The Amazon Strategist Show

Transform Your Listings Using Visual Content Techniques

• The Amazon Strategist Show

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Unlock the secrets to transforming your Amazon product listings with the expert insights of Rafael Velas from ShareIt Studio. With his unique background in filmmaking and marketing, Rafael dives into the powerful role of visual content in boosting sales and preventing stagnation. Discover why major brands like Coca-Cola continually refresh their marketing and how you can apply similar strategies to your Amazon listings. Whether you're stuck with outdated visuals or looking to optimize for a specific demographic, Rafael's advice on using images, videos, and Amazon's brand registry features will equip you with the necessary tools to stay ahead in the competitive marketplace.

Navigate the post-COVID landscape with confidence as we tackle the pressing need for reinvestment to remain competitive. We highlight the importance of strategic image placement, using real-life models, and the art of breaking patterns to capture attention. Rafael shares his controversial take on maximizing space in product images, urging sellers to focus on quality. Tailoring your approach for each product and client, Rafael emphasizes that there's no one-size-fits-all solution in e-commerce. Tune in for actionable strategies that promise to enhance your Amazon listings and drive customer conversions, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives.

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Speaker 1:

Everybody's saying use as much space as possible within your hearing image, but it's not completely true. It's not about using the space, it's how you use the space. Quality matters.

Speaker 2:

Hello, I'm your host, jon Cavendish, and welcome to Season 3 of the Amazon Strategies Show. The show that's all strategies, with no hacks, no silver bullets, no magic pills, just real, practical strategies to grow your Amazon business. Today, I'm joined by none other than Rafael Velas from ShareIt Studio, and today he's going to share a really special presentation with us about optimizing your listing and really what to do with images and video. So, rafael, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

John. Thank you so much, my friend. I really appreciate it. It's an honor. Thank you for your time, your team, your platform, everything that you're doing. It's really good.

Speaker 2:

Thank you Also. Whereabouts in the world are you based? You were saying just before we started that you used to live in Australia.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I used to live in Melbourne, australia. Right now I'm in sunny. Today it's a little bit gloomy, so gloomy Miami Florida.

Speaker 2:

And what do you prefer I?

Speaker 1:

actually prefer South America. I'll be honest yeah, south America Food is way more affordable over there, miami's amazing. I love Miami. Miami's my home base. I've been here since 2017, 2018. Miami, I prefer Miami Beaches. You know, running at 6 am, it's hot, it's sunny, that's good.

Speaker 2:

Nice, yeah, I mean, I live in the same weather and when we were doing some research on you before this, it says you used to work in marketing and film. So you can give us a bit of background about yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah well, it's a really good analysis. I feel stalked already, John Just kidding, it's a joke.

Speaker 1:

That's all right. I'm a filmmaker. Actually, I'm still a filmmaker and I used to work in Nickelodeon. I worked in a lot of companies. I used to work at MTV. I used to work at Screen Gem, which is owned by Screen Gem. I used to work at CNN Telemundo. I did a lot of filmmaking in New York. I used to do a lot of feature films. I wasn't a director or anything, but I used to be like production coordinator, head of PAs. I did Red Bull TV, I did a lot of Nissan commercials, et cetera.

Speaker 1:

My first music video that I directed was in 2009. That got me to go to. Well, I was attending law school on my ad which is kind of crazy and then I transitioned completely full-time into marketing and then filmmaking. I went to school for filmmaking as well, and in 2017, I was working for Nickelodeon and I did a really good job by optimizing my boss's best friend, amazon listing. He used to sell coffee and his sales started increasing. And because his sales started increasing, I talked to my mentor and my mentor was it's like hey, maybe amazon is the place where you should be. I was like well, why not, let me try it out? The rest is history. I'm here I have my company for six plus years already and, um, yeah, I sell on amazon as well, and it's been a good ride. Amazon's giving me a opportunity to live life in a better, fulfilled way. So thank you, jeff Bezos. I appreciate you, man. I haven't realized that.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Yeah, I agree, and you know I have a similar journey of things going well, and then you know Jeff Bezos being very good to us. So I have a presentation to go through today. If you want, I can drop off the screen. You can, you know, talk for 15, 20 minutes, however long you want to go.

Speaker 1:

I can jump in and ask questions, whatever you prefer, okay this is a following um, because I know people who watch this are entrepreneurs and most likely they're wearing 20 different hats. So I'll try to be as fast as possible. If you do want to uh see the full presentation, or you, if you do want to, for me to explain it in one-on-one with you uh, anybody that's listening or watching this I'll be more than happy just to find the QR code at the end of the presentation and I'll be able to just give you a one-on-one consultation if you like. If not, it's okay. It's complete for free. You're not paying anything. Even if we do not do business, it's okay as well. I'll be happy to help big industry at the same time.

Speaker 1:

One disclaimer before we begin Amazon, as you know, john, is in 2015,. When people started launching 2015, 2016, that was like the golden age, I would say. You can put up anything on Amazon, really and it just created an opportunity for people to make money fast. So I've had the last few weeks, john I speak at least to one or two a day and averagely new clients or potentially new clients not my repeat clients or people who I consult and what I've seen is that sales who are making between two to $7 million this year. They've sell way less. Their sales are down like 40% 50%. It could be a lot of reasons, it could be the economy, fees, et cetera. But what I've seen is that they're now rushing to optimize their listing. And I've asked them like when was the last time you optimized your listing? It's like, oh, three years ago. I was like so you haven't done a new commercial in three years? No, I haven't. So I was like but wait, coca-cola, which everybody knows like I've been alive 33 years and I've heard Coca-Cola since I have use of memory they do launches every freaking month almost and they do marketing there. Nobody knows your brand. What happened? You like taking at least one picture with your phone of your product and just upload to your listing Like just one, do something with it.

Speaker 1:

What I'm trying to say is that you have to keep driving traffic, and Amazon knows this. You cannot only depend on Amazon. That's why a lot of Amazon sellers are now moving outside of the platform. They're trying to launch their Shopify, they're trying to do their TikTok shops, et cetera, because Amazon is not what it used to be before, the competition is not what it used to be before. So you have to update your listing, you have to invest into marketing. I invest into marketing. I don't know why, but they're just they weren't investing into marketing, like I see I don't see a logic and not investing at least 1% of your sales into re-optimizing your listing, like at least 0.5% of your sales if you're making $5 million a year, right, and so that's just my take. So that's what I've been seeing the last few weeks and this is why I made this class for your audience. Hopefully somebody can, even if you don't work with me, just please do something to convert that client from a spectator to an actual buyer. So I'll jump right into it.

Speaker 1:

Guys, this is my company. We've done all these awards and accolades. You can see my full portfolio here. This is me a long time ago. This is what we do. You can hit pause and you can actually see it, but we basically focus on content and the most important thing is that before we do anything, we do a very deep analysis into your niche, category, et cetera, and we are able to really understand your buyer persona and try to connect with them. We want to make them itch. We want to touch that nerve, that emotional nerve that says like, hey, you should buy my products because it's got to solve this specific problem. All right, that's the most important thing touching that nerve and the way we do it is through actual content. So we do photos, videos, copywriting, bullet points, all these things that you can see here. My favorite part is the videos, obviously, because I'm a filmmaker and I really like it. We do sponsor TV ads anything has to do with videos, alright, so let's jump into it.

Speaker 1:

This is a case study before and after of a client that we did. I'll jump into a case study because I like to see numbers and then we'll go more into the Theory. I would say this this was the content before Not bad, right for an Amazon listing. And this is the after. Obviously, the hero image completely changes. We added a human touch.

Speaker 1:

I'll show you what I mean by that and just model like an actual model, a model actually using the product, not a fake product. Stock imagery right or given by your supplier. Again, if you're still in the U selling the US, you have to relate to the people who are buying this product. So you know, we use the model. We found out that this is a type of buyer most likely, and also for the a-plus content, like, again, model model, using it right. So, yes, we show the features, but it's like, um, that old market is saying don't sell the drill, sell the whole right. So this is what right? So this is what they have before and this is what they have after. So they saw a very good increase of before and after. They have more than 197% in sessions and units order more than 600% more in order products and money 559% increase. And this is just. You know literally the results that we saw. Because of this right, this I'm not sure you why because of the following again, I must skim through it so you can see as much as possible All right.

Speaker 1:

So what are the things you can do to present your listing videos, premium plus content content, guys, this is very important. This is free. Before you have to be invited and you have to pay so much money. You have to pay almost more than two hundred thousand dollars to be able to use this feature and this is free. Now, use it. Even if you didn't use it with me, use it. The cool way is that now you can upload it and you have to upload. So many have different agents. You can have one agent and even though you have upload it and you have to upload, so many have different ASINs. You can have one ASIN and, even though you have one ASIN, you can upload variations and still unlock it. I have a YouTube video on that. Just go and search Shari Studio and you'll see it there. It's completely free.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, your listing images from description, ad spaces, backend keywords Make sure that the ad space you're taking really good advantage on them Titles and bullet points, not just in English, but in Spanish. If you're selling in the US, remember more than 50 million people in the US speak Spanish almost as a native tongue. They use Amazon as a. A lot of them I'm not saying all of them, but a lot of them use Spanish, primarily on Amazon. Oh, obviously you can compete on price, but right now, unless you own the factory, I don't think you want to compete on pricing that much. Reviews, obviously, branding and Amazon posts and so on.

Speaker 1:

Right, so let's focus on images. A plus content and video. Right, make sure you're using product features. Make sure that you are so right here as you can see. Okay, this is one whole image, but these are different photos of the same image, so we actually took real photos, okay, of this image in close one. So, for example, make sure that you're trying to communicate as easily as possible the features of the product. Okay, as easily as possible. The people understand that. They just see this for one second and they can already see.

Speaker 1:

Even the placement of the icons is very important. What's the most important thing of your product For this is the mini camera. That's why it's here in the middle center. Okay, then you open up, right. So we found out that these were the so for most important to least important. Why? Because people look from here first and then their eyesight goes down. So this is the most important thing for us for this product Make sure that there's a thought process of the placement of it as well.

Speaker 1:

Make sure that you're using real-life models. Make sure that you transmit the customer benefits. These are things that we should already be looking at, but a lot of people are not taking advantage of this. Make sure that when you're using a model, make sure that you have that feeling, that you can transmit the feeling of the actual model. Okay, and obviously, if you have any badges or anything that relates to the quality of your product, you emphasize it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, always try to use a model. Make sure you break patterns. So, for example, we're looking for a stone bath mat, right? This is the heel image. So this is what we see. They're all the same, cool, yeah, everybody can agree, they're all the same. So, if they're all the same, how can we stand out more? Well, let's try to bend the rules. Don't break the rules, but try to bend them. This is what we did, right? So we added some feet. Yes, it's kind of you know, but again, if your competition is doing it, also have a backup plan in place, just in case. So, for example, here we added more benefits, like, for example, one of the things, or the main questions that's why analyzing your competition is so important is that people were asking how long does it take until it dries? We showcased it here. We're answering questions before they even ask the questions.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and also, if you're using a model, make sure that you're using. You know, everything looks good. So, for example, we have the model. We pay for the model to go into her feet, so everything looks as neat as possible. So we're adding more to it, not just somebody placing their foot in a good angle. So they looks good. It looks neat. Okay, make sure you're breaking the patterns and your different angles and props. The props here are the feet of the model. Obviously.

Speaker 1:

Make sure you are analyzing the competitors right, what they have in common, what they don't have in common, et cetera, and always keep in mind your title right. So when you're optimizing your title in Spanish, at least in the US, do not just use ChatGPT or just use Google. Try to understand who your buyer persona is. Okay, if there's a way that maybe you're selling outside of Amazon and you know somebody, people from Mexico are buying your product more than people from South America in general because you have that data. If you have access to the data, that's great, but make sure you optimize it for Mexicans. So, the way I'm from Venezuela, there are so many different ways to call, for example, avocado in Mexico. Then you call it in Chile, then you call it in Venezuela. So make sure that you are using the right language for them. Obviously, if I'm from Venezuela, most likely I'll understand some Mexican slang, but make sure you're optimizing for that specific region.

Speaker 1:

Okay, if you can get certificates, make sure you get certificates because at the end of the day, that's going to help you, for example, these small businesses. You can be a black American owner. That's very important because Amazon is going to help you with that. I was actually just at Accelerate and they were talking a lot about this. And also, when people search for your product, look how much more space your listing has, right. So make sure you're using that. Why not? Don't let it there. Okay, product description between versus A-plus content. This is a no-brainer. If you're launching on Amazon, you need to get brand registry so you can unlock all the A-plus features the brand register features and tools. But now don't stay at A-plus content. Make sure you're having the premium A-plus content, because premium A-plus content is going to make you upload a different edit for the mobile version of the A-plus content. This will allow you to bring up more space and this is going to allow you to have a better shopping experience.

Speaker 1:

Everything that I saw on Ruffus at Accelerate was about the customer experience. How do I give the customer experience the best experience possible so they actually convert? Because, remember, if Amazon's going to make money either way, but the more conversions that your product has, the more money Amazon's going to make. The more money you can make Amazon, the happier they're going to be. It's simple. So make sure that you're giving the best customer experience as possible. Make sure that the client stays in your potential box, just in your listing, as much as possible so more ads can see, have the impressions and then, if they convert, amazon is going to make more money. You make more money, everybody's happy.

Speaker 1:

Okay, make sure you unlock in premium post content. Remember premium post content. Premium content is very, very important and I'm just gonna skim through this Again. You can upload a Spanish version as well, by the way. You could do this for different marketplaces. So make sure that you also have this. Don't let Amazon auto translate it, because if they do, that guy do a bad job. Believe me, they will.

Speaker 1:

Videos I'm not spend a little more time on this, because videos are very important. Make sure that, depending on the type of video, you are doing a specific edit of that video, a specific shot, and it's not the same thing to watch a Super Bowl ad than to watch an infomercial. If you put an infomercial ad on the Super Bowl as a Super Bowl ad, most likely it's going to cost you way more and you're not going to convert as well. Why? Because it's a different placement. Okay, same goes for Amazon where you plays. That video is very important.

Speaker 1:

A PPC video or a sponsor, this sponsor out of videos, rather sponsor display ads video. It's to drive traffic. That's a traffic driver, right. They want to attract more people to see your listing. If you have a just a premium, a plus video or a listing video, that's to drive conversions. You got to talk more about your product. You can, at this point, extend a little bit more why your product is better okay, than the competition benefits usage. This is to drive traffic. All right, you want to drive traffic with this type of video. Let me go back to drive traffic with this type of video. Let me go back Drive traffic, drive traffic, convert, drive traffic, drive traffic and drive traffic and convert as well. Okay, so make sure and this is to convert, so make sure that, depending on the type of video, you execute it differently. So let's do a video with it for one of our clients.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, you want to make this video entertaining. People like to be entertained. We live in the U? S where everything's an experience and you want to have a good experience, even if you go to restaurants. Maybe the food's not that good, but the experience is good. Most likely you'll repeat that place Okay.

Speaker 1:

So this is a case study we did with Visayo. This is them. Okay, and this is the before and afters. Okay, and the sessions, the order sales, even though the decisions were less, the sales were more. Why? Because we, or we, help them with PPC, so we would turn in the right keywords and the orders increase from and the seven to 125 the unit. Such a percentage unit session percentage conversion rate increases well, as well as the conversion rate in general. So for the child and parent aces, so make sure that you you are having, so for all these child aces increased as you can see. So make sure that you're having a right placement and if you need to give me, for me to give you a tip, let me know. I'll be more than happy to jump on a call for free 15 minutes and if you see an opportunity to work, together great.

Speaker 2:

If not, hopefully you can implement this and it's all good. Raphael, that was a speed run and yeah, that was really good. Actually, I liked it. That's great. No, thank you. So what would you say are the top one to three things that most people, or many people, could improve about their listing? When you do these listing audits, what are the top one to three things you tend to find on many people's listings?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this is a great question, man. They're not analyzing their competition and where their strength is. So, for example, I had a client. He's selling I can't say that the product, it's not an NDA, but he's selling something for the bathroom and everybody's using 3D renders. And he's like I want to use a 3D renderer. I was like but how can you stand down with a 3D renderer if everybody's using a 3D renderer? He's like well, but everybody's using it.

Speaker 1:

I was like but you don't have a listing. What do you mean? Don't fix what's not broken. You have nothing. So how can you fix something? How can you break something that's non-existent?

Speaker 1:

You need to drive traffic. You need to understand what type of traffic you're going to get, and then you go from there. So the first thing is stand out, see what, see what you can do to actually get more clicks. If everybody's using 3D render, why don't you add a hand in there and see what happens and try to run some tests and see, like, if this is what everybody's doing, like do something that people see it and they want to go into your listing? At first, the first thing you need to do is drive as much traffic as possible to understand your listing. This is the way that I've done business and it's worked for me so far Drive traffic, because without traffic there's no conversions, right? So drive traffic and conversions. So without traffic, there's no conversion. Nobody's seen your listing. Nobody's got to buy anything that you. That's, that'll be my first thing, like the first first thing, um, and then I realized I would say yeah awesome, cool.

Speaker 2:

So when people come to work with you, are they usually already selling or do you like to work with new sellers, like, who gets the most value out of working with your service?

Speaker 1:

um, both. So the way we work is that we focus on content. We don't diverse. I have an inside PPC analysis team and PPC team for my products,760 plus on her first month of launching and she had a return ad spend of 0.6, meaning that she made a little bit over $4,000 or $5,000. So she lost $0.40 on every dollar that she spent. So because her content wasn't optimized for PPC.

Speaker 1:

That's the idea here. We try to work with every type of client. We've had clients last month that they were making five to seven, two to $7 million a year in revenue and this year they're down. That's why I had a rant at the beginning, because they were losing so much money and they didn't optimize the listens for three years two, three years. So I was like, no, why You're hurting yourself? It's like you're shooting yourself in the foot. Don't do that. It's bad. Reinvest into your business if it's giving you money. With the rest of the money you can go do whatever else you want, but if not, you'll become blockbuster. Nobody wants to become blockbuster. Tupperware just file for bankruptcy. Tupperware where hundreds of millions of dollars they're not doing something right. Make sure you do something right. Reinvest into your business.

Speaker 2:

That's the first thing no, I totally agree and, yeah, many, many people have seen their businesses go down this year. I mean, a lot of people rode the covid wave and now that's well and truly over. But from what I hear from a lot of our clients and all of our agency partners is that, although sales are down, lots of sales are higher than 2019 for clients that have been selling a long time. So we're down from 2021, 2022, but we're still up on, you know, 2019 numbers I think it's a competition as well.

Speaker 1:

It plays a huge role. You know, competition is just fierce now. The the way more analytical, the way more they're smarter than what we're doing right now, that they just oversee companies that can compete on pricing, but also establish sellers. They have more data, they're working with better partners, these people who are making more money. It's like boxing you stay ready, so you don't have to get ready. They've stayed ready until now. So, yeah, that would be my guess.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree. All right, so we're also always asking this podcast for a controversial or debatable opinion or take in the industry. So, rafael, what kind of debatable or controversial opinion do you have in the hours of this place?

Speaker 1:

Okay, let me stir some fire. Everybody's saying use as much space as possible within your hearing image, which is true, but it's not completely true. It's not about using the space, it's about how you use the space. So, for example, here, all of them are using the same amount of space. They're trying to fill in 90% of their hero image, but do they really stand out? If I put this image here, boom in the middle, this is going to stand out even more. So it's not how you use the space. You can use as much space as possible, but it's how you use it. It's not how much, it's how you use it. The quality matters, at least for the hero image.

Speaker 1:

I can go way more down to the road, but I don't want to get controversial. I'm going to get backfired in LinkedIn. Oh my God, you said this. This is not true. Again, guys, to each his own. Everybody has a different experience. Every product is different. There are some things you can bend the rules with and there are other ways, other niches, and you cannot. So again, it's not a one-size-fits-all type of scenario, a shared studio. At least we don't work with a cookie cutter template and we treat every product, even if we work with the product before or something similar, we treat every product, even if we work with the product before or something similar. We treat every product differently because every product has its different audience. So make sure you know the data before you execute anything.

Speaker 2:

Cool, perfect, I love it. So if anyone does want to reach out with you um potentially work with you or get an audit, what's the best way to get in touch?

Speaker 1:

You can just email at hello at ShareItStudio. Share like you share something on social media. That's actually how we started the company back in 2014. When I first started ShareItStudio, it was meant for social media actually. So you want to create content that's shareable. That's how it actually started. So ShareIt like you share something on social media. Shareitstudiocom. If not, just scan the QR code and book a call with me or my team. 15 minutes, 20 minutes. We'll tell you what we believe you should be doing better. Even if you work with us and you work with the competition, Actually, let me know which competition you're going to work with so I can give you a referral link and you actually save money on them as well. I don't mind stuff on the table for everybody always, and the idea is for you, for us, to all make more money.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, perfect, yeah, if you're watching the video, you can say on the QR code what you're listing. If not, email. Hello at share it studio. Perfect, yep, cool, awesome. So, raphael, thank you so much for being here on the show and also check out my episode on the share it Studios masterclass. Where can people find your masterclasses or podcast?

Speaker 1:

Everything social media handle ShareIt Studio. You'll be able to go to YouTube ShareIt Studio and you'll see John's face right there as a thumbnail.

Speaker 2:

Like Mr Beast, you'll see John Mr Beast Also mouth open, not mouth closed, if you've watched any of Mr Beast's optimization videos.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, That'll be funny though.

Speaker 2:

All right, let's go over there. Awesome, all right, thanks. Thanks for being here, and if you're watching this show, please share, like and rate us on every platform. So thanks so much and see you next time. The amazon structure show.

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John Cavendish

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