July 12th had been bookmarked in my calendar since it was announced. Amazon Prime Day is the Black Friday of online retailers (in July). This past week, Amazon had its biggest day ever. CNBC reported that the online-retailer-created-holiday “Amazon Prime Day saw worldwide orders rising more than 60 percent compared with the previous Prime Day. In the U.S., orders rose by more than 50 percent.” This is incredible growth. It makes anyone in the marketing world ask what are they doing so right?
Here are a 3 things that digital marketers and online retailers can learn from Amazon Prime Day:
Organize events that make your subscribers and users feel exclusive.
Amazon Prime Day draws a lot of attention to all the deals customers could get if they had Amazon Prime. This exclusive, one day event turned out tons of new members just so they could participate in the deals. Last year set a precedent and Amazon Prime Day had more sales than Black Friday. This success perfectly illustrates that special events don’t have to revolve solely around a grand unveiling or a new product launch. In this case, digital marketers should take note at the success involved in promoting existing products. So get creative when you’re organizing your special event online and try to offer something that incentivizes customers to participate.
Keep it simple.
Anyone in digital marketing knows how easy it is to brainstorm an overcomplicated tactic. With the end goal being to gain customers and promote sales, if a business’ strategy for a special event like Amazon Prime Day is too complex, don’t expect customers to stick around long enough to figure out all the details.
Amazon Prime does it right. They let their customers know that with one flat annual rate, they will receive unlimited 2-day shipping and will get to participate in the buzzed-about Amazon Prime Day. Simple.
Learn from Amazon’s mistakes.
Last year was Amazon’s first Prime Day and like any company trying something out for the first time, there were some bumps in the road. In 2015, many customers experienced technical problems while checking out and decided that there were not enough deals available and took to social media to vent using #PrimeDayFail.
This is a great lesson in learning that it is impossible to make all customers happy all the time, especially on a first go-round. Amazon looked at the online criticism as a way to grow and tweak their Prime Day strategy. Analysts are estimating that sales were up 26% from last year landing Prime Day sales in a $500 million to $600 million range.
Amazon is brushing their shoulders off because they just showed the world the right way to successfully run a campaign. Even though Amazon is one of the world’s largest online retailers, their practices and strategies can be looked to for guidance from any digital marketer or online retailer.
