Email marketing is a tactic that Amazon Sellers can use to drive more sales, reengage customers, and increase brand awareness. However, because of Amazon’s strict rules about emailing customers shopping on their website, sellers should be careful when engaging in email marketing.
Amazon’s Terms of Service (TOS) has language included that states that Amazon customers should not be redirected to another website, and also any unsolicited emails or marketing related emails are prohibited from being sent by sellers. So, unless you are communicating with a customer regarding an order or for a customer service-related issue, you should not be emailing Amazon customers.
So how do you go about using email marketing as an Amazon Seller if you cannot email Amazon customers?
The key is to build email lists for email marketing before potential customers reach Amazon. If you collect emails before they reach Amazon, then you are not violating Amazon’s TOS. There are several ways Amazon Sellers can try to build email lists.
Pro Tip: It is not advisable to purchase email lists since they can be hit or miss on building high-value customer email lists. Save your money and put it towards other list-building tactics.
Opt-In Forms on Your Website
The first, and perhaps easiest, way to grow an email marketing list is by having an opt-in form on your website. (If you do not have your own website, you can skip this section) My favorite free tool to collect emails on your own website is HubSpot. This tool offers some customization so you can control how the opt-in form looks, what information to gather, when it pops up, etc. Then once an email is collected it can be directly imported into a list on MailChimp (my favorite email marketing platform). This process makes it ridiculously easy to build your email marketing list because you don’t even have to handle the information.
You can entice visitors to sign up for your email list by offering discounts, giveaways, etc. This will hopefully get more people to enter their email addresses so you can use them for your Amazon email marketing.
Facebook Lead Ads
We’ve talked about how Facebook ads can be awesome, but let’s go over how Facebook Lead Ads can help Amazon Sellers grow their email marketing lists.
Facebook Lead Ads help with lead generation. These forms ask users to enter in their information (whatever information you choose to ask for) without them having to leave the Facebook platform. Your ad gets displayed in their feed and if they are interested, they can click on the call-to-action which displays the form. The form will be prefilled in with their information, which they can review and edit if need be, and click the Submit button.
This process is really easy for people to complete because there is little they have to do since the forms are prefilled. This is another great opportunity to attract customers to sign up with things like discounts and giveaways. People are much more likely to give you their information in exchange for something.
Other things to try with Facebook Lead Ads is giving free content in exchange for their information. Think about content that pairs well with the products you sell. If you sell makeup or beauty products, you can offer a free e-book with tutorials on how to apply your products. If you sell kitchen products, you could send a recipe book. If you just ask for the customer’s information, you’re less likely to get them to fill out the form than if you can offer something they want in return for giving you their information.
In-Package Materials for Email Marketing
Amazon does allow sellers to include a small card for customers in their packages. This will typically be a thank you card or warranty card. If you are clever about the messaging on these cards, you can use them to grow your email marketing lists.
You do not want to drive customers to your own website with these cards (unless it is to have them fill out a form for their product warranty). You can include information about your social media profiles or have a QR code the customer can scan to sign up for a special offer. Just be sure to stay up to date on any changes Amazon makes to their TOS regarding package inserts. You want to stay compliant with their requirements rather than risk getting suspended over something as small as a package insert.
So now that we’ve talked about growing your email marketing list, how can you use email marketing to grow your sales on Amazon?
The first thing to consider is how much is too much when it comes to email marketing. You only want to email customers when you have something of value to provide. Simply sending them repeated emails asking them to go buy your products will land you in their SPAM folder. It’s best to only send emails sporadically rather than constantly, even if you are offering something specific. A good rule of thumb for sending emails is to limit the number sent to three, regardless of if they are being sent pre or post-purchase.
If you are interested in getting more reviews on Amazon (and who isn’t?!), you can use email marketing to try and get people to leave you reviews. Just remember, incentivized reviews are a big no-no that could get you in a whole lot of trouble with Amazon. So if you plan on using email marketing this way, tread carefully. You can ask customers to purchase your product (and perhaps include a discount code) and remind them to leave a review. Using specific language like, “Check out our new all-natural dog treats! Use code YUMMYTREATS to get 15% off your purchase until June 30, 2019. Remember to leave a review if your dog loves them! Pictures of pups welcomed and encouraged!” should abide by Amazon’s TOS and still hopefully get you reviews.
If you have products come back in stock, you can use email marketing to let customers know. This is especially helpful if you have products that are really popular. If people love your product, they are likely dying for it to come back in stock, so make sure you let them know!
Is Email Marketing Worth it for Amazon Sellers?
This is a tough question to definitively answer since results will vary from seller to seller. You’ll need to invest some time and effort into building your email list and running your email marketing campaigns. However, sellers who have used email marketing have seen success in growing their sales and gaining repeat customers. If you’re interested in trying email marketing for your Amazon business, put some work into it and keep testing different types of messaging and offerings to entice customers to purchase your products. Then stick to what works best!
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