The Digital Marketing Strategies and Campaigns of Amazon-In Depth Guide

Updated on: Sep 28, 2022
Amazon’s Digital Marketing Strategy - Featured Image

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My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

Practical assignments, case studies & simulations from Harvard Business Review helped the students from this course present this analysis.

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From commencing its business as an online marketplace for books to being the world’s largest online revenue company, Amazon has come a long way.

According to CNBC, about 70 percent of the Indian population purchases products from Amazon during events and festivals. Woah! 70 percent is an immense unit of people, right?

So, what does Amazon exactly do to attract them? Do you ever think what’s the recipe behind this huge success? If so, then you have arrived on the right page. In this case study, we will go through Amazon India’s target audience, its marketing strategies, campaigns, and methods to attract new and existing customers.

So let’s get started by knowing a bit more about Amazon India as well as Marketing Strategy of Amazon.

Amazon’s Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

About Amazon India

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - About Amazon

Amazon is the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales and market capitalization. It is one such internet company in the world that has revolutionized the business landscape as a whole.

It was founded on July 5, 1994, in Washington, United States by Jeff Bezos who is also currently the CEO of the company. The initial success of Amazon was lightning quick as without taking any help from the press for promotions, it was still able to sell books across 45 countries in just two months.

From starting up as an online marketplace for books, it went on to expand its offerings. Now Amazon sells almost anything and everything on its platform and has a presence in 200+ countries. It has more than 40 subsidiaries under its umbrella which includes the likes of Audible, Twitch, IMDb, and Amazon Web Services.

It became a publicly listed company back in 1997 and is currently listed on NASDAQ in the United States. It operates its business under the name Amazon India in India.

Top 5 Competitors of this brand

Here are the top 5 competitors of Amazon based on the search results:

  1. Alibaba: Alibaba is a Chinese multinational conglomerate that specializes in e-commerce, retail, and technology. It is one of Amazon’s biggest competitors in the retail sector.

      2. eBay: eBay is an American multinational e-commerce corporation that provides consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales services via the Internet. It is known for its user-driven economy powered by an auction-based system and is a major competitor to Amazon in the e-commerce space.

     3. Walmart: Walmart is a multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. It is considered to be one of the top competitors of Amazon, especially in the consumer retail and electronics industry.

      4.JD: JD.com is a Chinese e-commerce company that is one of the largest B2C online retailers in China. It is a major competitor to Amazon in the Chinese market.

      5. Flipkart: Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company that specializes in online shopping for electronics, books, and fashion. It is one of Amazon’s biggest competitors in the Indian market.

 

User Persona

 

Buyer’s Persona

Name:

Varshini

Place:

Bengaluru

Age:

20 years

Profession:

Student

Motivation

  • Ease of shopping.
  • Ordering in a few clicks.
  • Huge variety to choose from.
  • Quality Products.
  • Better Grooming.

Interest & Hobbies

  • Reading.
  • Dancing.
  • Music Listening.
  • Cooking.
  • Exploring new Things.
  • learning New Things.

Pain Points

  • Inconsistent information on social
    media channels.
  • Slow website and checkout process.
  • Size Availability.
  • Stock Availibilty.
  • Very Clumsy User Interface.

Social Media Presence

  • Instagram
  • pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Twitter

 

 

Amazon India’s Target Audience

Amazon India offers a wide range of products and services to its customers with the convenience of ordering from home through their mobile devices. So to keep it short, Amazon targets every person in the country as its potential customer. Amazon also has around 40+ subsidiaries that specifically cater to a specific set of customers. Here’s a breakdown of the same.

Amazon  Target Group/Audience
Amazon.com General Public
Audible and Kindle Book Readers
Twitch Gaming Community
IMDb, Prime Video, Music General Movies and Entertainment Audience
Amazon Web Services Corporates and Businesses, Bloggers, Freelancers

 

As you can see from the table, Amazon India targets its audience broadly with its eCommerce platforms as well as targeting the audience of specific groups and interests with its other groups of companies.

Now that you have an idea of its offerings and audience demographics, let us understand the Digital marketing strategies and campaigns implemented by Amazon India to retain its existing customers and how they target new customers.

 

Digital Marketing Strategy of Amazon

As we all know, Amazon is an internet eCommerce company, this alone makes its business capable of utilizing all the tools of digital marketing to its full potential and it has been doing well on these aspects way better than its competitors.

We will understand Amazon India’s marketing strategy one by one in the coming sections. Let’s start by knowing how it implements its social media marketing strategies.

 

Amazon’s Social Media Marketing Strategy

Amazon promotes its products on social media, successfully tapping into the social networks’ audience and linking them back to their product pages for sale.

In today’s times, everyone is on social media. To engage with its audience better it has partnered with several micro and macro-influencers of the country as well.

Let’s see how Amazon uses various social media platforms, Suffice it to say, that they leverage all available channels. It’s on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest as well.

 

1. Amazon on Facebook

There are 10 million fans who follow Amazon India on Facebook. It uses Facebook mainly for posting company updates and promotions. It uses aggressive promotion strategies to promote its sales days. It also stays relevant by putting out topic-based posts. Let’s now understand its Facebook marketing campaigns in detail.

 

i. Sale Day Promotions

Amazon announces various sales such as Freedom Sale around Independence Day and various other sales during a particular year. This year it introduced the BookBazaar Sale, Apni Dukaan Sale, Wardrobe Refresh Sale, and many more.

Exciting Offers and discounts are used as key USPs to promote Sale Days.

 

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Facebook - Sale Day Promotions

 

Amazon’s Freedom Sale and Amazon’s Wardrobe Refresh Sale promotions were held this year.

 

ii. Topical Promotions

Amazon also celebrates festivals and other memorable days such as Doctors Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Raksha Bandhan, Holi, Diwali, and many more

 

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Facebook - Topical Promotions

These minimal creatives with simple messages also help consumers engage with the brands. Here Amazon is also not promoting any of its products or services. It just presents a simple message.

 

iii. Highlights of Amazon’s Stories

Amazon motivates and supports those with small businesses who become the most inspiring entrepreneurs and sellers. In the below image, Monika Agarwal is one of the inspiring sellers of Amazon who tells her story- she owns Swara Creations, in Mumbai, which offers traditional and modern fashion accessories.

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Facebook - Amazon Stories

This also encourages many small businesses and retailers to sell their products on this platform thus resulting in Amazon onboarding more sellers who offer customers everything they need.

 

2. Amazon on Instagram

Amazon’s marketing strategy on Instagram has mainly been used for interviews with various artists from different backgrounds and primary promotions. It has about 2.8 million followers on Instagram.

Its strategy on Instagram is very similar to how it uses Facebook, except for company news updates, the posts are almost the same both on Instagram & Facebook.

Here are a few notable promotions done by Amazon to create spread laughs and inspiration.

 

i. Prime Day Promotion

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Instagram - Prime Day Promotions

 

On Amazon’s recent Amazon Prime Day, it partnered with 14 very popular stand-up comedians in India to promote their Sale Day.

The caption put up was, “Your 10-minute breather is here. Enjoy your #AmazonPrimeDay shopping with 14 comedians keeping your company, every hour. #DiscoverJoy”, This seemed to be interesting and that attracted many customers to shop.

 

ii. Amazon HandMade

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Instagram - Handmade

 

Recently, Amazon celebrated women-owned businesses on @AmazonHandmade’s Instagram profile. The women with small businesses are the ones who are inspiring other women out there.

They have turned their passion and creativity into handcrafted products for customers around the world with the hashtag #BossBabe. This move encouraged women from all over the globe to start their businesses and use Amazon as its distribution channel.

 

3. Amazon on Twitter

Amazon India uses a very different approach to acquire new customers on Twitter. It keeps its followers engaged, uses a wide variety of content, creates customer-acquiring contests, uses multiple accounts, and participates in trends.

It has a fan base of 2 million on Twitter, which is one of the best follower counts in the industry.

It uses a conversational tone on Twitter that presents content in such a way that seems to us like personal recommendations rather than an advertisement. This has made Amazon seem to sell nearly everything and they also have content for nearly everything. Here are some of the highlights from Amazon India’s Twitter handle.

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Twitter

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Twitter

 

4. Amazon on YouTube

The best thing about Amazon’s YouTube advertisements is that they Hook people immediately. Amazon always tries to keep its ads meaningful and engaging usually by trying to connect with the customer using an emotional message.

In today’s world, where people are worried that the growth of technology is drawing them apart, Amazon Echo’s new campaign aims to bring Indian families together with their smart speaker technology.

Another very popular campaign released by Amazon with the hashtag – #MomBeAGirlAgain, revolves around a mother-son relationship, where the son gifts his mother a Camera using Amazon’s services.

 

 

YouTube offers brands various field formats to showcase their advertisements, like skippable in-stream ads, Non-skippable ads, etc. Amazon uses all these formats from time to time, depending on the purpose.

 

5. Amazon on Pinterest

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Strategy - Pintrest'

 

Amazon’s account on Pinterest has over 1 lakh followers. They utilize their presence on Pinterest by promoting their products based on various themes.

Amazon makes a collage of its most popular products in several thematic lifestyle buckets such as for wedding planning, for home, office, kitchen, etc. to lure a wide range of consumer groups back to the products on its E-commerce website.

 

Amazon’s Website Analysis

In simple terms, SEO means the process of improving your website to increase its visibility for relevant searches. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.

On analyzing Amazon’s website using the Ubersuggest tool. This is how Amazon. in fares on its SEO audit.

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Website Analysis

Here are the key metrics that you should consider from the following.

  • It has about 7.6 Crore organic keywords which are just insane.
  • It gets about 36 Crore organic monthly traffic. This shows that well Amazon has worked on its service offerings to give out a better overall experience to its customers.

Talking about Backlinks, to be honest, we all are big fans of those product lists promoted by popular bloggers, and YouTubers promoting products and when you click on the links of one such product it mostly redirects you to Amazon. in. This process is known as backlinking.

This is why Amazon has about 11 crores of backlinks associated with its site. This helps them bring more and more customers to its website from various other popular websites and social media platforms.

 

Amazon’s Email Marketing Strategy

Whenever we purchase from Amazon, we receive emails thanking us for our purchase, asking for a product review, and even offering a discount on our email. This is called Email Marketing.

Amazon’s email marketing strategy is simple, it sends its customers personalized product recommendation emails, based on various aspects like – purchase history, past order value, location, age, gender, and on-site browsing.

Here’s an example of one such personalized email.

Marketing Strategy of Amazon - A Case Study - Digital Marketing Strategy - Email Marketing

It also sends very personalized coupons to its customers via its emails which also makes its customers check every personalized E-mail that Amazon sends.

With this, our case study on Amazon India’s Digital Marketing strategies has come to an end. So let’s conclude that case study in the most fitting words possible.

  Example of a Failed Campaign Or Backlash from Viewers

Here is an example of a failed campaign and backlash faced by Amazon based on the search results:

Issue: Amazon’s “Prime Day” sale in 2018

  • Amazon’s annual “Prime Day” sale in 2018 was marred by technical glitches and website crashes.
  • Many customers were unable to access the website or complete their purchases, leading to frustration and anger.

Backlash:

  • Customers took to social media to express their frustration and disappointment with the technical issues.
  • Many people criticized Amazon for not being prepared for the high volume of traffic and for not adequately addressing the issues promptly.
  • Some customers even threatened to boycott Amazon and switch to other e-commerce platforms.

Brand’s Response:

  • Amazon issued an apology to customers and acknowledged the technical issues that occurred during the sale.
  • They offered refunds to customers who were unable to complete their purchases due to the website crashes.
  • Amazon also promised to improve their infrastructure and technical capabilities to prevent similar issues from happening in the future.

In this situation, Amazon faced backlash from customers due to technical issues during their “Prime Day” sale. The brand responded by issuing an apology, offering refunds, and promising to improve its infrastructure to prevent similar issues in the future.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

 

Conclusion

If there is one company that knows what it takes to be in the top spots of the search engine results, it’s Amazon. Why? Because they understand how people look for products and services online. 

Honing their digital marketing strategy, Amazon is making master moves to ensure that they are at the forefront of digital marketing and giving shoppers what they want, easy and fast. 

Having also created an identity of being the biggest internet storefront in the world, Amazon should continue to produce more such interesting content and implement them in the best way possible to remain as competitive as they currently are.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

1 Comment

  1. Sowmiya

    Great content. Thanks for sharing this content. This case study will help Amazon vendors to promote their Amazon marketing.

    Reply

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