Kaplan Amazon Product Page Optimization
Agency: Marketplace Strategy
Client: Kaplan
Role: Designer
Platform: Amazon
Goals
KAPLAN IS A PUBLISHING COMPANY that helps professionals obtain certifications and designations to grow their career or switch career paths.
Overall, Kaplan’s book listings needed creative optimizations to help improve their brand presence, provide digestible information to customers, and increase visibility to other Kaplan books. I created product images and A+ pages that align with those goals on the product description pages. A big challenge was not being familiar with the professional paths for those areas. I had to put in additional research by reading the content on the Kaplan website, utilizing the book descriptions, reading customer reviews, and finding information about the exams to have a good understanding of what features to prioritize to provide what is valuable to the customer.
Approach
I wanted to help educate customers on how the Kaplan books can bring value to them for their career success while creating an emotional connection. In order to do that I put focus into the below UX content strategies.
Descriptive UX Content: In order for customers to trust a product that they can't physically see or interact with, Descriptive UX content provides clarity on how the product can be valuable for them. For educational books, it is super important to break down features important to the customer in simple digestible pieces so they can attain a quick understanding on how the book will help their studies.
Inspirational UX Content: To add interest for Kaplan's educational books, I wanted to make them more appealing by utilizing inspirational UX content. The main focus would be utilizing imagery of successful professionals and imagery that reflects what the books will be used for. That way the visual content builds an emotional connection with customers by allowing them to envision their future success and potential.
Product Images
There is a challenge with creating product imagery for books because the features can't be shown by displaying the physical properties. Below are the items I implemented to communicate the Securities Series 6 License Exam Manual features in an interesting, visual way.
Consumable Descriptive Copy: I highlight the features by including them in the imagery. Customers typically look through the image gallery before reading the product description text, so adding summarized high priority features within the imagery allows customers to attain a quick understanding of how the product will help them pass the exam.
Brand Look: Since Kaplan is a well known publisher within the professional education industry, utilizing the brand look is essential to gain trust from customers. By following the Kaplan brand guidelines I made sure the visuals of the Kaplan brand were consistent so customers can easily recognize that the books are published by Kaplan.
Inspiring Lifestyle Imagery: I chose lifestyle imagery that confirms the end goal and needs of the customers, such as achieving professional success and being happy.
A+ Page
The A+ Page is located beneath the fold, right above the product reviews on Amazon. A+ pages provide a great opportunity to communicate additional features, present the brand personality for awareness, and show related products to keep customers shopping within the brand. Highlighted below are the strategy focus points I implemented for the Securities Licensing A+ page.
Category Focus: Instead of building A+ pages for each title, focusing on the title category overall helps scale A+ pages over multiple products for optimization efficiency.
Customer Trust: I utilized the Securities A+ page as a way to build trust with customers. The copy confirms the customers' goals by letting them know Kaplan can help attain their next securities license. Additionally, I use copy that proves that by informing customers that their exam prep is written by well-respected subject matter experts.
Related Securities Titles: I took the opportunity to use the A+ cross sell module to display other securities titles for additional catalog visibility and to help lead customers to other titles they may need.
Final Thoughts
Since the Kaplan Securities titles have been optimized with product images and A+ pages, they have been selling very well with some titles quickly selling through inventory. Reflecting back on the optimizations, I would like to tweak some aspects of the product imagery and A+ pages. For example on the product images, I would like to add more variety of lifestyle since there are two images of a hand writing. Also, for the A+ pages, the font size should be increased a bit to help with mobile readability.