How and Why DTC Brands Should Leverage Prime Day 2022
Amazon Prime Day, the annual shopping event created to boost Prime memberships and serve up epic deals on top brands and smaller businesses, returns this July 12 and 13, with the e-commerce giant promoting it earlier and more aggressively than ever before.
Like Prime Days of years past, 2022’s event comes with great growth potential for brands big / small, as well as on / off Amazon–in addition to a few unique challenges.
One such hurdle is the current economy’s runaway inflation, leaving industry insiders to predict that Prime shoppers, now totalling 200 million, will be less interested in Black Friday-type deals on big-name electronics like Echo smart speakers and Fire TVs, and more eager to save on lower-cost staples.
That’s good news for DTC brands–especially those offering self-care, fitness, home goods, as well as health and wellness products. For these brands, Prime Day 2022 could be a prime opportunity to tap into new audiences and benefit from their increased appetite for cost savings on less big-ticket essentials amidst all-time-high inflation.
In this post, the MuteSix Amazon marketing experts weigh in on all the questions you may be asking yourself if you are a DTC brand wondering how best to leverage Prime Day 2022 to acquire new customers and generate high revenue.
Why Is Prime Day 2022 a Prime Opportunity for DTC Brands?
Many DTC brands are strategically deciding to participate in the retail giant’s mega-event because consumer intent to purchase is at an all-time high, as is the sense of urgency to score a limited-time deal. Taking part in it can include either creating their own on-site sales during these promotion-heavy two days or directly offering deals on Amazon.
DTC brands looking to benefit from Prime Day is not a new phenomenon. In 2020, Amazon shifted its focus heavily to align with consumers’ interest in supporting small- and medium-sized businesses, especially at the height of the pandemic when SMBs were hurting. And, the proof was in the numbers in 2020: Amazon successfully drove $3.5 billion for SMBs.
Even better news: 2021 was even more impressive, with overall sales generating north of $11.2 billion, up 7.6% from $10.4 billion from Prime Day 2020, which included record-breaking results for many DTC brands like Bala.
For that reason, SMBs can and should capitalize on this shopping extravaganza by both getting their names in front of ready-to-spend consumers with competing offers and promoting their sales across all their major advertising channels, including Meta, Google, SMS, and Email.
Can DTC Brands Still Benefit from Prime Day If They’re Not on Amazon?
Absolutely. If a brand is not directly selling their products on Amazon, they should still offer Prime Day-aligned deals on their website to capitalize on the high purchase intent of consumers.
This is why other bigger retailers like Target, Walmart, Best Buy and Wayfair have been running their own “anti-Prime Day” deal events during the 48 hours of Prime Day on Amazon and are expected to do so again this year.
DTC brands should consider doing the same.
What Should DTC Brands Do on Their Own Website to Promote Their Own Deals During Prime Day?
A few website-advertising tactics include sticky bars that tower over your landing pages, welcome and exit popups collecting SMS and email data, and countdown timers to create a sense of urgency.
Another best practice if you’re hosting a sitewide sale is to show discounts on individual SKUs by slashing the prices on the product level. Generally speaking, make your offers prominent, concise, and eye-catching. Celebrate exclusivity, which is something that can’t be replicated by Amazon during Prime Day.
How Can Lesser-Known Brands Stand Out and Appeal to Prime Day Shoppers?
If you’re directly participating in Prime Day, there are different advertising and assortment tactics to put into motion, such as limiting your assortment to only a few SKUs, advertising select products, and using Amazon’s first-party data as an incremental targeting option so they do not clash with other off-Amazon advertising efforts.
What Should Your DTC Amazon Prime Day Strategy Be?
We encourage brands to follow a full-funnel, omnichannel strategy before, during and after Prime Day 2022.
1. Fill the funnel weeks ahead of Prime Day by driving consideration traffic leading up to Prime Day to reach new consumers weeks before the event. By running deals at least two weeks ahead of Prime Day, your brand will be able to keep up with Amazon’s pre-sale price-slashing on their own branded products, which include their popular bundles.
2. Maximize conversions on the two days of the event by upping spend on high-converting Amazon advertising strategies. On July 12 and 13, brands should start getting more aggressive with discounts, aiming for 20% off and higher.
3. Continue deals and retarget consumers at least one to two weeks after Prime Day to capture buyers who regret missing out on the deal. For many of our valued brands, we’ve seen a massive uptick in conversions throughout the days following the sale’s end.
We also encourage DTC brands to enroll in a Prime Exclusive Discount, which is different from a standard coupon on Amazon because it gives you the Prime Day badging throughout a portion of the event. Being an official Prime Day deal also makes your brand / product more discoverable and allows it to be featured in curated deal lists and gift guides. The Prime Day deal badge also appears on your Sponsored Ads placements or Amazon DSP creative.
However, for brands that did not meet the late-April deadline for Prime Day badge discounts, we encourage you to still consider sales pricing and coupons so as to capitalize on the Prime Day shopping fever and keep up with competitive pricing from participating brands.
How Can DTC Brands Advertise for Prime Day If They’re Not on Amazon?
Even if you’re not participating on Amazon, it’s important to complement—not try to compete with—the heavily discounted products, which could interrupt the purchasing cycle of the ready-to-buy consumer. This way, when they see your promotional ad on Meta, for example, they still feel enticed to enter your full-funnel marketing while they’re in a ready-to-spend mindset.
A full-funnel approach and channel diversity are key. Ensure your promotional messaging is consistent across all consumer touch points and that you’re running ads where your target consumers are, which includes Google SMS, Email, Meta, etc.
Case in Point: How Bala Increased Daily Sales by 187% During Prime Day 2021
Bala is one such DTC / Prime Day story of success. The fashion-forward fitness brand behind beautifully designed exercise bangles and bars came to MuteSix looking to optimize their Amazon efforts so as to break revenue goals.
As part of their overall Amazon strategy, the brand focused on maximizing growth during Prime Day 2021 in an attempt to combat the declining sales performance of at-home fitness equipment once pandemic-shuttered gyms began reopening to the public.
As a result of their early start and strong full-funnel Amazon promotional strategy, which was carefully crafted in tandem with their Paid Search efforts, Bala saw an incredible 187% bump in daily sales over the course of Prime Day 2021.
A Final Word: It’s Time for Brands Big and Small to Think Prime.
DTC brands may, understandably, be wondering if advertising for Prime Day will cannibalize sales.
At MuteSix, we coach our brands to track their marketing efforts holistically as their omnichannel “e-commerce performance,” not their channel-specific performance. And, for brands not directly participating, we encourage them to leverage off-Amazon strategies to drive traffic to Amazon via Amazon Attribution.
Prime Day is not going away any time soon. In fact, it’s only continuing to grow more competitive since its 2015 launch. If you’re a DTC brand with high-quality, limited-quantity products, there are many ways you can piggy-back off the deal-shopping frenzy.
Whether it’s taking a full-funnel, omnichannel approach to disrupt the purchasing cycle for ready-to-shop consumers or participating in Prime Day with aggressive discounts and eye-catching DSP creative, leveraging Prime Day is not only strategic but essential to keeping your brand top of mind during one of the highest revenue-generating shopping events of the year.
Need help deciding what the smartest Prime Day 2022 strategy looks like for your brand? Reach out to our Amazon strategists today for a free marketing consultation.