What do forecasters predict as the biggest potential moneymaker for Amazon in the coming years? Retail? Grocery? Entertainment? Surprisingly, some believe that the answer is actually business-to-business (B2B) sales. While selling bulk packages of chicken stock to restaurants or cases of ballpoint pens to office buildings may seem ho-hum, there’s potential for Amazon to massively expand its profit margins. In just two years, Amazon Business saw its revenue raise tenfold, from $1 billion in 2016 to $10 billion in 2018. Some analysts expect Amazon Business revenue to exceed more than $30 billion in just a few years.
And that could just be the beginning. Bank of America thinks that Amazon could control 10% of the entire B2B market by 2021, which would generate between $125 billion and $245 billion in added revenue. Amazon Business already has millions of customers, and that number is growing daily.
But while these new-to-ecommerce businesses are joining Amazon and beginning to make their bulk goods easily available online, a common thread is emerging among them: their Amazon B2B content is sorely lacking. For B2B companies to be successful in the unsparing digital marketplace, they need to adopt the best practices forged by their business-to-consumer (B2C) peers.
Optimizing the Product Page for Amazon B2B Content
First and foremost, an Amazon product page needs to tell the potential customer what a product is and what it does. This rudimentary task should always be accomplished through essential content: product titles, bullets, and a descriptive paragraph. Essential content is the foundation of every Amazon page; the positive first impression you only get to make once. This content is also fundamental in integrating SEO-optimized keywords, so the product can be found by those who would like to buy it. Quality essential content should deliver all of the pertinent information concisely in sentences that Alexa can read aloud clearly.
Beyond the basics, Amazon product pages give B2B brands the ability to sell their bulk industrial products in the same stylized yet informative way that retail brands present consumer goods. B2B brands who utilize Amazon A+ content have the opportunity tell a comprehensive product story with branded imagery, personalizing the B2B sales interaction in a way that online customers are now accustomed to and expecting.
Put simply, A+ content gives brands a way to shine brighter than their competitors. As Amazon becomes increasingly ubiquitous in all of life’s purchasing interactions, the line that distinguishes buying Industrial & Scientific supplies and picking out a new pair of jogging headphones could fade away completely. Most B2B companies could benefit from Basic A+, and now that creating this content is free for all vendors, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be standard for any brand selling on the platform.
Amazon B2B Content in Action
Offering “efficient, reliable spill control across a variety of industrial settings–from warehouses to oil rigs and beyond,” this SpillTech page is highly informative and precisely targeted across both its essential and A+ content. Multiple high-quality images show the product in use, features and benefits are properly introduced and explained, and the product story is effectively delivered across a series of Basic A+ modules.
This A+ content for a similar product from New Pig does a good job explaining the product and showing it in action, but suffers from a common pitfall: all of the information is contained within images. While the banners may look nice, this content isn’t optimized for mobile and runs the risk of being tough for certain customers to read. Also, although A+ content isn’t currently being indexed by Amazon, having only images means outside search engines won’t be able to index this content either.
This Samsung page is directed towards businesses and data centers, and they’ve splurged on Premium A+ content to showcase their solid state hard drives. This means larger images that push all the way out into the margins of the page, embedded video, mobile-friendly content, and an interactive infographic. The result is a highly functional, informative, and visually appealing page on Amazon. Creating a page like this requires a substantial investment in visual assets, but for those who have high-quality rich media at their disposal, this may be a great option.
Advice for B2B Brands Moving Forward with Content
Now that we’ve seen a few examples of good Amazon B2B content, here are five steps to help you implement and optimize your product pages.
- Check on the basics. Make sure your essential content is clean and well-written, and that it provides adequate information. Read our articles “How to Write Essential Product Descriptions for Amazon“ and “How to Write Product Titles for Amazon” to help you get started.
- Take advantage of enhanced content. Free Basic A+ content means you can give potential customers everything they need to make an informed buying decision.
- Optimize for search. Use strategic content that allows both your essential and enhanced content to help your product pages in the SERP rankings on Amazon and external search engines.
- Use Amazon Advertising to boost discoverability. Once you’ve got your content optimized, you want to make sure customers can find you. For many brands, that means getting a little extra help with advertising, and B2B advertising requires a specialized touch.
- Evaluate. Don’t forget to check on your content! As you learn from your Amazon ad campaigns, you can adjust your content to meet consumer needs.
