No problem.
– For sure.
– [Hannah] Take care, and thanks for the opportunity.
– Dustin, you got anything?
– No, that was great, Hannah.
– Thanks for taking the time. There are so many new sellers that listen to our podcast and Hannah’s gonna be a great resource for all of you guys. Please go to PRBrandMarketing.com, hit Hannah up for that 15-minute consulting call. So you can get started with your images and everything else on your listing looking great. Again, you can follow us on the Sellozo page on Facebook. We go live with all of our podcasts on Facebook. You can also the Sellozo page on LinkedIn. You can follow the Sellozo channel on YouTube, and you can see our podcast on all the channels out there. iTunes, Spotify, everything. So please like the podcast so you can listen to more episodes like this. Hannah, it’s been great. Thanks so much for coming on and-
– [Hannah] Of course.
– We’ll have to get you back on another time soon, alright?
– For sure.
– Thank you, thank you. Wishing you guys all a great new year.
– Thanks, Hannah, we’ll talk to you soon.
– Thanks.
– Thanks.