This Issue's TLDR...

• 3 strategies to launch products in 2024 and beyond (Strategy #2 is SUPER easy)
• Giveaway alert! Including a free month of 1:1 Growth Coaching with me.
• Ever wonder how much a Best Seller badge impacts sales on Amazon? I'll tell you.

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SPONSOR Melio Payments I've been an on-and-off user of Melio Payments for the past 18 months. And I owe that to Kevin King, because I first learned of Melio Payments through one of his "Hacks" contests. Melio Payments is a great way to create more "float" in your business by paying overseas suppliers with credit cards. (I use credit cards with a 12- or 15- month interest only promotional period) It's also a great way to get credit card rewards for your other big expense as Amazon sellers. Try it out today! Use Melio for Your Next PO​

BEST from Me

What if you could launch a new brand or new products on EASY mode?

Would you do it?

Of course you would.

Well, you can...if you know how to Play The Game, as it exists here in 2024.

To that end, I'm sharing 3 strategies that I'm following, based on trends that I'm seeing on Amazon, and in retail commerce more broadly.

Strategy #1: Borrow An Audience

If you weren't aware that Creator-led brands are a BIG, FAT emerging trend, well, now you are.

You're welcome.

What this means is that, if you're starting a brand or launching a product, you have an opportunity, in this moment in time, to piggyback off of the audience that one or more creators have cultivated, by bringing them in as a "partner" (I'm using quotes deliberately there, because these partnerships can take many forms, including partial brand ownership).

But, be careful with this strategy, because...

Take, for example, the energy drink brand Juvee and Matt "Nadeshot" Haag.

Nadeshot & Juvee are a perfect pairing because of WHO Nadeshot's audience is and WHAT the product does.

If you don't know Nadeshot, he's a famous (Call of Duty) gamer. His audience is mostly gamers trying to stay energized and focused.

So if he, in conjunction with a product manufacturer, can create a product line that enables Nadeshot's gamer audience to get this feeling, it's gold.

Juvee is winning in a tough, crowded niche because it fulfills a need of Nadeshot's gamer audience.

Nadeshot is a big creator, but it's important to note that the right creator partnership isn't the biggest creator.

It's the creator partner that best taps in to your brand or product's customer avatar.

PS: If you don't believe me that we've moved into a world of creator-led brands, look no further than the fact that service providers like Genflow have emerged to HELP CREATORS BUILD PRODUCT BRANDS.

Strategy #2: Make $100M Offers to Affiliates

I'm going to draw on a mix of personal experience and Alex Hormozi's $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No to illustrate this strategy.

Rewind the clock to this time last year, and the 2023 version of Jon was brimming with excitement.

I had just discovered the affiliate platform, Levanta, and it felt like an infinite money cheat code.

Levanta, if you don't know, integrates with Amazon, presents your products to its network of affiliates, and automatically creates Amazon Attribution links for said affiliates.

Which means, for every, e.g., 20% commission you pay to an affiliate on the platform, your "real" cost is only 10%, because of Amazon's Brand Referral Bonus.

So, yeah, I giddily signed up for Levanta (at $149/month) and adding ALL of my products.

But...crickets.

Over the course of 3 months, I generated exactly ZERO affiliate sales. And, was $450 in the hole for the privilege.

As you can imagine, I wasn't super pleased with these results.

But rather than pout, I set off to figure out this "game" and how I was clearly mis-playing it.

I've learned several lessons, foremost of which is that:

It makes sense why it would be this way.

These are cold, economic transactions. These affiliates don't have a true "relationship" with my brands, nor do my brands have true relationships with these affiliates.

In the beginning, affiliates are mercenaries. They go where the money is.

But the one's that have are KILLING it.

Take a look at the 3 screenshots below, from the affiliate side of the Levanta platform.

The first image is the Brand view. The default sort is by Commission.

To be on Page 1, based on what other brands are offering you need to be offering a commission of AT LEAST 25%. But, if you really want to stand out, you need to be offering a commission north of 40%.

Moving on to this next image, this is the product gallery. Even if you filter by category, there are PAGES and PAGES of products to comb through.

There's a search function; but that's only relevant if an affiliate has very specific intent around what they want to promote (rare). More likely, this is a discovery page for affiliates.

Which means that, in order to stand out, you need to offer something crazy...

...Like an 80% commission!

Look what happens when I filter by >80% commission.

It takes an endless sea of products and reduces it to just 4.

And, big surprise here, but these brands are all KILLING it on Amazon...especially when I dig into their traffic sources and make educated guesses around the relative costs of this traffic vs their Amazon PPC traffic.

PS: In case you're wondering, yes, I've given up on Levanta. But, no, I haven't given up on affiliate marketing. I'm using a new platform now, and offering 50% commissions on my products. It's still early days; I'll report back when I have some results (good or bad).

Strategy #3: Make it a GAME

If you never had the experience of going to McDonald's as a kid and collecting the Monopoly stamps, I feel bad for you.

It was fun!

McDonald's, for a brief period every year, gamified going to its restaurants and getting food. I know that I certainly ate there more during the "Monopoly months" than any other time of year. (We'll ignore, for the time being, that the game was rigged)

Gamification works!

"But Jon, how can I gamify my Amazon brand? I don't own my customers."

Here's an idea:

What if, instead of crafting product inserts aimed at generating product reviews, or at obtaining customer information for re-marketing, you instead...recruited your customers to be affiliates?

Hear me out...

Imagine that your product inserts present your customers with An Offer So Good That They'll Feel Stupid Saying No.

Something like:

"Get 5 friends to buy BrandX and we'll send you $100. Get 50 friends to buy BrandX and we'll send you to Hawaii."

Then, you include a QR code linking them to 1) sign up instructions for Levanta (or some other platform) and 2) a leaderboard where they can see how their referrals stack up against others.

It's not Monopoly, but it's real money in their pocket for selling your brand's products.

Moreover, there's a flywheel here. As more potential customers become actual customers, your outsourced sales army grows.

Obviously, you'd want to do the math on your giveaway thresholds. But, this is exactly the type of thinking that enables people like Alex Hormozi to sell 500k copies of his book in less than 24 hours.

SPONSOR Prosper Show I'm excited to report that I'll be speaking at Prosper Show this year! My topic is The Miracle of Negative Working Capital -- And Other Ways to Improve Your Cash Flow (big surprise) and I'll be presenting at 10am on March 6. If you're attending Prosper in March, drop me a note so that we can get together! Use promo code SANAR1100OFFSPEAK to get $100 off an all-access pass.

BEST from Everyone Else

Best from the B@A Community

Want to win a FREE month of 1:1 Growth Coaching with Me?

My buddy, and fellow Jon without an "H", Jon Stojan, and his partners Mike Kaufman and Matt Atkins have just launched a podcast called Brand Fortress HQ.

They've already had some killer guests -- including my good friends Ben Leonard, Destaney Wishon, and Joe Shelerud -- and I'll be on the podcast later on in Q2 (sadly, I'm that busy that I need to schedule things months out).

Anyway, I've partnered with them and am offering a FREE month in my 1:1 Growth Coaching program.

*

FYI, I don't advertise my 1:1 Growth Coaching at all, because:

1. I want to keep it intimate (I only take on 5 students at any given point in time):
2. I make it stupidly cheap ($750/month) and I don't really want to field criticism from Coaching-bois telling me that I should "cHaRgE MoAr, BrO."

In case you're wondering, my monthly Growth Coaching includes:

• Two 1hr calls with me per month ($998 value)
• Unlimited email or text support with 24hr turnaround on responses ($490 value)
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• Access to my library of 15+ paid courses and mastermind videos ($14,000+ value)
• Access to a private mastermind of 100+ other Amazon experts ($499 value)

There's currently a wait list, but I expect to have 1 spot open in March. Just reply to this email if you're interested.

Best from X

If you're like me, you're started to receive tax forms in the mail.

If you're like me, you're also dreading the thought of spending a full Saturday in the next 8-10 weeks doing your taxes. (It's probably time for me to outsource this)

Anyway, when tax season rolls around, I basically dig up every old tweet from Chris Potter.

Chris Potter | Tax & Bookkeeping for eCom @ChrisPotter361 You are an eCommerce / Amazon seller. You make a profit. But you have no idea how much you should set aside for taxes. Here's a way you can do some back-of-the-napkin math to figure it out.... The easy, simple answer is: - Figure out what your estimated tax bracket is -… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1709663768622358970 3:16 PM • Oct 4, 2023 5 Retweets 68 Likes Read 5 replies

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Best from LinkedIn

I'm a collector of weird Amazon trivia and data points.

Some of them are actually useful.

Like, for example, the knowledge that adding a video to your PDP image stack typically increases sales by +9.7%.

So I was tickled when my friend John Shea of Momentum Commerce shared this data point earlier this week:

Best from my Inbox

Nick "The Partnerships Guy" Penev publishes a great weekly roundup of everything happening in eCommerce called eCom Hot Sauce.

It's a delightful mix of social media posts from thought leaders, partner giveaways, spotlights on new solution providers, and more.

Join to 20k+ people that already get this newsletter every week. Subscribe HERE.

Updates to the Amazon Private Label Pathway

No updates to the Amazon Private Label Pathway this week.

But, I'm working on something.

Which reminds me...If you, or someone you know, has been impacted by the "Frequently Returned Item" badge on one of your ASINs, reply to this message.

I've been able to get it removed in two cases so far, but that's hardly a large enough sample to conclude that I've figured it out.

If you share your ASIN, I'll not only work on your case for FREE, but I'll also share the SOP with you once I've figured this out.

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Back Story on the Amazon Private Label Pathway, ICYMI...

A few months back, I had a small group of coaching clients that were at the same point in their Amazon seller journeys.

I found myself answering the same questions, and pointing them to the same resources, so, in true Amazon fashion, I asked myself "What's the 1-to-Many solution here?" and built a Notion page of helpful resources, which I've called "Amazon Private Label Pathway."

You can get access to it here: https://auxo.gumroad.com/l/amazonpathway (it's free; but if you want to buy me a beer, I won't object)​

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Amazon Questions? Amazon isn't easy. Everyone needs a little help from a friend sometimes. If you ever have a tough Amazon question, I'm only a phone call away. Let's Chat

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