EP063 Amazon Mastery - Engaging Customers and Standing Out in a Competitive Marketplace
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[00:00:00] Darin Newbold: All right, and good day and welcome to Commerce Today. My Darin as always, Josh is here to run us through and this, this is part three of three of our Amazon mastery. And now we're engaging customers and standing out in a competitive or actually how to stand out in a competitive marketplace.

So just real quick. To bring you up to speed for those that have not been following along In our previous two episodes we had talked about some some of the key takeaways there Were about optimizing your product listings embracing sustainability Strategic fee management as well as live streaming on amazon live.

So those are some of the key things We definitely encourage you to go back and take a listen to the whole podcast, but josh Let's kick this one off part three of three buddy Uh direct marketing to consumers with amazon's tailored audience. Tell me all

[00:00:58] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so that is our first up today, like the last two, we got a kind of a grab bag of topics.

So, today we are talking about, first up, Amazon's tailored audiences tool. Um, so this is part of the manage your customer engagement platform, the MYCE Amazon loves their acronyms. I actually saw, um, there's some great Amazon consultants named my Amazon guy. And one of the things they posted to LinkedIn recently was a, a one page cheat sheet of Amazon acronyms.

There's like 200 of them.

[00:01:27] Darin Newbold: Oh my gosh. Sounds like a military organization. Exactly.

[00:01:31] Joshua Warren: But what this system does, um, especially the customer engagement piece is it allows you to execute personalized email marketing campaigns directly to your customers. This is a big shift from the old days of Amazon when they really Kind of separated you from the customer.

Um, and this allows you to kind of build up that connection between your brand and the customers that buy from you on Amazon. Now I mentioned brand, you have to be enrolled in that Amazon brand program. We've talked about back two episodes ago when we talked about the A content. Um, you have to opt into Amazon stores, which every brand should, and you need to have at least a hundred brand followers.

So you do have to kind of build a little bit of a following on Amazon before you can use this tailored audiences tool.

[00:02:12] Darin Newbold: Well, that sounds like something that I know everyone was clamoring for years ago. So this is a major step forward in ability to engage with your, with your customer. What else do we have?

That's kind of part of that, that, uh, that we need to know about.

[00:02:28] Joshua Warren: so this basically allows you to segment out your customers and, um, Really, you can use this for two different things. We're talking more about the email newsletter, email marketing side of Amazon, but in a little bit, we're going to talk about the ads as well that you can use these segments on. And they actually give you some default specific groups, um, brand followers.

So that's everybody that's following your brand, repeat customers, people that have bought, your brand's products multiple times on Amazon, high spend customers. Those are always a nice group to, to market to and recent customers. So you can really tailor your messaging. You can send out a different message to repeat customers versus recent customers versus high spend customers.

[00:03:08] Darin Newbold: Wow. That really gives you a lot of control. over how you're doing that and, and how that's coming together. So let me ask you this, um, what maybe are even some, some best practices around this ad targeting and, and with those tailored 

[00:03:25] Joshua Warren: Um,

so a lot of it is kind of in line with general email marketing. Um, so promote value.

Make sure you're providing value with every email you send. So this could be highlighting new products. Um, giving exclusive deals to those newsletter, um, or through that newsletter. Um, gifting ideas, especially when holidays are coming up. Basically, just make sure when, put yourself in your customer's shoes and say, Hey, if I got this email.

Would I feel good? Would I feel like, oh, this added value to my day? Or would I just be clicking the report spam jump button as fast as I could?

[00:03:57] Darin Newbold: could? And one of the things that I always, I think is a great reminder for everyone is curiosity is, is such a key to all of this. So what is it about your message that's going to cause curiosity?

It's going to

[00:04:08] Joshua Warren: cause

[00:04:09] Darin Newbold: the skeptic like me to pause just long enough to start to read and then get captured by it.

[00:04:15] Joshua Warren: And you know, that actually ties right in to the next best practice. Um, and I don't even think he did that on purpose. Um, have visually engaging messages, especially through lifestyle images. So that can be something that makes somebody stop and say, Hey, I can actually see myself like that's.

Somebody that I could see myself doing that activity they're doing. They're using your product. Oh, hey, this is something I could be interested in. So, beyond just general visually engaging content, definitely think about those lifestyle images and maybe even tailoring the lifestyle images based on the segment that you're marketing to.

And then last but not least monitor the performance of these email campaigns. Um, you can measure open and click through rates just like any other email campaign. Um, I think this is a good way. There's some debates about frequency, how often to send these messages. And I've seen, I've seen some cookie cutter advice.

It's like you should always send all year long, always send one email a week to each segment. I don't think it's that cut and dried. I think you got to do some experimentation and measure the results and then determine the ideal frequency.

Well, I know there's, 

[00:05:20] Darin Newbold: I know there's some that say once a day is, is the right amount and that's way too much.

But yeah, that's all very, very, very good. 

[00:05:28] Joshua Warren: next up is actually the best practices for ad targeting with tailored audiences. So, um, this is the other side and it's easy to confuse this because, um, tailored audiences are actually used in two different areas.

They're used in the email engagement and then they're also, you can be used in the ad targeting, which we've talked about in previous episodes, we talked about how you can. Pay Amazon to advertise your Amazon products on Amazon. Which Amazon loves that. Um, you can actually, um, target those ads to these audiences.

And it's amazing the data that Amazon has that powers that. So kind of best practices there, refine your audiences. So basically keep adjusting testing. Don't just assume that the default Amazon audiences are the best ones for your ads. Um, again, kind of like with the email marketing, tailor the creative.

So just make sure that. You're actually thinking, okay, if I'm targeting this segment, here's the persona I built for that segment. Here's the images that are most likely going to resonate with them. Here's the call to action that I want to use for them. Um, and then finally do remember when we start talking about, especially hyper targeting, there are laws about that.

So make sure that you're following all the privacy laws, rules, regulations of your jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of your customers. For those of you that are selling into Europe, good luck.

we will. 

[00:06:52] Darin Newbold: you. All right. Well, so now, thank you, Josh. And, uh, my apologies. I had zoomed in on our notes a little too

[00:07:00] Joshua Warren: far.

Well, I think you're just trying to keep us on schedule, too. I'm talking too much here. Exactly.

[00:07:04] Darin Newbold: So, all right, now to segment two, monitoring and engaging with customer feedback.

So how do we do that? And how does that Amazon help us put that all together?

[00:07:12] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so this is basically about your reviews on Amazon.

And if you have sold on Amazon, if you even thought about selling on Amazon, if you bought on Amazon, you realize the power those reviews have. Um, not only do customers obviously look at those and read those, but the Google algorithm uses those, the Amazon algorithm uses those. If you If your reviews start slipping, um, then your product can basically disappear.

So you want to basically, um, obviously first step, have a really good product, have a product that, um, people are likely to enjoy and want to leave a review for. If you have a crummy product, there's not a lot. There's some things that people do, but not a lot you can do to overcome that. Um, also, um, definitely encourage and solicit feedback.

And again, there's some rules around that. Um, And there's some gray areas around that. I know that I have even gotten postcards in the mail, like I'm sure lots of Amazon buyers have gotten them. Hey, if you go back and leave a five star review for us, then we'll credit back the product. We'll get it for free.

Something like that. Um, I don't recommend those services because someday either the FTC or Amazon or both are going to catch on to that and it's not going to be fun. Um, but that's where a note in the product package. Um, some of the best Amazon sellers have very branded, um, products and their product design.

And even their packaging design. And again, this gets back into, are you shipping the orders? Is Amazon shipping the orders from our previous episode? But even with that, if you can, within the product packaging, put a little note of, Hey, we would love a review from you. Um, the best ones I've seen have a smiley face on one side or frowny face on the other smiley face side says, Hey, if you're happy, we'd love a review frowny face side says, here's our customer service information.

We'll make it right. Please reach out to us.

[00:09:04] Darin Newbold: And a lot of times they'll even have a QR code to make it just, I mean, dumb simple to be able to put that together. All right. So.

is there any, is there any further analysis that we need to do around this feedback and, and looking for ways to improve and, and those kinds of 

[00:09:22] Joshua Warren: Definitely.

So the, the first thing to do is, um, don't hesitate to respond to feedback, especially negative feedback. It's a lot better if you as the seller can get in there and respond and. take some sort of corrective action, or, you know, sometimes there's times where the customer's not always right. But if you can just plainly state your case, plainly state, this is what we tried to do for you, you know, really sorry you had that experience, um, that can help you kind of recover from and make that, you know, one bad review not become 10 more bad reviews.

Beyond that, as far as Kind of analyzing your product reviews. We've been doing some interesting work of using AI to basically Mine and summarize reviews and Amazon does that a little bit now you might have seen on the product pages It'll actually say here's an AI summary of all the reviews for this product What we've done is we've gone in for a brand and analyzed all of their reviews across all products using an AI

and said what are the trends?

What are the commonalities? And it was interesting because, for this case, it was that their shipping estimates weren't always accurate. And so they were getting negative feedback, not because of anything about the product, but just about when it was delivered. So we said, okay, if we either message, The expectation better of when the product's going to arrive, or if we improve when the product arrives, we can actually lift that, feedback and start getting more positive feedback.

So, definitely, um, you can look for improvement areas for your products through your reviews, but also just for your business operations.

[00:10:56] Darin Newbold: Excellent. All right. Well, kind of our last segment here for, uh, for this, uh, episode, diversifying the, uh, the marketing channels. So tell us about that kind of what are these different marketing channels and what might that look like?

[00:11:10] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so people The The relationship between sellers and Amazon has always been complicated and I think for a long time Especially when Amazon didn't allow you to email market directly to your Amazon customers Brands didn't want to send any of their customers to Amazon. Now, I think people have realized that hey Something like 30 30 or 40 of all customers in the U.S start their shopping on a marketplace. Usually Amazon, so you gotta be there. Um, and it doesn't hurt sometimes to drive traffic to your Amazon listings and to your Amazon business instead of your website or in addition to your website. Um, there's a lot of different ways to do that. Um, we talked a little bit about Amazon live and live streaming last time.

You can also look outside of Amazon live into other, um, live streaming and influencer collaborations. So that could be, basically Instagram, TikTok Facebook influences having them. Um, partner with you around your Amazon products and directing traffic to those Amazon listings. Um, go back to kind of the episodes we've done on live streaming to learn a lot more about that.

Um, I wouldn't necessarily, if you have an email list of people that have bought from you, people that are, engaged with your brand directly on your website or in your stores, I wouldn't send those people to Amazon. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But if you have kind of a fresh audience, say it's through an influencer collaboration, or it's through social media, some other channel, you might want to experiment with sending at least a portion of that traffic to Amazon.

There's a chance it'll convert higher just because people that probably already have Amazon accounts, they're familiar with buying on Amazon. There's also some strategy there where Send that traffic to Amazon to products that aren't showing up in Amazon search because they are new they haven't had a lot of purchases They don't have a lot of reviews Well jumpstart those products get them showing up higher in Amazon's search algorithm by sending some of your traffic to them

[00:13:11] Darin Newbold: Interesting. Well, what's a, maybe a real world example of, uh, of how this kind of comes together? 

[00:13:18] Joshua Warren: So

I'm going to introduce you to a new product today, I think, um, and we haven't worked with them. This is actually just a case study that I have seen developing in the real world because of the awesome way these guys are building their business, but frost buddy and frost buddy.

com. Um, they have a really cool product. I'm not going to spoil it. I'm going to build a little anticipation. Go to their website and check it out. Um, but they are taking this content marketing influencer strategy and they're using it to drive traffic to both their website, their Tik Tok shop and to their Amazon shop.

And it's really all through building in public. They basically said they're a fairly new brand, only a few years old and their executives, pretty much their whole team post to LinkedIn actually and say, Hey, We're building a brand. Here's what we're struggling with. Here's what's working well. Here's what's not.

Um, they do similar things with clips on Tik TOK. Um, and they've gotten really good at showcasing their products on Tik TOK. And then again, driving some of that product, that traffic back to their Amazon listings, some of their retailers, they actually now are sold in Bucky's. I learned, which

[00:14:23] Darin Newbold: Well, there you

[00:14:23] Joshua Warren: for us Texans, we love our Bucky's, um, and then to their own, um, their own website as well.

And they have built such a authentic brand by doing that. Like people are really connecting with them. They are one of the only people and only brands I've seen recently that as a small new brand, they are making crazy money by having a mobile app. And that is because they have just have that authentic connection and they are getting their customers to actually be so excited about learning about their new products that they are installing and using a mobile app, which is not how it usually works in 2024.

So

[00:14:57] Darin Newbold: That is, that is amazing. Well, I resisted the evil temptation to go in and, and grab and check out this website.

So I look forward to doing that after, after our show, of course. So, uh, so kind of wrapping this all together in a neat, nice, neat bow. After three episodes, we've, uh, we've hit on a lot. a lot of different points, and I'm not going to hit them all. But for today, we definitely hit on Amazon's tailored audience tool, engaging customer feedback and diversifying the marketing efforts.

And the whole reason is to stand out in Amazon's competitive ecosystem. And the great thing is, is that these tools exist, these opportunities exist. So even when you start to look and see, wow, why everybody's selling the widget that I want to sell? Well, maybe they're not doing that the same way. So there's ways to do that.

We definitely encourage you to, uh, to implement any and all of the strategies. Tell us how it goes. Definitely, we love to hear and have any, any feedback. And with that, just kind of any last feedback from you, Josh, before we, uh, before we totally close

[00:16:02] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so stay tuned to my LinkedIn. Um, look me up on LinkedIn under Joshua Warren. Um, there's a few of us. I have a Horribly common name. So Joshua Warren creativity is the easiest way to find me. Um, I'm going to be posting, it's still in development, but an Amazon pricing calculator, and this is going to be more in depth than anything Amazon offers or anything I've seen anyone else offer as far as allowing you to look at what's the cost.

If I try to fulfill this myself, what's the cost. If I try to use fulfillment by Amazon, what's my potential profit on Amazon and really, you know, diving into. A financial model around potential Amazon businesses. So I will be announcing that on my LinkedIn once it is ready. So stay tuned there for

[00:16:47] Darin Newbold: Man, and I I know there's going to be people looking forward to that because for the brief time I sold a little bit on amazon and using their tool that they have I said, I, I need somebody with an MBA to get this. Um, it's way beyond. So with that, as always, we thank you for listening to all of this Amazon Mastery Series and we definitely look forward to, uh,

[00:17:07] Joshua Warren: uh,

[00:17:08] Darin Newbold: to you being on board for next time.

Definitely, and always, as always, invite you to subscribe to our future. episodes on, and e commerce insights. You can find us on Joshua, as he mentioned, Joshua Warren's LinkedIn profile, as well as Creatuity's YouTube channel that, and we'll also have many of the things that we talk about linked to in our show notes as always.

So with that, stay sharp, keep experimenting. And as always, we welcome you back at Commerce Today. Thanks a bunch.

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