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0 The Influencer Strategy I Used To 13X Grabr’s Blog Subscribers In 90 Days

It’s the one thing that pretty much everyone hates about inbound marketing…

Waiting.

Waiting for your SEO to bring in qualified traffic.

Waiting to nurture leads into customers.

Waiting to build up an audience of drooling fans who look to you for advice.

But here’s the thing: some brands — depending on the industry — don’t have to wait quite as long as others to start seeing the traffic & leads roll in.

Why?

Because rather than having to build their audience from scratch, they can “borrow” one by building relationships with influencers in their niche.

This is essentially what “influencer marketing” is all about. Because when you have an influential person — like a celebrity or well-known blogger — vouching for you, that kind of added credibility can supercharge your digital marketing efforts and expand your reach.

But it’s not always easy to build relationships with these influencers.

So when travel startup Grabr hired us, we put together a content strategy that didn’t focus on traditional influencer “outreach.”

Instead, we invited established travel writers to help create amazing content for us. I’ll explain more in moment, but first, here’s the growth that Grabr saw within 3 months of using this strategy (they were previously seeing monthly newsletter subscribers in the low double-digits):

And when I talk about ‘influencers’, I’m not necessarily referring to celebs with 2M followers here. Really, an influencer is someone who has an engaged audience that you want to connect with.

Now, there are a lot of articles out there about ways to get influencers with gargantuan followers to share your content. And that’s strategy might work for you.

But we took a different approach:

First, we created a laser-focused content strategy

Let’s pause for some background: Grabr is a peer-to-peer delivery service where international travelers deliver retail items to people abroad.

For example, government restrictions make it super-tough to buy an iPhone in Argentina — so a ‘Grabr’ traveler already heading to Argentina would get a cash reward for buying and delivering an iPhone when they arrived.

Before we jumped in, they had been blogging for about 18 months using a mix of engaging travel content. Grabr wanted to build on those results — fast.

We focused primarily on using the blog to engage and convert travelers, who tended to be young, adventurous folks living in North America. The backpacker types.

The audience liked the idea of delivering these items because it gave them a chance to better connect with the locals — while also making a few bucks on the side.

And that really was the appeal of using Grabr: travelers got a more meaningful trip by meeting up with a local in the city they were visiting and delivering them an item.

So our content strategy focused on creating blog content and guides that helped these travelers get the authentic, meaningful trip they were looking for. Articles that connected with them at the very moment they were either researching a trip or looking for ways to make money while traveling.

But to provide that kind of content, we had to have very specific types of content creators working with us.

Next, we hired rockstar travel writers
(who have plenty of friends)

This was probably the most important part of our content strategy.

We needed legit, full-time travel writers working for us who had strong social media followings made up of the exact type of people who would loooooove Grabr. So when they shared the articles they wrote for us, we were connecting with the ideal Grabr audience.

My background is in online travel marketing, so I already had a couple of kick-ass scribes in mind (although, there are ways to find affordable writers in plenty of other niches). Here they are:

Kelly Dunning of Global Goose
She’s a young ‘digital nomad’ who’s spent the past 5 years living in hostels while exploring the world as a travel writer.

 
 

Candice Walsh of Free Candie. A veteran travel scribe who’s written for publications like BBC Travel and Reader’s Digest.

 
 

But these weren’t just hired guns.

They both loved the idea of creating content that helps budget-strapped travelers connect with locals and earn/save money while exploring the globe.

That was key. It was essential that they were really passionate about the content they were creating — and were excited to share it with their followers. Here’s a taste of the type of articles they crafted:

7 Travel Blogs That Help You Get Off The Beaten Path
How Culture Shock Makes You A Better Person
Awesome Ways to Experience Local Life In Vietnam

And if you read those and other Grabr blog posts closely, you’ll notice that they all include interviews or quotes from other travel bloggers, experts or thought leaders.

So that meant not only were Candice and Kelly sharing their articles, the people they included in the stories (often fellow travel bloggers) were also sharing the pieces.

And with that came the big increase in qualified traffic.

Then we served the right offer to the right persona at the right time

OK, we had the travel bloggers creating and promoting content. And it was bringing us a steady stream of social media traffic.

But now, we needed to convert that traffic into email subscribers. That way, we would have a more engaged audience that would pay attention when it came time to educate them about the benefits of joining Grabr.

Like a lot of successful marketing campaigns, it all came down to segmentation and contextual messaging. Fortunately, SumoMe makes it pretty easy to do this.

The funnel essentially boiled down to this: people who clicked on an article about experiencing local culture in Vietnam were shown popups for a free travel guide called ‘Vietnam for the Anti-Tourist.’

Same deal for Argentina — or any other country where Grabr did a lot of business. They then received emails with more relevant travel tips and information about Grabr.

All the offers were interconnected and presented as the next logical option for people to take. And that resulted in a decent reader-to-subscriber rate of just over 3% — without any A/B testing or other optimization. According to SumoMe, the average rate is 2%.

Could your brand get a boost from influencers?

The short answer is ‘yes’. But exactly how successful you are with this strategy ultimately depends on the industry you’re in. Travel, fitness, health and parenting — for example — are all niches that are loaded with influential bloggers.

Industrial plastic manufacturing? Not so much.

But even some B2B companies, like marketing software, do a great job of leveraging influencers to gain traffic.

However, it’s important to remember: inbound marketing is still a long-term game. It takes time to build trust, credibility and authority in your niche.

After all, you don’t want to ‘borrow’ an audience forever. You want to build your own.

0 How A Shift In Tone Helped Kiva Re-Engage 32% More Lenders

I can’t remember where she lived. Or how she made a living.

But I do remember how funding my first Kiva loan (to a woman in Peru) made me feel.

If you’re not familiar with Kiva, it’s an immensely popular micro-lending organization that helps low-income entrepreneurs across the world.

There’s a certain magic you experience when you fund your first loan. You’re able to see exactly how your money will make a difference in someone’s life; whether it’s helping them buy feed for livestock or rebuild a crumbling warehouse.

My wife and I have been lending through Kiva for about seven years now. So when I had a chance to help the non-profit improve its email re-engagement campaigns, I was thrilled to take on the challenge.

But this project didn’t turn out at all like I expected. You see, I had a lot of test ideas that focused on segmentation and different types of emotional messaging.

And yet, what actually pulled in the biggest ‘win’ wasn’t any heart-jerking emails or complex segmentation campaigns.

It was a whole lot simpler than that.

I’ll get back to this in a minute, but first…

Here’s the problem Kiva wanted to solve:

Most Kiva users fund a loan, get repaid and then fund another. That’s because they experienced that ‘magic’ I referred to earlier.

But there’s a small number of folks who don’t relend their balance right away, so their money just sits in their account. Sometimes, for months.

And of course, Kiva wants its lenders to be as engaged as possible. Or at the very least, be aware that they have money still in their accounts.

So after 60 days, these ‘inactive’ folks are sent a series of re-engagement emails to remind them that those funds are available. Here’s an example of one of them, which served as the control for our email marketing tests:

CONTROL:

Subject: Relend your $25

 

Our job was to test out new e-mail messaging that would encourage these folks to relend their money.

At first, I was confident that more targeted messaging — reflecting why they tried Kiva in the first place — would generate the best results.

But in fact, it was actually a very simple email that came out as the clearest winner. Here it is:

VARIANT (winner):

Subject: In case you forgot…

Results from the A/B test:

Increase in Unique Opens:32%
Increase in Unique Clicks: 32%
Increase in Action Rate: 33%
(statistical significance of 99%)
Increase In Overall Loan Volume: 18%

It was a clear ‘win’ for our variant. But here’s where it gets interesting:

To get this win, we didn’t have to significantly change the main message that was being said — we only really changed how we said it.

Let me explain…

It All Started With A Little Research

 

After gathering input from Kiva lenders through an email survey, I hypothesized that there were three main barriers that were preventing folks from relending:

• feelings of being overwhelmed by decisions on who to lend to
• not having time to make a proper decision on which loan to support
• an incorrect belief that they would be charged some kind of admin fee

And so based on that information, I began forming hypotheses on how to re-engage past lenders.

We tested a variety of messages using strong emotional appeals. This included leveraging urgency as well as sending segmented emails (based on past lending patterns) to make the decision to relend easier.

The results from these tests were pretty mixed. But we also tried a much simpler approach…

We stopped asking and started advising

Here’s what I mean by this:

It’s likely that some inactive Kiva lenders were tuning out all the emails that asked them to relend money. This was mainly because the audience had anxieties or concerns around relending (as touched on above).

So for these people, taking more of a customer service tone in the reminder e-mail would help them feel more comfortable about funding another loan. Because by doing this, Kiva is no longer telling folks what to do; they’re simply providing advice instead.

To illustrate exactly what I mean, let’s dive into the test a little deeper…

Exhibit A: The subject line

Here’s the control subject line:

 

It’s ultra-clear, specific and simple. And that’s great. However, for this less-engaged audience, I suspected that one word was tripping readers up: Relend.

Why? Because it implies that the audience will need to do some work after opening the e-mail — even if it’s just signing into their Kiva account and clicking a button or two.

That may be just fine for the scores of diehard Kiva fans out there. But the folks we were targeting had been inactive for anywhere from 60 to 365 days, so even the hint of having to do a morsel of work could turn them off. And as Marketing Experiments puts it:

The most effective subject lines emphasize the “get” and imply the “ask.”

So the variant subject line took more of an advisory tone:

 

 

There’s no ask here — just a personal, friendly reminder. The kind of subject line you might even see in an e-mail from a friend. As mentioned, that variant resulted in a 32% increase in opens.

What was especially interesting, however, was that the new subject line generated the biggest increase in opens among Kiva lenders who were inactive for longer periods of time, as this graph illustrates:

In other words, the new subject line performed best among lenders who had not funded a loan for quite some time.

What’s behind this trend? It’s likely in part because it created a ‘pattern interrupt’ in the reader’s mind.

The In case you forgot… phrase isn’t something the audience expects to see in an email from Kiva, which tends to favor very precise and specific subject lines. So it stands out from previous messages that the audience may have seen.

But probably the biggest reason the subject line worked so well was because it creates intrigue. The e-mail implies that the receiver may have forgotten something, but they have to open the email to find out what that ‘something’ is.

And because our brains crave closure, the audience is naturally compelled to click.

Now, it’s always important to use curiosity in an honest way. The body of your email must deliver on the promise made in the subject line, otherwise you risk breaking your audience’s trust. Sort of like a bait-and-switch.

And that brings us to…

Exhibit B: The body copy of the email

Here are the two versions of the email body copy that Kiva tested:

CONTROL:

 

VARIANT (winner):

Once again, we’re not leading with the ask. Instead, we’re letting them know they have money still left in their account and then telling them what they can do with it. The ask (‘Relend Now’) only comes later.

A few other elements also support the ‘customer service’ hypothesis we focused on:

• It reduces anxiety by emphasizing the message: “without having to deposit any additional funds.” We suspected that the false perception of being charged extra fees was a barrier to relending, so I wanted to make sure this point was clear.
• The call to action button was tweaked to be more specific by saying ‘Relend Now’ instead of ‘Lend Now.’ After all, they’re not really making a brand-new loan — rather, they’re relending their existing funds. Future tests might include focusing more on the value that the reader will get from clicking (Be someone’s hero again, for example)
• The ‘Short on time?’ section helped to quash any lingering concerns about how much time it would take to make a decision on who to lend to. Once again, we’re further addressing the anxieties that may have stopped folks from relending in the first place.

 

In Conclusion

Tone is often overlooked in email marketing.

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in figuring out what to say that you forget to refine exactly how to say it.

But by getting the tone of your marketing emails right, you’re better able to join the conversation already taking place in the reader’s mind.

If you can do that well, especially in your re-engagement emails, you’ll be far more likely to make a deeper connection with your audience that generates results.

Thanks to the marketing team at Kiva.org for allowing us to share this case study.

 

 

 

0 Beyond The Buzzword: How To Get More Leads with ‘Authentic’ Marketing

People crave authenticity. Now more than ever.

Because with all the online ‘noise’ we’re hit with every day, folks now instinctively tune out anything they see as insincere, corporate bullshit.

There’s plenty of research to back this up, by the way.

So how have a lot of marketers (especially at larger companies) reacted to this clear desire for ‘authenticity’?

They went freakin’ crazy with it! 

The word ‘authentic’ has been thrown around so often during the past 2-3 years that it’s become just another hollow marketing cliche.

And that’s too bad. Because authentic marketing does matter. And it does work.

But it’s something you can’t do on shallow level. It requires intimacy, honesty and even showing vulnerability.

Rather than lecture, I’d like to show you how effective it can be.

Enter Alaska.org.

I helped this small travel company bring in an additional 2,718 new inbound inquiries in less than a year (roughly 30-40% of their inbound lead total) with an email autoresponder series based on authentic, value-packed storytelling.

They even hired an extra employee to help them respond to all the new inquiries coming through.

What follows is an in-depth look at how a blend of marketing strategy and authenticity can help brands build a meaningful relationship with their audience.

How I Helped Alaska.org get 2,718 New Inbound Inqueries By Using Genuine, Personal Storytelling

Bob Kaufman loves Alaska.

You can tell just by talking to him. The raw enthusiasm he has for the state shines in his voice through even during mundane business calls.

In fact, Bob’s been obsessed with the place since he first scaled the top of Mount McKinley in 1986.

Today, he lives in Anchorage where he runs Alaska.org — a stunning website filled with pages of detailed content that helps travelers plan a vacation to “America’s Last Frontier.”

For for those who’d prefer not to arrange the trip themselves or are overwhelmed by all of the information out there, Alaska.org offers to put them in touch with the best Alaska-based travel planner to help them plan and book their trip.

Their website gets loads of traffic. And they also have a growing list of subscribers who opt into a newsletter after requesting a free travel planner.

And that’s where Bob needed my help.

He faced an email marketing challenge that loads of entrepreneurs and business owners struggle with…

“How Do I Get The Most Out Of My Email List?”

Bob and his team would send out monthly email blasts talking about the latest offers or Alaska must-sees, but engagement remained low.

And Bob knew they could be doing a better job of connecting with travelers on that list. He wanted more people to reach out.

So I did what we always do at Good Funnel — I followed a process of Research, Strategy and then Copywriting & Content Creation.

Along the way, I ran into a few surprises about Bob’s audience.

Research: The Surprising ‘Disconnect’ We Uncovered

The research phase of the project had three main parts:

1. Analysis of personas and other marketing research from Alaska Tourism
2. Email surveys to Alaska.org’s existing subscribers
3. Qualaroo pop-up surveys on Alaska.org

When we analyzed the results, two clear persona types emerged as the main visitors to the Alaska.org website:

• “Mainstream” travelers who want to see just the highlights 
  (those who prefer cruises and large group tours)

• “Independent” travelers who want to get off the beaten path
  (those who prefer self-drive tours and experiencing “real” Alaska)

The independent traveler persona made up the majority of Alaska.org’s subscriber list.

But here’s where things got interesting.

The data showed that the independent travelers often struggled with certain aspects of planning their trip, especially when it came to figuring out how to get an Alaska experience that wasn’t focused on just “tourist traps.”

A lot of people find that planning an Alaska vacation on their own is tricky because the state is so big.

Here are a few examples of voice of customer data we got back while doing research:

“I usually plan all of our trips myself, but I’m a bit out of my element here since it seems there is so much to see and do.”

“If scheduling a self-tour vacation was easy, we would be coming next year. Right now, not so sure if we have time to make all of the phone calls and arrangements”.

These are the sort of problems that many local Alaska travel planners specialize in solving by creating customized plans. That way, the logistics are all sorted out, but the traveler still has the freedom to get off the beaten path.

But independent travelers didn’t realize there was a solution to their problem.

In fact, the data showed that they associated travel counselors with rigid itineraries. It was something the cruise-ship crowd did — not them. They said stuff like:

“I don’t want to use a travel agent because I’ll be stuck to an itinerary.”

So there was a disconnect there. People’s perceptions about travel planners was a huge barrier to them to reaching out and getting the help they needed.

Regardless of anything else, these independent folks wanted one thing: to experience Alaska like a local. But they didn’t always know how to do it.

So we decided to show them.

Strategy: The ‘Authentic’ Autoresponder Approach

These independent travelers were (rightly) skeptical of all the flashy, big-budget tourism marketing out there.

So we went in the opposite direction. Readers would get insight into what a real Alaska trip was like — even if it didn’t always meet their expectations.

Remember when I mentioned how enthusiastic the client, Bob Kaufman, was about Alaska?

Well, my hypothesis was that by putting Bob’s stories and advice about exploring Alaska front and center in an autoresponder series we could accomplish 3 main goals:

• build a relationship with the reader and prove that Bob is a knowledgeable, trusted expert
• educate the reader as to the true value of using a travel planner and address misconceptions that they are only useful for booking package tours
• tackle readers’ top fears, questions and objections about traveling to Alaska

And that would translate into an increase in both email engagement and requests for help in booking a trip.

But we also had to make it clear: this type of Alaska experience isn’t for everyone. It’s especially not for those looking to hit the all highlights before hopping back on their cruise ship.

That honesty was important.

So working closely with Bob, I created an email autoresponder sequence with the promise of showing the aspiring traveler “How to Get Off The Beaten Path in Alaska.”

This wasn’t just another newsletter. It was a complete, interconnected 17-part story dripped out over 80 days.

The 80-day timeframe loosely coincided with the average booking time for travelers well into the “research stage” of their trip-planning process, which is when they were most likely to opt into the autoresponder series.

Content: The audience told us what to write about

All the qualitative research we did formed the basis of the email strategy.

I sifted through surveys and other voice of customer data, watched for trends and then organized the results into categories based on topics that would help us tell our story and give the audience the information they wanted.

For example, after seeing a trend in survey responses like this from Alaska travelers:

Do not want to get sucked into the totally tourist trap activities.

I want to see what real Alaska life is like, not just tourist attractions.

To experience the Alaska way of life.

I worked with Bob to write an email that detailed his favorite experiences that would give people a taste of real Alaska life.

It went out with the subject line “Most tourists never see this stuff…”

(You can read the email here)

And when I saw that many aspiring Alaska travelers said they were concerned about dealing with cold weather in the summer, we tackled that objection with an email that gave the facts on summer temperatures in Alaska.

It was a very personal message that quashed any weather misconceptions by talking about how Bob’s kids love swimming in a local lake.

Every single e-mail created was in response to:

• a problem the audience wanted to solve
• an experience they wanted to have
• an objection to traveling to Alaska
• a fear or anxiety they expressed

Put another way, these emails helped the reader achieve their ultimate goal of getting the exact Alaska vacation they wanted.

Each topic = 1 part of a relationship-building story

Every email had a specific role to play.

They each fit into a storyboard, which loosely followed Professor Mark L. Knapp’s “Four Stages of Relationship Development” model while also adhering to a very basic narrative arc.

Here’s roughly what it looked like:

Rising action:
High e-mail frequency. Content focused on ‘top-of-funnel’ topics that would interest travelers in the early planning stage of their trip.

• Readers are introduced to Bob and his love of Alaska
• They’re shown that it’s not always easy to get “off the beaten path” in Alaska. But with the right local advice, it can be done.
• They’re given a fast-paced stream of content featuring little-known Alaska attractions and other local advice — all based on personal stories

Climax (ie. the ultimate solution to their problem):

• After earning their trust, Bob shows how locally-based Alaska travel planners are the best source of advice for anyone who wants to “get off the beaten path.”
• Main call to action email: Bob asks those who are ready to book to get in touch.

Falling action/resolution:
Lower email frequency. Content focused on more bottom-of-funnel topics that would interest travelers closer to booking or finalizing their trip plans.

• Content is now more focused on answering questions readers are likely to have before finalizing their trip.
• Objections and Alaska “myths” are busted
• More frequent calls to action for the reader to “get in touch” if they would like to chat with a local travel planner.

By the end of this “story,” the main character (the reader) has undergone a change. He or she now has a greater understanding of what it takes to “get off  the beaten path” in Alaska.

Plus, the person has a different perception of travel planners: they’re not just for the cruise-ship crowd — speaking to them has value even for those who prefer the roads less traveled.

And throughout the entire story arc, readers got to know Bob a little better.

They learned about how his dream of climbing Mount McKinley almost didn’t happen.

They related to the stories he told.

And most of all, they formed a bond with a guy who honestly wants to help people get the most out of their Alaska vacation.

Although I did write the final drafts of the emails (based on Bob’s notes, draft emails he wrote and interviews with him), it was his stories that really drew people in. Here’s one recent reply from a subscriber:

“Your website has been a HUGE help and I planned the land portion of our trip largely by reading your tips and pointers 🙂 I’ve spent hours going through everything….All the information is accurate and up-to-date. And mostly it seems genuine and from the heart. So two thumbs up.”

4 More Things That Made This Autoresponder Work

1) Empathy to build a deeper connection
Before Bob moved to Alaska, he used to travel there on vacation. And just like the target audience, Bob craved getting off the beaten path and seeing what real Alaska life was like. That made him someone that independent travelers could relate to and see themselves in as they read his emails.

2)Visual language to get them daydreaming
Sure, images are essential. But using sensory-rich language to describe Alaska activates more of the readers’ brain cells by causing them to think more deeply about what they’re reading. And research shows that the more a person thinks about a product, service or experience, the more they will want it.

3) Open loops to keep them reading
This kept the open rates consistently above 40%. Taking a page from master autoresponder copywriter Andre Chaperon, I ended each email with an open loop that built anticipation for the next message. A cliffhanger, basically.Whenever possible, I created the ‘loop’ by raising a problem that the reader could only solve by opening the next email. For example:

4)Micro-conversions to build up to the final ‘ask’
E-mail marketers all have different opinions on how to “sell” in emails. But really, it depends on where the readers are most likely to be in the sales funnel.

In this case, we knew that many people who opted into the autoresponder were likely in the early phase of their Alaska vacation research. Some might be ready to talk to a travel planner at this point, but many weren’t. That changed over time as they became more educated about Alaska.

So as touched on in the storyboard above, I focused on providing “micro-conversions” at the beginning of the sequence to get them into the habit of taking action. As the series went on, the “get in touch” call to action became more obvious.

Creating this autoresponder series required a lot of hard work from everyone. But it paid off…

“I got into this project thinking I was hiring a writer to write some email newsletters. The research Dustin did into who our customers are was probably the biggest breakthrough I’ve had in understanding our customers in ten years. There’s a whole science behind the reader’s psychology that you’d never know about if you don’t do this for a living.”

Bob Kaufman, Alaska.org

Summing it up…

Some people think the idea of “authentic marketing” is an oxymoron. Obviously, I don’t agree.

Effective marketing isn’t about hyping up a brand or making a company look “perfect.” It’s about building relationships and earning trust.

But in order for authentic marketing to pay off, it also needs a research-driven strategy behind it.

You still have to understand who your customers are, the exact problems they struggle with and how to best position your solution. Essentially, you need a plan.

Do it right and your brand will resonate with the exact type of people who’ll be customers for life.

Special thanks to Bob Kaufman and Zen Godfrey at Alaska.org for allowing us to share this story so others can learn from it.

0 How I Grew LivePlan’s Paid Conversion Rate By 72%