Converting Marketplaces (Amazon) Clients to your Email List: Tips and Tricks

We preach this a lot at Emercify: it is so, so important to own your customer lists. Owning your customer lists decreases the chances of instability, gives you the freedom to market to your customers however you want, and helps you to keep growing your customer base. The reality is that, if you allow your customer lists to be beholden to the specific platforms you captured their attention on, you’re leaving a lot up to chance. Facebook’s marketing platform changes all the time. Algorithms across all platforms change constantly, and sometimes your product and content is favored in these changes… and sometimes, they’re not.

Amazon is no different as an e-commerce platform. Any number of things could happen that result in you losing customers on Amazon’s platform: a competitor rolls out with a similar product to yours that shows up higher in the search results, negative reviews (deserved or undeserved), amongst others.

So it’s time to take back your clients, even on Amazon’s platform, and get them onto your lists that you own and control. Let’s get into it. We’ll offer you a few techniques and thoughts on how to convert your amazon customers, and how to make it easier for you.

Use Packaging to your Advantage

If your products are sold via Amazon FBA, then Amazon will handle fulfillment for you and make sure your customers receive your products. However, if you are selling your product via Amazon FBM you will have to handle and ship your own order– but don’t fret!

One tip that may seem like low-hanging fruit to some (but can often be missed by others), is to utilize your product packaging to your advantage. Use Canva or another low-cost design tool to create a postcard-shaped note for your buying customers, urging them to join your email list, encased in a nice note from you for purchasing your product.

You can get them printed on any kind of paper, including just plain copier paper, but if it’s in your budget, printing them on thicker cardstock (or having them printed!) is a very nice touch. You can include a QR code that takes them straight to your email sign-up landing page for ease of use.

When customers open up your package to find a note that you took the time to design and include in their package, it’s both exciting for them and a great personal touch. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, because this is also a very positive step in building a relationship with your audience. They can definitely be swayed to join your list after that, because you’ve demonstrated that you care about your presentation and your customer’s opinion. However, we have another sure-fire tip that can help.

Creating an Incentive to Join Your List

So maybe the postcard note on its own won’t convince your customers to sign up for your list. But you know what will entice your customers? A discount code or another value offer, like free shipping or a free gift. This code will entice your customers to do whatever you’d like them to do – and don’t let it stop at email list conversion. You can also entice your customers to leave reviews– social proof that you need to display public confidence in your product– or share their new purchase on social media. (Don’t forget to ask them to tag you!) You can offer any combination of these, but we wouldn’t advise throwing all of these offers in one postcard at the risk of losing any interest with so much information displayed.

But this doesn’t mean that you’re giving up your value. If you have some products that aren’t selling as well as others, for example, you could offer those products as your free gift. If you know you’re heading for a sales quarter that traditionally has less sales than others, you can set the discount code to be used during that time specifically. Whatever you might be thinking of offering to your customers, there are ways to engineer these offers to actually benefit you further. Being able to convince your buyers to join your list and make a repeat purchase? Two birds, one stone, happy numbers.

Automating the Process with a Tool or Software

The last tip we can give you is to automate this process whenever possible. Printing in batches is a good way to automate that process, but you can also set up automated emails. They might not be entirely as effective as the postcards, but it is one thing that you can automate easily. You can set up tools to automatically send emails urging your customers to join your list to receive discounts right after they complete their purchase. You should keep in mind though – the benefit of the postcard is that they receive the physical postcard after seeing your product. If they haven’t seen the product yet, they may be less swayed to purchase from you again. However, it’s always worth a shot.

We sincerely hope this process results in some more conversions for you. Automation is your friend, while discounts and personal touches can help grease the wheels! Good luck putting these tips into practice.