Neil Napier, Founder at KV Social joins Hammad Akbar in this episode of Launch Legends Podcast.
Neil’s journey into internet marketing
Neil entered the online marketing space accidentally. His UK visa was about to expire due the UK government changing visa renewal regulations overnight. Neil had to make £6,000 in six months to stay in the UK. He started freelancing which helped him to get a side job alongside his regular 9-5 job to make some extra money but it was still not enough.
This helped Neil realise that there is a market outside a typical 9-5 job. Neil had a writing background, so he utilised that experience and started copywriting. This brought him into the online marketing world.
Customer service is a differentiating factor
Neil co-created an autoresponder tool named Mailvio. Before creating Mailvio, Neil already built a tool called Kyvio that also had an autoresponder feature, though it didn’t have SMTP which contributed to a lower adoption rate. Mailvio had a built in autoresponder, text-messaging and a many other features. The problem with Mailvio was it had to compete with other big names such as Aweber and Getresponse.
To differentiate Mailvio from other companies, Neil provided excellent customer service, something that all the big companies lacked. As their companies got bigger, customers became statistics for them. Great customer service became a differentiating factor for Mailvio. He gave customers a free one on one call whenever they needed assistance or guidance.
Working with a JV manager to drive sales
Neil worked with a JV manager to ensure a successful launch as his email list was not large enough to launch a product successfully. This specific JV manager had a history of leading successful launches. He convinced affiliates to join through sharing convincing numbers and managed to recruit 300 affiliates. Neil went to Cyprus to meet his JV manager where he planned the whole launch.
Their launch started with a three day email sequence that provided information about the core features of the product. They offered a $25k prize to encourage affiliates to promote their product. He also gave a free account of Mailvio to many affiliates, so that they could use it to send emails to their email list to show that it actually worked. All these actions led to them earning $225k during this first launch of Mailvio.
Neil’s advice to newcomers
He suggested that newcomers to internet marketing first release a beta version of their product. He advised people to start by providing free training at an extremely low rate but to make sure that it is a live session. At the end of this session you can tell people that you are working on another product and if they are interested you can share more information about it.
After a long live session, you would develop a relationship and trust with your audience and they would most likely listen to your offer and some would also subscribe for it. These would be your first customers.
