What Amazon Prime Day can Teach You about Small Business Marketing

Small Business Marketing lessons from Amazon Prime

The day is upon us, and people all over the country are logging onto Amazon to find the best Amazon Prime Day discounts. It’s become such a huge event that people anticipate it, even waiting to make purchases until the sales begin.

And if you’re a small business owner who is looking to increase sales, there are some great takeaways about how to use the Amazon Prime marketing techniques to grow your small business.

So, as millions of consumers are shopping on Amazon right this minute, I want to talk about the 4 best takeaways you can reap from Amazon Prime marketing.

But first, let’s have a brief description about what Amazon Prime is and just how popular it is across the globe.

What is Amazon Prime?

Amazon Prime was launched 12 years ago and currently has more than 100 million members. These members pay a yearly fee of $119 (or $12.99 a month) which gives them certain benefits that other Amazon shoppers don’t enjoy. For example, they get free 2-day shipping on their purchases, free movies and videos via Amazon Prime Video, free books, magazines and audiobooks via Audible and Kindle. In short, for a measly $12.99 a month, Amazon Prime users have access to all the things they want for free.

And that brings us to Amazon Prime Day. During this yearly event, Amazon Prime members are privy to hundreds of discounts and deals not available to other shoppers. For example, for this year’s Amazon Prime Day, members can save $50 on Echo Dot 2-pack, 30 percent all furniture, bedding, and décor and many, many more deals.

So, how did this day become so popular and what takeaways can you gleam for your own small business? Here are the top five:

1. Don’t Over-Complicate Your Message

One of the most notable things new entrepreneurs do is to over-complicate their message. Many new small business owners try to be everything to everyone—a sure recipe for disaster. But more often than naught, successful small business marketing campaigns are simple and speak directly to an audience’s need.

Let’s take Amazon Prime as an example. Back in 2005 when the program was started, the chief obstacle for many Amazon sales was the shipping charge. Back then, customers were asking why they would purchase a mattress or other heavy from Amazon to only have to pay huge shipping charges.

So Amazon addressed this customer pain point by launching Amazon Prime, which for a low monthly fee, eliminated shipping charges.

It was brilliant and that’s why it’s gone global.

What is the pain point for you customers? When designing your marketing campaign, focus on it and create the campaign so consumers can easily understand how your product or service can help with it.

2.  When You Find a Winning Strategy, Expand on It

When Amazon Prime started, all it offered to its members was free 2-day shipping, but as the program took off and gained traction, Amazon began adding benefits. In addition to those listed above, there are even more. For instance, Amazon Prime members get year-round access to Girl Scout cookies, discounts when shopping at Whole Foods or Amazon physical stores, Prime Wardrobe, where members can try before they buy, a 30-minute early access time to lightening deals, Prime photos, which allows for unlimited storage for photos and lots more.

In other words, Amazon took a successful program aimed at people who didn’t want to pay shipping fees and has slowly added additional services to enlarge its customer base.

How does this relate to your small business? Once you hit on the marketing concept that consumers respond to, it’s time to think about how it can be expanded to bring in additional customers. This will work in any field or industry and you’ll only be limited by your imagination.

3. Even if You Fail at First, Don’t Stop

We all remember the hashtag #AmazonPrimeFail from 2015 when people took to Twitter complaining that there weren’t enough deals on Amazon Prime. The company could have easily decided that the event was a failure and moved on to other marketing campaigns.

But they believed in their produce and instead of giving up, Amazon listened to the criticism and made the subsequent year a success by adding more deals.

Knowing the difference between an unsuccessful product or service and an unsuccessful product or service launch is key. Amazon understood that they’d nailed the product, but lacked in its execution. And that knowing is why they have over 100 million members today.

“Knowing the difference between an unsuccessful product or service and an unsuccessful product or service launch is key.” Sam Kerns  Click here to Tweet!

The same holds true for your small business marketing campaign. If you’re confident, backed by research and customer feedback, that you’ve got a winning product, don’t back down if your initial launch isn’t successful. Instead, take a cue from Amazon and listen to the feedback and then try again.

Which brings us to our final point…

4. Use Special Events to Announce Your Product

In the past, special events were only used when a business launched a new product or opened a new location, but Amazon changed all of that in 2015 when it create Amazon Prime Day. The event, which brought in more sales than Black Friday, only served to highlight the deals that Amazon Prime member received. And despite the criticism for not having enough deals, Amazon gained hundreds of thousands of new members.

When thinking about your small business marketing campaign, brainstorm about how you can use a special event to call attention to your product. Whether you run a local business, an online shop, or you work from home in a small business, organizing an event could make the difference between a successful marketing campaign and one that falls flat.

Small business owners everywhere can look to Amazon Prime as a great example of how to create and run a business marketing campaign. What about you? Do you have any ideas about how you can use Amazon’s success as a jumping-off point in your small business startup?