INTRO
Growing Portfolio
In 2020, 3 years after Singapore’s Fastest Internet Service Provider ViewQwest launched in Malaysia, it gained enough foothold to start expanding its product portfolio by offering Value-Added Services.
With the acquisition of new customers coming to a standstill as a result of Covid-19 pandemic, increasing average revenue per user was critical to ensuring the company’s continuing growth.
ViewQwest is Souteast Asia’s fastest internet service provider from Singapore. In 2017, ViewQwest entered the Malaysian market as the first foreign ISP in the country, where it’s been growing as a premium ISP in the B2C & B2B sector ever since.
THE CHALLENGE
Adoption Among Existing Customers
The first among the Value-Added service planned for market launch was Freedom DNS, a service that allows its users to access geo-restricted movies & TV shows unavailable in Malaysia (i.e. Netflix US, Disney+, Hulu etc.).
The service was the first of its kind offered in Malaysia, and therefore the local population was not particularly familiar with a service of this kind. Among ViewQwest’s customer base, the non-tech-savvy customers who often perceive their internet providers as utility companies were bound to find it hard to perceive the value of such a service, its use and its benefits to their everyday life, while for the tech-savvy customers, the service would have the tendency to be compared to competing services such as VPN.
It was, therefore, paramount to prepare a go-to-market strategy tailored around the company’s customers, ensuring to communicate the benefits of the service clearly while overcoming any aversion towards the adoption of new, unfamiliar products & services.
THE APPROACH
Staying On Top of the Mind
With the ultimate goal of maximizing the adoption rate of the product, I designed a 4-pronged strategy tailored to the nature of the product as well as the customer base of the company.
Free Trial For All Customers
In an effort to overcome the aversion of the customers to adopt unfamiliar products, instead of providing a redeemable opt-in-requiring trial, a free trial was automatically provided to all existing and new customers. The trial period was set for 3 months, providing ample time for an extensive onboarding journey as well as forming usage habits.
Extensive Library of Resources
Prior to the product launch, an extensive library of resource was created to facilitate the understanding of the products, its unique selling propositions as well as compare it to competing products such as VPN services. The content spanned detailed FAQs, guides, explainer videos, in-dept product pages, blog posts and social media content all prepared for use in the onboarding journey.
Onboarding Email Chain
At the heart of the campaign was a robust email marketing onboarding journey spanning a plethora of email content delivered over the entire period of the trial, focused on highlighting the best channels & content available thanks to the service as well as the use cases of the service. Better yet, all of these EDMs included the option to opt-in for the paid service after the expiry of the free trial.
Customer Inclusion in Product Development
To keep the customers engaged, as well as enable continuous product improvement, surveys were set up to understand customer comprehension of the product value & use, measure customer satisfaction as well as to invite the customers to play an active part in the product roadmap and thus stay engaged with the product.
RESULTS
Successful Adoption
As a result of a carefully planned product launched focused on onboarding and maximizing adoption rate among its existing customers, ViewQwest was able to convert 8% of its existing customers to paid customers of its new service. This resulted in up to 28% increase in recurring revenue from these customers. In this way, ViewQwest was able to secure an additional revenue stream during a sales slump caused by the global pandemic of Covid-19.
Conversion Rate
8% of customers chose to keep the service after the free trial.
Recurring Revenue Growth
The adoption of the paid service after the trial resulted in up to 28% increase in recurring revenue from customers who subscribed.
4.3/5
Average Satisfaction
In general, even customers who didn't end up subscribing enjoyed the free trial and found using the service easy thanks to the available resources.
CONCLUSION
Staying Engaged
Thanks to the use of content and email marketing, I was able to transform ViewQwest's product launch from a simple product sell into an experience fully complementing customers lifestyles.
