Throwback: Are You Missing Out on 40% of Your Revenue? The Power of Email Marketing for Amazon Sellers

In this episode, e-commerce expert Norm Farrar shares actionable strategies for Amazon sellers to build and engage their own audiences. He discusses using insert cards to collect customer emails through offers like free products, warranties, and cookbooks, and emphasizes the importance of email marketing to boost revenue. Norm explains how to create and repurpose valuable content, such as chef-sourced recipes, across Amazon posts and social media. He also highlights the benefits of hosting live cooking shows on Amazon Live and using video creation services to enhance product listings, offering practical tips for optimizing Amazon sales and brand growth.

Chapters:

Introduction to Norm Farrar (00:00:00)
Host introduces Norm Farrar, his background in e-commerce, and his Amazon podcast.

Case Study: Email List Building with Insert Cards (00:00:33)
Norm shares a case study about a beauty company collecting 280,000 emails via insert cards but not utilizing them.

Insert Card Offers: Free Products and Extended Warranties (00:01:36)
Discussion of effective insert card offers, including free products and extended warranties to collect customer emails.

Meal Plans, Cookbooks, and Recipe Content Strategy (00:03:20)
Norm explains using meal plans and cookbooks to collect emails, and sourcing recipes from chefs and culinary students.

Repurposing Content: Newsletters and Amazon Posts (00:04:34)
How recipes and user-generated content are repurposed for newsletters and Amazon posts to engage customers.

Mindset Shift: Value-Driven Email Marketing (00:05:00)
Host reflects on providing value through email, not just sales pitches, and repurposing content across channels.

Amazon Live Cooking Show Launch (00:06:52)
Norm introduces their new Amazon Live cooking show featuring chefs and culinary students using their products.

Live Content Strategy and Product Demonstrations (00:07:45)
Details on using live cooking shows to demonstrate products, increase engagement, and gain followers.

Video Content Creation and Repurposing (00:09:07)
Norm discusses creating videos with influencers, repurposing video content for Amazon, social media, and YouTube.

Using Billo for Video Production (00:10:38)
Introduction to Billo, a service for affordable, high-quality product videos, and how to use them for marketing.

Three Actionable Takeaways for E-commerce Brands (00:12:57)
Host summarizes key takeaways: business planning, building an email list, and repurposing content.

Amazon Internal Tools for Listing Optimization (00:14:46)
Norm recommends using Amazon’s internal tools for listing optimization and growth opportunities to increase sales.

Closing Remarks (00:16:21)
Host thanks Norm for his insights and wraps up the episode.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites
Amazon Live
Amazon Seller Central

Strategies and Concepts
Email List Building: 00:01:08
Insert Cards for Email Collection: 00:02:06
User-Generated Content: 00:04:34
Content Repurposing: "00:09:07
Listing Optimization Tools: 00:14:46

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I'm super excited to introduce to you Norm Farrar. Norm specializes in providing e-commerce and online marketing services for brands. He has worked with fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, and 20th Century Fox since the early 1990s. Norm has focused on helping entrepreneurs optimize their operations and unlock their businesses potential. Presently, he is the host of the popular Amazon podcast lunch with Norm. So welcome to the show, Norm.

Norm 00:00:32  Hey, glad to be here.

Josh 00:00:33  So, Norm, I wanted to ask, you know, what are some of the best practices that you see with that? And maybe do you have any case studies or maybe some examples that you might be able to share with us, just to kind of spark some ideas in people's mind of the various opportunities that do lie in, you know, building your own audience off of Amazon from those insert cards.

Norm 00:00:55  Well, and it's a good and bad story, but I know we were working with a beauty company who had built an email list up to 280,000 emails.

Norm 00:01:08  Wow. But he would not. He never. He thought it was inconvenient. It would inconvenience people if he sent them emails.

Josh 00:01:18  That doesn't make sense.

Norm 00:01:19  280,000 emails. So yeah, that that that wasn't, that wasn't a smart move, but,

Josh 00:01:27  Attracting. I mean, how did he attract 280,000 people to give him their email address? Right. Like, do you know what the offer was?

Norm 00:01:36  Yeah. Well, different beauty products. So what it would be is you could go. You could go to the insert. It would go to a landing page. The landing page, would offer them one of his other products. So if you had the shampoo conditioner, you could have the, what's called keratin treatment, or you could have, there was, some serums and stuff like that, but you were offered a free product. So in the $10.

Josh 00:02:06  In the insert card on the insert card, it says, hey, claim your free product I assume then yeah. Okay.

Norm 00:02:13  Yeah. So all it did was send.

Norm 00:02:16  He got the email address and the address because he had to send the product. So he had, he had it all and he did not and would not send out a single email.

Josh 00:02:29  Fascinating. Yeah. Which is you know, going back you kind of shared that stat that you think that people are missing out on 40% of revenue just by not implementing, you know, additional as. Yeah. Right.

Norm 00:02:43  You sell a million bucks, you're missing out a 400,000.

Josh 00:02:46  Fascinating. Yeah. Any other stories or examples of, like, insert cards or, you know, ways that work to get people to provide their email address?

Norm 00:02:56  Well, there's always the extended warranty. So that is something, again, going back to the knife company, extended warranty. So it's a lifetime warranty. Okay, great. That's a lifetime warranty anyway. Basically. But, you know, it's a lifetime warranty. another one was just like I was talking to you about before. A knife with the honing rod. Okay, great.

Norm 00:03:20  another one that worked for that company was the meal plan and cookbook. So you can either download and get a weekly email. So what's in that weekly email with the weekly plan? Well, there's some sort of promotion. It wasn't all the time, but there was either just some recipes. So this is something that we did as well. We went out and we, talked to chefs and we talked to culinary schools, and we gave them, very expensive knife. And so the deal was we'll supply the whole class with these very expensive knives. if they provide us with a recipe and spread it out on their social media, tag us on their social media. So we got a ton of user generated content and we got a ton of Recipes. So what do we do on Amazon posts? We provided recipes. So that started to get a very unique following. And then because of that, we ended up getting all this really cool stuff that we could put onto this other page, fill in to the newsletter, and when people got their newsletter, they got recipes, which ended up being two full, really incredible recipe books.

Norm 00:04:34  So now we give away the recipe books. But we could peel off one recipe at a time, which people enjoyed, you know? And we didn't do it, but you could have even segmented it further. If the person was vegan, you could just send them vegan recipes or vegetarian or, you ...