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Forbes
04-08-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Amazon Brands Can Turn One-Time Buyers Into Lifelong Customers
Jon Stojan is Founder of First North Marketing. We help e-commerce brands get their products seen, sold and celebrated. Few challenges in modern retail are as daunting as customer acquisition. In the world of Amazon selling, the reality is straightforward: Winning a new customer costs significantly more than nurturing an existing one. That's why smart sellers focus on boosting customer lifetime value (LTV). That means getting more revenue from people who have already bought from you by giving them more reasons to stick around. It is often said in marketing that people need to see your product or brand seven times before they commit to a purchase. This experience-accumulating journey underscores why every interaction with your customer matters. As the saying goes, familiarity is a powerful driver for conversion, and it becomes even more potent when you are targeting those who have already interacted with your brand. The High Price Of First Impressions Acquiring new customers is expensive. Every click on a sponsored product ad or every impression on a search results page is a small investment in a much larger strategy. But the insights are clear: Someone who's already bought from you is way more likely to do it again. In fact, the probability of selling to an existing customer is said to be up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new prospect, according to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. So instead of pouring your entire budget into chasing cold leads, it pays to double down on the people who've already raised their hand and said yes. When you start focusing on LTV, your profit margins could start to look a whole lot better. The Magic Of Multiple Touchpoints In online consumer behavior, I've found repetition works. Like I said above, the rule of thumb is that people need to see your product or brand seven times before they buy. But the exact number doesn't matter as much as the principle: Familiarity builds trust, and trust is likely to lead to purchases. Your job is to stay visible long enough for that trust to kick in. Say you're selling adjustable dumbbells. A shopper might spot them in a search while browsing for home gym equipment, then again in the 'related terms' carousel while looking at resistance bands. A few days later, they see your product featured on their Amazon home screen. After abandoning their cart, a retargeting ad brings it back to their attention. Finally, once they buy a yoga mat from your brand, your dumbbells show up as a recommended item. That's not overkill. That's smart sequencing. Using Sponsored Display Ads To Cross-Sell One of the smartest ways I've found that can help boost customer LTV on Amazon is by running sponsored display ads that cross-sell your other products. These ads are surprisingly flexible. You don't need to be selling consumables to make them work. Whether you offer five SKUs or 50, there's usually a way to show buyers something else they'll want next. Let's say you're selling a leather journal. After the first purchase, you might follow up with an ad for a matching pen set, a refill pack of premium paper or a leather folio. If you're in the home fitness space and someone grabs resistance bands, you could hit them with a display ad for a foam roller or a set of push-up bars. You're not trying to squeeze more money out of the buyer. You're helping them go deeper into the world your brand offers. Also, these ads don't just show up on Amazon. They pop up across other websites your customers visit, reminding them that you've got more to offer. That kind of subtle, well-placed nudge keeps your brand in the conversation when the next buying moment comes around. Getting More Mileage With Brand-Tailored Promotions Display ads are great, but they're not the only way to keep customers coming back. Brand-tailored promotions can give you a direct way to reward buyers and nudge them toward their next purchase. These aren't just one-off discounts or seasonal gimmicks. When done right, they feel personal. They show your customer that you actually get them. Think of a beauty brand offering 15% off to people who have already bought the starter skincare kit. It's a nudge to try the serum or moisturizer from the same line. Or, imagine a pet brand offering a deal on senior dog vitamins to someone who picked up large-breed senior food a few months ago. Here, you're not just blasting out coupons; you're making smart suggestions based on what your customer already said yes to. That kind of relevance is what separates a forgettable brand from one people stick with. A Smarter Way To Grow You don't need a spreadsheet to know that getting a new customer costs more than keeping the ones you already have. The smart move is to build your strategy around existing buyers. Growth starts to get a lot more predictable when your marketing isn't just about grabbing attention, but about keeping it. Cross-selling with sponsored display ads and layering in brand-tailored promotions is a simple but powerful combo. It can help your brand stay visible, your offers relevant and your customers coming back without the heavy lifting of cold acquisition every time. As I see it, sellers who focus on increasing lifetime value are playing a more sustainable game. Instead of chasing one-off wins, they're building something with staying power. In the long run, the brands that win are the ones that treat every customer like someone worth keeping. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Forbes
09-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Lessons About Brand Ownership From MrBeast's Approach
Jon Stojan is Founder of First North Marketing. We help ecommerce brands get their products seen, sold, and celebrated. MrBeast commands YouTube with a flair for the outrageous. From extravagant stunts to generous giveaways, his approach to content has cemented his digital empire and built a following most brands only dream of. But beneath the spectacle lies a lesser-known venture: Feastables, his chocolate bar brand. It made $20 million in profit in 2024, and I believe it's where his business savvy really surprises. The strategies behind Feastables' growth, discussed in his interview on The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett, highlight hard truths that e-commerce entrepreneurs need to confront. And while the story of Feastables is undeniably unique, I believe it offers broader, hard-earned lessons for founders. From launching imperfectly to obsessing over user experience and owning operational failures, the strategies I'll share here can guide any e-commerce brand trying to scale, especially without a household name. You'd think that when someone is already popular, the same level of success would simply transfer onto any brand they work on. But Feastables doesn't seem to be coasting on MrBeast's fame. Instead, he pays attention to the details; he explains in the interview that he's sunk real effort and research into sourcing and understanding how chocolates can be produced without child labor. Too many brands sacrifice values for margins, but I believe being meticulous about the details pays off big time. MrBeast, for example, explained to Bartlett that he planned to do this by tweaking the color of the tab at the bottom of the wrapper so customers can spot their choice instantly. Other brands can do this by getting hyper-specific about what matters most to their audience, whether that's sustainable sourcing, faster shipping or even simpler instructions in the packaging. Brands should talk to their customers, identify what they care about and then bake those values into the product experience itself. Small, thoughtful choices add up to loyalty. MrBeast shared in the interview that when he started selling the bars at Walmart, many chocolate bars were breaking. Most brands would probably still be basking in the 'we've made it' glow of a big-box debut, but MrBeast told Bartlett he spent about $100,000 a week just paying people to go into Walmarts and buy the broken bars. He even installed GoPros on shelves to see why the bars were breaking. This illustrates how brands can turn a flop into a forensic study. Even without a massive budget, you can apply the same principle: Investigate the problem at the ground level. Respond to customer complaints promptly. Review feedback regularly. Send mystery shoppers to stores or run test buys from online marketplaces like Amazon. Don't just stop at what went wrong; ask why it's happening and how to make the experience amazing for customers. That's where the insight lives. Scale or fame alone cannot drive a brand; a relentless grip on every detail, every failure and every fix can. E-commerce isn't about perfect launches or endless budgets but about what you do when the cracks show. Here are four lessons e-commerce operators can implement (no million-dollar war chest required): Your first launch most likely isn't going to be smooth sailing. Sometimes, you get broken chocolate bars on the floor. What matters is how you react. When something goes wrong, iterate on your product and distribution system until it works. For Amazon brand owners, that might translate to simply getting direct feedback. When was the last time you asked a friend or family member to order your Amazon product and give you honest feedback? And if you've done that recently, how have you improved your product based on that feedback? A perfect debut is a myth. But fixing the flaws shows customers you're in it for them. Five-star reviews are great, but it's 10 times more critical to prevent one-star disasters. That's about setting expectations and meeting them—every time. Too many e-commerce brands chase sales and neglect the gaps. Consider this: Where are the weak spots in your customer experience? Common culprits include unclear product descriptions, clunky checkout flows, slow fulfillment, inconsistent packaging and poor post-purchase support. These issues might seem small individually, but they compound over time. If you're not actively auditing the full customer journey from ad click to unboxing, you're probably bleeding trust without even realizing it. Spending $100,000 a week to clean up a launch isn't realistic for most, but the mindset is. Rather than blaming others when issues arise, own the fix and invest time, energy and resources. It boils down to this: Take responsibility. Your next hiccup isn't someone else's fault. It's yours to solve. MrBeast actually has an autoimmune disease, yet it doesn't seem to hold him back. To me, ownership really means showing up despite our challenges. In practice, displaying grit means taking initiative when it's easier to stay quiet. It's responding to negative reviews with thoughtful action instead of excuses. It's restocking inventory after a supplier mishap, working weekends when customer complaints pile up, and showing up on video when you'd rather hide behind the scenes. Owning the ethics, the details, the disasters and the wins is key to success. Amazon entrepreneurs don't need MrBeast's reach, but they do need a similar level of relentlessness. Your next launch could falter. Your customer experience probably has holes. Fix them. That's how you can build something that lasts. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
