Introduction
Amazon Prime is the Earth’s best membership program. With over 200 million members using its services, Amazon Prime is more than just a company that delivers goods within one day. Members get added benefits from other Amazon brands such as streaming video, pharmacy, gaming, reading, and food delivery through its partnership with Grubhub.
Amazon obsesses over its customers and aims to provide the best subscription service. The number of Prime members has grown 10X; exploding from 20 million in 2013 to over 200 million in 2020. The lifetime value of Prime customers is $2,283 vs $916 for non-Prime customers. There’s a reason it boasts a 95% plus retention rate for the program.
Amazon Customer Emails after resubscribing to Prime
I'm sharing my experience with Amazon’s email marketing over the last few months. I’m examining the messaging experience an Amazon Prime customer would receive after signing up for the service after canceling about 3 months ago.
I'll look at the emails I received when canceling my Prime membership in December 2023 and the subsequent emails received upon resubscribing in March 2024. I hope that this illustrates that all companies, including Amazon, have opportunities to improve their email marketing efforts by building a cohesive messaging strategy.
The analysis will focus on key elements such as branding, email frequency, the (mis)-targeted offers, and messaging cadence throughout the trial period. By examining emails from my Prime membership journey, I'll identify opportunities for Amazon to elevate its email efforts and optimize campaigns.
At a high level, I took the actions below to trigger these series of emails I received:
- I canceled my Prime membership on December 13, 2023.
- I renewed my membership on March 5, 2024, that reactivated my Prime benefits for 30 days
- I intentionally canceled my membership on 3/24 which put an end date to my membership on April 4, 2024.
I’ll only examine emails mentioning Amazon Prime as part of this deep dive. I’ll look at each email in detail along with opportunities for Amazon to improve it.
The image below illustrates the emails I received mentioning Amazon Prime within my new “trial”.
- We received 11 emails after signing up for Prime within the first 31 days
- 6 of the 11 emails didn’t have a proper Amazon Prime logo
- 4 of the 11 emails were promoting Prime Music
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Implement Prime Branding
In the first 8 days of becoming a Prime member again, I received 6 emails; only 2 of 6 had Amazon Prime branding/logos on them. As one of the most recognizable logos in commerce, Amazon should lead with its Prime logo in all customer-facing assets.
Consolidate messaging
In the first couple of hours after reactivating my Prime membership, I received 3 separate emails.
- Email #1 was a Welcome Email thanking me for becoming a Prime member
- Email #2 was an email promoting Prime Video
- Email #3 was an email informing me that the discount on my Prime Visa card increased from 3% to 5%
Here is an opportunity for Amazon to consolidate 3 separate emails into one cohesive message. The first email already mentions Prime Video, while the third email informing me that my Prime Visa discount increased to 5% could be included as an important note in the welcome email. The benefit to the member is it reduces it down to one email while providing all of the features of Prime.
You might be wondering, “What’s the big deal?”, it’s only one email, who cares if a member received 3 emails over a few hours? At Amazon’s scale where they have hundreds of millions of members, the benefit of Amazon consolidating this welcome email would be:
- With millions of people being mindful of the subscriptions they’re paying companies, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of people receiving this experience every single day. Consolidating the messaging brings a better customer experience for a company who lists Customer Obsession as a core principle.
- From an internal Creative / Marketing Operations perspective who might work within Amazon, it’s consolidating 3 existing emails into one trigger email. Among the potentially thousands of emails Amazon manages, this removes 2 additional assets Amazon employees must update over time.
Missed Opportunities with Amazon Music
During my Amazon Prime trial period, Amazon sent 4 emails promoting Amazon Music; including sending 3 sequential emails promoting Amazon Music. On days 3, 6 and 8 into my Prime membership, I received three emails that looked mostly like a text email. These look like transactional messaging that doesn't entice members to sign up for Prime Music.
There were a couple of missed opportunities here.
Amazon could have completely reimagined the entire email creative to engage with members. The copy reads “As a Prime member, you have access to all the music + top podcasts ad-free from Amazon Music, at no additional cost.” The company could’ve included pictures of hit albums and top podcasts streaming on Amazon Music. Include music from top artists like Taylor Swift and/or top podcasts like This American Life.
The company collects so much data on its customers. Since I did not engage with the Amazon Music emails or stream music over the 3 days and with the number of other services my Prime membership provides, it was an opportunity for Amazon to inform me about offerings like Prime Reading or Prime Gaming. They didn’t have to send me the same offer sequentially.
Final Thoughts
With millions of Prime members and each one of them on a different customer journey, I hope this highlighted the opportunities Amazon has to fine tune their marketing emails. This is also an opportunity for marketers and teams responsibile for an entire retention marketing program; going from one campaign to the next. Every so often, take the 30,000 foot view and look at the overall messaging experience. There's always opportunities to pare down, merge and personalize the experience for your customers.
Before you go...
Personalizing email campaigns is simple. It takes a mix of data with creativity and you can build highly targeted customer segments to create delightful messaging experiences for your customers. Read my article on how Netflix evolved its Email Strategy through Experimentation.