The Amazon Way: How Amazon's Leadership Principles Shapes Its Email Marketing
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Amazon's leadership principles aren't just a pretty inspirational wall hanging, the company's employees use these principles, every day, whether they're discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best solution for a customer's problem, or interviewing candidates. In this presentation, Michael Le, email marketing manager at Amazon, will explore these leadership principles and reveal how they shape the company's email marketing strategy for sponsored products.
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The Amazon Way: How Amazon's Leadership Principles Shapes Its Email Marketing
- 3. 92% of shoppers who start their purchase journey on Amazon make their final purchase with Amazon 1 1) PowerReviews, Mapping the Path to Purchase, June 2016
- 4. 1) Active customer accounts represent accounts as of Q1 2017 that have placed an order during the preceding 12 month period. 2) comScore June, 2016 3) ComScore Plan Metrix Key Measure Report, January 2017 Observing billions of customer journeys as they shop, browse, watch, share, listen, and purchase on Amazon 300M Active Customer Accounts WW. 1 182M US monthly total visitors. 2 56 Pages visited on average per month. 3 More than
- 5. Access to Fulfilment by Amazon Convenient, trusted shopping experience for customers Sell your products on all 5 Amazon Marketplaces Your products are easier to find and buy on Amazon Sell on Amazon
- 8. Amazon Global Selling 11 Marketplaces 120+ Fulfillment centers 180+ Countries with loyal Amazon customers 30+ Product categories
- 9. 1. Customer Obsession 2. Ownership 3. Invent and Simplify 4. Are Right, A Lot 5. Learn and Be Curious 6. Hire and Develop the Best 7. Insist on the Highest Standards 8. Think Big 9. Bias for Action 10. Frugality 11. Earn Trust 12. Dive Deep 13. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit 14. Deliver Results Leadership Principles
- 10. 1. Customer Obsession 2. Ownership 3. Invent and Simplify 4. Are Right, A Lot 5. Learn and Be Curious 6. Hire and Develop the Best 7. Insist on the Highest Standards 8. Think Big 9. Bias for Action 10. Frugality 11. Earn Trust 12. Dive Deep 13. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit 14. Deliver Results Leadership Principles
- 12. Customer obsession - consistency Subject line: Learn How To Increase Your Beauty Sales with Amazon Marketing Services • helps the customer understand exactly what is happening. • don't make false promises • consistency.
- 13. LEARN AND BE CURIOUS Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
- 14. Insist on the Highest Standards Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high.
- 15. Bias for Action Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study.
- 16. Bias for action • A lot of sellers are based in other marketplaces • Almost half of unique clicks are coming from the language switcher
- 17. DIVE DEEP Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
- 18. Dive deep • When working with multiple locales, don’t just look at an aggregate level • Regularly review automations • What does the customer journey look like in order to convert? 1. Eligible and not registered 2. Registered and not launched 3. Launched
- 19. Ad-hoc and seasonal campaigns Eligible (Not registered) Registered & not launched Onboarding (registered and launched Acquisition and onboarding journey
- 20. XX Thank you
Editor's Notes
- Hi, my name is Michael Le and I’m the email marketing manager at Amazon. Today, I would like to share our leadership principles and what makes us so peculiar.
- When Amazon first launched in 1995 as a website that only sold books, founder Jeff Bezos had a vision for the company's explosive growth and e-commerce domination. He knew from the very beginning, he wanted Amazon to be "an everything store."
- For many shoppers, search is the first step towards purchase and when it comes to product search, Amazon is the leader. According to PowerReviews, 92% of shoppers who start their purchase journey on Amazon make their final purchase with us as well. The sellers have already taken the first step to reach these online shoppers by selling products at Amazon.com and can make sure that those products are being noticed.
- Amazon has more than 300 MM active customer accounts worldwide, where active customer accounts represent accounts that have placed an order during the preceding twelve month period. comScore reports that there are over 180 MM unique monthly visitors on Amazon.com in the US alone with 58 pages visited per visitor on average per month. Now, these are not just “visitors” but real people who chose our site to search, discover, and buy the products that they love. With this in mind, it provides a perfect platform for sellers to reach out to customers.
- On Amazon, it’s easy for customers to find the seller’s products, and they can even benefit from Amazon’s 1-Click purchase, making customers' buying experience effortless. A seller can sell their products to all5 marketplaces:UK, DE, ES, IT and FR. The seller can control what you sell and where, and have access to Fulfilment by Amazon, a pay-per-use logistics solution that will help the seller increase your sales.
- Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) helps sellers grow their business in the UK and internationally by giving sellers access to Amazon’s world-class logistics resources, fast, free delivery options for their products, and trusted and acclaimed customer service. Sellers would send their your choice of products to an Amazon fulfilment center and Amazon will store their inventory, pick, pack and ship it EU-wide when customers order. Moreover, FBA products are eligible for Prime so sellers gain access to millions of Amazon’s most loyal and active customers.
- Amazon’s sellers also have the option to use Sponsored Products, similar to Google’s Pay-Per-Click model and is an easy way for sellers to advertise their listings. Ads appear right where customers will see them, such as the first page of search results or product detail pages. Sellers can place bids on relevant keywords, and if your bid wins and your ad matches the search, it gets displayed to shoppers. These targeted ads can bring a seller’s products to a new audience and help them maximise your sales. In order for the seller to become eligible for sponsored products, they would need to be a professional seller and their offer is listed on the detail page in the Buy Box. The Buy Box is the box on a product detail page where customers can begin the purchasing process by adding items to their shopping carts.
- Amazon has an ever-growing customer base and state-of-the-art international logistics capabilities. Sellers can leverage Amazon's global scale to sell to hundreds of millions of new customers.
- Our decision making and successful at Amazon are guided by what our "Leadership Principles.“ The 14 rules are an outline for how we think, generate new ideas and constantly improve the business. Our Leadership Principles aren’t just a pretty inspirational wall hanging. These Principles work hard, just like we do. Our Leadership Principles act like the glue that binds us all together.. It’s just one of the things that makes Amazon peculiar.
- In today’s session, I will be speaking about some of our leadership principles and how it has shaped our email marketing strategy. They are customer obsession, learn and be curious, bias for action, insist on the highest standards and dive deep. Customer obsession is the first and most important leadership principle at Amazon. The company’s mission is to be known as the Earth’s Most Customer Centric Company. This means that everything we think and do should be in line with our customer’s best interest. But before I discuss our leadership principles in-depth, I want to talk about the opportunities for Amazon sellers and how we assist them with Sponsored Products.
- “.. The only reason that Amazon.com exists today in any form.” We cannot survive as a company without customers Doing right for customers build trust and loyalty Focusing on fundamentals delivers value even during hard times. Customer obsession means making sure that your customers are taken care of, by anticipating their needs, focusing on operational excellence, and ensuring effective communication. When you are customer obsessed, you will begin to ask yourself the following questions when making decisions: Am I making life better for them? What is the current experience? Can we make it simpler to use? Does it add value? What’s the biggest pain point? Does it solve the deeper problem? What would delight the customer? The process includes writing an Internal Working Backwards Press Release to help you imagine what customers will say or feel when you launch. Focusing on the desired end state frees you from being constrained by what's technically or operationally possible and enables us to think big about delighting customers
- Here is an example of one of Amazon’s sponsored products email and subject line. A seller can use Sponsored Products to increase their revenue to wanting more brand exposure and it’s our role to help them fulfil their goals. When a seller is eligible, we will send an email to notify them and ask them to register. If they don’t take action, we will send ad-hocs or seasonal campaign. As the seller is new to Sponsored Products, the email educates them on the possibilities to reach their goals. Notice the email subject line and email copy are consistent with other. When you are obsessed with customers, you don’t want to upset them by giving them a misleading subject line and the content is different. I’ve witnessed on multiple occasions, where companies are obsessed with open rates and forget about the entire journey. Yes, we can have a misleading subject line that delivers great open rates but if the email body is different, then expect a low click-through rate. But the damage isn’t short-term, it could lead to long-term depending on the relationship with the brand itself. Are we just thinking about the customers, are we going to act on it or are you truly obsessed?
- In a rapidly changing world, leaders need to continuously learn, adapt to new business requirements, and experiment with new and better ways of doing things. This requires people who are intellectually nimble and yearn to develop themselves. Tackling future challenges –As leaders, we have to be ready for tomorrow’s challenges, not just be really good at what we do today. And to do that, we must continually push ourselves to learn. Simplify to enhance efficiency – Leaders are curious and that drives their ability to Simplify. Leaders do not only ask, “Why does it work that way?” but also “What other ways could we get this to work?” and “I wonder what would happen if…” Curiosity also makes learning fun. Dive deeper into issues – Leaders are bothered when they see something that’s out of place. As leaders, we don’t just complain or put it back without asking why it got to be that way. Leaders take the time to deeply understand how the things they own work. They don’t wait for the outage to happen before they get to know the nuts and bolts of their system. A/B test Whether you are testing subject lines, content or a from name, the winner doesn’t mean it’s the best overall. Sometimes, our emotions are attracted to change and makes us wonder and we tend to engage. But curiosity for that particular moment doesn’t mean it’s best. By testing over time, we can identify the true winner. But why stop there? How does it differ for other segments based on behaviour, genre, sex, etc.
- At Amazon, we never compromise on our standards. We deliver high quality work, and demand it of others. We don’t have to sacrifice quality, since it is bad for customers. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their team to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed. How does your email look when it’s finished? If you are managing a team and your CRM / Email exec sends a campaign with minor issues, is it good enough for you and the business? Insist on High Standards and at the same time, don’t be afraid to think big and look at how you can better the customer experience without jeopardising high standards. And if it fails, you can always reverse it.
- There’s a common misunderstanding about action: that we must know the exact right action to take before doing anything. . Bias For Action is about making timely, sound decisions even when all information you want to have isn’t available. It’s about using your own initiative to drive and take things forward, and planning efficiently while avoiding analysis paralysis. It’s true the wrong action will lead to negative consequences but our CEO, Jeff Bezos, once said, “If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.”
- It requires taking action even when you’re not sure what the outcome is going to be, or even if your plan isn’t completely bulletproof. Bias for action allows us, as email marketers to learn by doing. There are instances where you may fail, some instances where you may succeed, but you will naturally improve. Language switcher On our emails, we added a language switcher for our sellers. Does anyone in the room want to take a guess on why we took this action? A lot of our sellers are based in other marketplaces and noticed almost half of unique clicks are coming from the language switcher. If there is a low unique click rate on the language switcher, then we can simply remove it. A lot of our actions are reversible. However, exercise caution in a sensitive situation that can hurt the customer experience. Out of Country campaigns There are sellers who are actively advertising in some EU marketplaces but not in all they are eligible in. Maybe they are happy with 1 market, maybe they are happy with 2 markets. But what if they could advertise to all 5 marketplaces in EU? The Out of Country campaign we I have introduced encourage the sellers to click the CTA button and have the Ad Success team create campaigns for them in all other EU marketplaces.
- Regularly diving deep creates an atmosphere of accountability because it means that you have to know your stuff when you present and share facts with others. It means staying connected, understanding details, and going beyond ‘on the surface’ solutions, and investing time and effort to find solutions. When you do see a problem, diving deep is a form of taking responsibility since if you choose not to solve it, someone else probably will have to. This is also a way for leaders to earn the trust of others since peers and followers know that you know what is really going on and that you are taking care of it.
- When working with multiple locales, don’t just look at an aggregate level Break it down by locale and deep dive. Does 1 locale perform better than another? Why is this? Peel the layers off. Could it be a subject line work works better in one language but not in another? Regularly review automations. Automated campaigns are normally left alone and becomes a low priority. But even when we do make time to review, what exactly are we reviewing against? What is the benchmark? Are there any anomilies? If there are, why are they showing? Seasonal? Deep dive is not just identifying but also solving. What does the customer journey look like in order to convert? For sponsored products, sellers need to be eligible. There are sellers who decide not to register, sellers who register but do not launch their SP campaign and sellers who registers and launches. Deep diving has allowed us to identify some sellers do not understand SP and have either not registered or registered and not launched. As we are customer obsessed, we have created campaigns where we ask the seller to click a button if they need assistance and all clicks are tracked and are followed up with a call to educate and set-up their first campaign. Customer obsession!
- At the beginning of the presentation, I said these leadership principles help us in decision making and being successful at Amazon. Taking decisions that demonstrate our customer obsession may require you to work with more than one principle at the same time and use our judgement on the usage of each principle in the situation. The email marketing team was assembled just over half a year ago and we have made great progress in kickstarting our email marketing strategy. The acquisition and onboarding journey shows the type of emails a seller will receive once they become eligible and the educational emails they receive to help them onboard. We have been busy working on seasonal campaigns for each market and help the sellers capitalise based on category. Although we have made good progress, there is still a lot of deep dives required. Truth is, customer behaviour changes all the time so we are constantly learning and deep diving to gain a better understanding and by being customer obsessed, we are able to deliver a high-quality customer journey. We are at the beginning of our journey and are already exploring other leadership principles such as Think Big and Invent and Simplify.I hope I will be able to share our learnings and decisions and our peculiar ways next year with you…
- Thank you very much for your time