The Continuing Case Study of the Alpha Pair Wallet Brand
If you’ve been following along you saw how we recently launched a new brand called Alpha Pair. Our product line is wallets and the first product was a slim men’s wallet (read about the launch in detail here).
In the first case study we talked about our launch; how we chose the product, did a deep competitor analysis, used tools to optimize the listing, and used promotions to improve rank and visibility.
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If you paid attention to the details of that case study, then you caught how we originally wanted to launch an air-tag wallet, but due to costs and time constraints decided to launch a basic slim wallet first.
The goal was to use the momentum from the slim wallet to fuel (and fund) the air-tag wallet launch. Now that we are in full swing of the air-tag wallet launch we wanted to share our unique launch methods in this next case study article.
Launching The Goal Product (Air-Tag Wallet)
First, the Psychology
We originally wanted to launch an air-tag wallet specifically because it is attached to a major trend (air-tag items). We created a simple modification to the design of the slim wallet to allow for the insertion of an Apple AirTag, prominently displaying the Apple logo on the front of the wallet.
This was done for psychological effect. See, we cannot place an Apple logo on our wallet, but with this design we don’t have to. People will purchase and enjoy the wallet for no other reason (in many cases) than to have a billfold that displays an Apple logo. This is a simple way to convey status with the ancillary benefit of being able to see where you misplaced your wallet.
Next, Using Momentum
With the successful launch of our original slim wallet we had funds coming in rapidly to handle an order of air-tag wallets. We also had inventory limits increased due to how many slim wallets we were selling.
Other benefits were that we dominated our wallet keywords with the slim wallet, meaning that our PPC and rank efforts would allow for our brand Alpha Pair to take up even more real estate in the category.
Between saturating ad space and organic placements with the Alpha Pair brand, as well as building a solid sales history for this type of product with Amazon, we were well on our way to another successful launch.
Finally, the Launch Method
Since the air-tag wallet was such a focus for us, we wanted to ensure the launch was wildly successful. For this reason we reserved our most impactful launch strategies for this product. We decided to heavily employ influencer marketing to both gain massive sales as well as build an audience of raving fans.
Why Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing has been taking the retail marketing space by storm for years now. With the rise of social media platforms that make consuming content for longer periods of time easier than ever, influencers have risen to prominence.
So why would we use this as our primary marketing strategy?
Well, for starters according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s IM Benchmark Report the value of social commerce in 2022 is estimated at $948 billion…..with a B!
This means there is a LOT of money on the table to be made.
How much money? That’s the real question, right? Industry numbers don’t mean much to us brand owners. We want to know how much our business will benefit from. Well, according to the IM Benchmark Report from 2019, for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, businesses earned on average $5.20!!
As if that ROI wasn’t nice enough, according to a HypeAuditor report for every dollar spent on influencer marketing businesses received $4.87 worth of earned media.
These stats show that influencer marketing often outstrips paid advertising at every turn.
Queue the info-mercial guy coming in to say “BUT WAIT…THERE’S MORE!”
A Matter survey reveals people are more trusting of influencers than brands, with 61% of respondents claiming they trust the recommendation of friends, family, and influencers over brands.
This would mean that influencers play an important role in bridging the gap between brands and their potential customers.
And finally, newer platforms have redefined how people consume content, with short video clips being a favorite. This is why Tiktok reigns supreme among social platforms, and as such, their influencer marketing numbers are impressive.
According to a Shopify report, 39% of people claim to have purchased a product they saw on Tiktok!
So now it’s probably obvious why this was the route we chose to take. Now let’s dive into what exactly we did…
The Alpha Pair Influencer Marketing Launch Strategy
The first step in an effective influencer marketing campaign is to choose the right influencers. In the past we’ve employed this strategy using a shotgun approach and hiring dozens of influencers to blanket social media with our products.
And that worked. However we decided to take a more targeted approach this time. We employed one influencer with a large reach across multiple platforms. This more targeted and organized approach ended up being much more efficient (and profitable) for us.
What we hired this influencer to do for us…
- One Buzzfeed feature.
- Four “social posts” (non-video)
- Eight Amazon Live streams
Buzzfeed
The influencer we chose to work with has grown such an enormous following and is so well-known now that Buzzfeed reached out and asked her to do a Prime Day 2 promotion video. She then gave us the opportunity to promote our Prime Day deals in the video.
View this post on Instagram
For anyone that doesn’t know Buzzfeed is a very popular media platform known for everything from news reports to entertainment to quizzes and more. This promotion “aired” during Prime Day in October and led to 221 units (specifically of the air-tag wallet) sold with a conversion rate of 25%!
Social Media
Next we had image/text features for discount promotions on various social media platforms. They looked like this…
These were posted in the Deal Cheat Facebook group and Telegram group, as well as on Instagram and Twitter. Total audience reach for these properties exceeded 200,000 people.
A single post on one day resulted in over $400 worth of wallets sold.
Amazon Live
The Amazon Lives were the most aggressive of our promotions, with eight livestreams each ranging from 500 to 700 viewers.
Here are the details of sales generated from one of those livestreams…
By far the Amazon Lives were the most lucrative (which is why we did so many with our influencer).
The Results
Aside from the increased sales mentioned above, we also benefited from an increase in keyword rank. As you can see here we’ve made great progress ranking on page one for highly relevant and well-trafficked keywords.
And here is a snapshot of a single day of sales and conversions…
Here you can see we are working toward building a following of raving fans with repeat purchases. Currently it sits at 1% but as our base grows we are confident that number will increase.
Here you can see we are slowly building up brand recognition, illustrated by the use of branded search terms. An SFR of 979,000 isn’t a significant number, but it has vastly increased from the base score of over 2 million.
And finally, our storefront, which we do not promote outright (all promos point to specific listings) is getting regular traffic since Prime Day 2.
All in all we are happy with these results. They illustrate that with the power of visibility and brand recognition, you can slowly build a solid foundation for a brand launching on the Amazon platform.