In this episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, Jim James interviews Jeremy Nagel, who successfully built and sold his company, Smooth Messenger. Jeremy shares his insights on how he effectively communicated and marketed his business to attract attention and achieve sustainable growth. He highlights two main strategies: partnerships and YouTube. Jeremy leveraged his YouTube channel, which had a small but engaged following, to promote his SMS integration for Zoho CRM. He also formed a partnership with Zoho, who funneled leads his way.
Additionally, Jeremy emphasises the importance of customer reviews and how he focused on providing exceptional customer support to generate positive feedback, which helped differentiate his product and attract potential buyers.
He also mentions the concept of price elasticity and how he tested different price points, and on the potential of SMS as a marketing tool, noting its effectiveness in cutting through the noise of overloaded email inboxes and reaching customers directly. He advises entrepreneurs to consider incorporating SMS into their communication strategies, especially for time-sensitive messages or when email engagement is low.
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The UnNoticed Entrepreneur is hosted & produced by Jim James.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur. Today we're traveling all the way across the world to Melbourne to meet an Entrepreneur Jeremy Nagel. Jeremy, you started a company called "Smooth Messenger" in 2018, and then you sold it in 2022. Jeremy, tell us a little bit first, then, about Smooth Messenger. What product did you build and what prompt did it solve for Entrepreneurs? Sure. So Smooth Messenger is a SMS Integration for Zoho CRM. It's also a problem of people who want to send out SMS to their customers. And that I think is quite emblematic that in these days people get their inboxes flooded with emails and SMS tend to cut through the noise a little bit more. So when I launched it, I was aware that there were already quite a few SMS Integrations on the marketplace. So there's a bit of a challenge there of, 'how do you get attention?' And what I did in order to cut through the noise was 'partnerships' and 'YouTube.' They were my two main channels. I'd read a book about Content Marketing where they spoke about how YouTube was a, a great way to get noticed, and I had started making these really poor quality, low production value videos that people nonetheless seemed to get value out of. And essentially, when I went live with the SMS Integration, they were my first customers, people who had been following me on YouTube, and who watched what I was doing, and who trusted me because they'd been watching my 'how-to videos' and then willing to give it a go. And then the other aspect to it was the 'partnerships.' So, there was the partnership with Zoho in the sense that they had the old SMS plugin that could no longer be served by them, and they essentially funneled leads my way. People who were looking for the old version of the SMS plugin were directed to my marketplace listing instead. And I was able to then get the first probably 20 or so customers through those two channels, the YouTube and also the partnership with Zoho. I think there's a sweet spot where I communicate regularly and I tell them what's happening. It's been "Partnerships" and the "Content Marketing." Now this is just a two minute trailer for a full 20 minute show. The show will be dropping into your feed in the next day or so. So do look out for it and do enjoy it, share it, and review it. Thanks for listening to this trailer of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.