In this Throwback episode, Amazon brand-building expert Kevin shares advanced strategies for established sellers aiming to scale to eight figures and beyond. He emphasizes the shift from selling generic products to building authentic brands, leveraging Amazon as a distribution channel rather than the sole platform. Kevin discusses creative tactics for collecting customer data—like compelling insert cards and personalized experiences—and highlights the importance of nurturing an engaged email list. The conversation covers email marketing best practices, the challenges of today’s Amazon landscape, and actionable steps for long-term brand growth both on and off Amazon.

Chapters:

The Shift to Real Brand Building on Amazon (00:00:00)
Discussion on the end of "me-too" products and the need for genuine brand building to scale on Amazon.

What Makes a Real Brand (00:01:41)
Explains the difference between a product and a true brand, using search volume and customer recognition as benchmarks.

Owning Customer Data & Creative Inserts (00:02:37)
Importance of collecting customer data, using creative insert cards, and leveraging off-Amazon channels for customer relationships.

Pet Brand Example: Insert Offers & Birthday Campaigns (00:03:27)
Detailed example of using free sample offers, pet registration, and birthday postcards to build loyalty and collect data.

Email Marketing Challenges & Deliverability (00:07:40)
Covers issues with email engagement, deliverability, and strategies to stay out of spam folders.

Email Frequency & Value-Driven Content (00:09:18)
Best practices for email frequency, balancing value and promotions, and the importance of testing.

Testing Offers & Audience Warmth (00:10:42)
The need to test different offers and tailor messaging based on audience familiarity with the brand.

Actionable Takeaways for Amazon Sellers (00:12:01)
Summarizes three key actions: build a real brand, create an email list, and provide value to your audience.

Top Billion Dollar Seller Summit Speakers (00:13:45)
Kevin names top speakers/attendees to follow for Amazon growth insights: Brandon Young, Casey Goss, and Josh Hadley.

How to Connect with Kevin (00:16:33)
Kevin shares the best way to contact him—primarily via Facebook.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites
Shopify
WooCommerce
Amazon Prime now Prime Video
TaxJar
Billion Dollar Seller Summit

Recommended Speakers
Brandon Young on LinkedIn

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00 You talked a lot about how important brand building is on Amazon now, as our audience primarily has established Amazon businesses, they've already found success, but they're looking to go to eight figures and beyond. You know, what do you see going on in the Amazon space right now? And some of the advice and strategies that you would recommend to establish sellers right now?

Kevin 00:00:23 Yeah, that's a tough one because some of them are going to need to pivot, and it's going to be a little bit of a hard pivot because in the past on Amazon, there's a lot of people that built successful businesses and even exited successful businesses just basically finding opportunities. Sticking a name on it, you know, on a label on it and selling it, then selling that to an aggregator. But that's those days are pretty much over. I'm not going to say it doesn't happen. It could still happen here and there. And then there's a lot of people, as you know, that may have started with a small amount of money, and that's way more difficult now.

Kevin 00:00:52 Not that you can't do it, but, you know, I always say, I always hear stories that people say, yeah, I started with 500 bucks and now I got an eight figure business. And I always say, RBS, you might have started with $500. That may be true. But two weeks later, your uncle gave you ten grand. Or somebody. You got a credit card or you did something. There's just no way it did. That just flat out does not happen. from 500. There was something else along the way. It might not be the money out of your pocket, but there's something else along the way in those days are much more difficult now. And as Amazon's you know Amazon's everything is more towards rewarding brands. You know the brand registry the brand analytics the all the different you know the advertising thing. Everything is there trying to reward those brands. It's because they're trying to clean it up as well. They don't want just this hodgepodge, flea market on there. They want, you know, people.

Kevin 00:01:41 They're coming for brands. And a lot of people think they're a brand and they're really not. I say that if you don't have at least 3000 searches a month on your brand name on Amazon, on Amazon, because Amazon is so big, you're not a brand. If people are not looking for you, buy that that brand name and typing that in and you can see it in brand analytics and it's got like 3000 searches a month or more, then you're actually not a brand. You're just a product. And so that's where a lot of people get confused. And a brand is not a logo. A brand is not a name. That's part of it. But a brand is what emotion is a feeling. It's an evolution of something that people feel identity towards this or a passion towards this, or it represents something that they believe in or that they feel. And that's where a lot of big sellers are making mistakes. you know, you see all these, these, Chinese brands on Amazon, that strange brand names like Z, X, T, Y, or whatever can even pronounce a damn thing, right? That's not a brand.

Kevin 00:02:37 I mean, they're doing that because it's easy to get a trademark on that. They can. Those things can fly through, the trademark process really easy so they can get the brand registry and all that. But those aren't aren't really brand names. so I think you need to switch more toward brand and you need to switch to more towards they need to they need to own their customer lists. you know, on Amazon, you don't get that data anymore. You used to be able to download that data. And so if you're selling, FBA, FBA on Amazon, you don't get that data. If you're doing FBM, you can still get it. And there used to be a loophole like with tax jar that got, I think just recently got shut down. A lot of privacy issues there. But you need to figure out ways to actually get that data and whether that's switching over, you know, if you're selling on Shopify or WooCommerce, start using Amazon Prime. the new, ship with Prime, whatever it's called Shopify shipping.

Josh 00:03:25 Shop with Prime. Yeah.

Kevin 00:03:27 Yeah. Where the Amazon will fulfill it for you off your, Shopify store. So you get that extra customer service level. Plus you get the customer data, plus anything you're selling on Amazon. It's just a huge market. You've got to figure out ways to try to get them into your ecosystem with, creative inserts and creative marketing stuff. I mean, like, one of the things that we do with one of my brands, for example, I have a pet brand of dog treats, and whenever someone buys these dog treats off of Amazon, you know, they spend 30 bucks to buy these dog treats. We will have a really cool. It's not just like a business card, but like something that really gets their attention. into the in the package and it says, hey, get a sample of all of our treats and we'll do a zero plus free plus shipping offer. So it's like if we have, for example, if we're selling bully sti...

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