Social Media Expert Breaks Down $100M Content Strategy (Full Case Study)

0:00in this video I'm going to go into a deep dive on how companies should come up with their content strategy this one is about the company W which if you haven't heard about it it's kind of like an upscale Airbnb but not a Marketplace they're a verticalized vacation home platform so in this video I'm going to go through what is wander we're going to evaluate the different types of content and like the content strategy that they're going through right now channel by Channel we're going to talk about where they could improve with new ideas so we're going to try to come up with a bunch of new content ideas if I was on

0:32the marketing team these are things like I would bring to the team and we would try these different ideas to grow it faster it's a new type of video but it's basically going to be like a live Consulting session for a specific company in an attempt to level up their content and growth if youve never seen me before this is your first video I'm Callaway I'm a Creator 550,000 followers a billion views the whole channel is designed to help entrepreneurs grow faster using content let's first talk about what is wander I mentioned in the intro it's basically a verticalized Airbnb play so what wander effectively has is 50 to 60 properties they're

1:05adding them all the time all across the US and these properties are in the locations that you would want to travel to most and the way I describe it is it's kind of like the best house in the best neighborhood in that location so you can see like take this first one wander big Coast you go to Big Sir if you want to stay in a sick house it's beautifully designed premium materials premium experience now wander owns the houses they're starting to to expand working with different people who own luxury vacation houses and wanders taking over the booking but for the most part everything you see on their site

1:37they own the house and then they own a premium experience layer so when you book you book through the wander app it's cleaned by the wander team they manage the entire experience and it's designed to be premium for wander the goal from a business strategy content perspective is they want people to book stays at their properties now the first thing you may be asking if you're watching this is what sector of the market is wander playing in are they going for super super premium and actually if you look at it the price is not that much more expensive than Airbnb so I just clicked on this big sir

2:11property which you can see right here it has four bedrooms and it sleeps 10 people for three nights day the price is $1,945 a night which for 10 people is $14 a night1 194 a night is not that expensive I guess if you were to get a hotel room in Big Sur that slept two people is it outrageous to assume you'd pay 380 a night that's not too outrageous so to me the amenities cleaning and experience of a hotel but you're getting the full luxury of a full house like an Airbnb so you get the best of both worlds so I would expect to pay a premium for that but actually for

2:44wander most of their houses are not that much more expensive than what you would pay for a premium hotel and maybe they're slightly more expensive than Airbnb but you're not having to deal with cleaning taking out the trash the variability in the experience of not knowing what you're going to get with the Airbnb so the reason I give all that context is when you're thinking about content strategy the first thing to understand is who is the ideal person that would book so you can reverse engineer what type of content do we need to make to get in front of that person to have them take an action now here's

3:13the interesting part from a Content perspective I've interacted with the wander team a little bit but like this is the number one challenge when you're booking a trip especially like a luxury trip the point of exposure with content is not going to match the point of purchase so let's go back to this big sir example for three nights 10 people $7,000 trip even though it's $700 per person for the weekend which is pretty expensive you're not going to trigger on a price at that level just by seeing an Instagram reel so you might see the coolest Instagram reel on this big Ser property you might see an endorsement

3:46from the most credible your favorite influencer you might send that reel to a friend in Instagram DMS but there's a good chance that a lot more planning and coordination is going to have to go in before you book and so the Challenge from a Content perspective is what is the right flow what is the right exposure point and path and what is the right content medium to get people when they're closest to that purchase or to ramp them from high breadth High Reach format down to a format where they would be closer to booking and so to me that's the number one thing you have to figure

4:21out then once you realize what the ideal user booking flow is you work backwards now I'm not a part of the wander team I don't have access to this data so I'm just going purely off of outside looking in I want them to win I'm just going to give my assessment and like the best ideas I have in my opinion the best thing they do today and we're going to go through what they have they have Instagram Tik Tok YouTube they run a bunch of ads on different YouTube channels and podcasts the best thing they do today is their organic email strategy so I sign up for a free account

4:50on wander I automatically get added to their email list and then every time they launch a property they send me one of these emails every time they have discounts on a property they send me one of these emails these are super well-designed and in my opinion when I'm checking my email especially on my computer is the closest time that I would be to be able to take an action to open another tab look for Google flights open another tab start planning a trip so driving people to that email list the free email sign up to me is the best thing they can do if they have millions

5:18of people on that email list they're constantly pushing new properties existing properties Flash Deals if they're doing all that via email they should optimize for bookings and so the question then becomes working backwards what are the best ways to drive signups on that email list to me there's three ways first you try to get people to make a free account either they download The Wander app and make a free account or they make a free account on desktop and the way you would do that is by running some promo or some giveaway that in order to enter you have to make a free account second is some lead magnet that

5:47requires people to sign up maybe it's a packing list for yosity by an expert and it's gated by email right so some lead magnet third is you make dope videos that create some sort of AR artificial scarcity around certain properties and then you have to sign up on an email wait list to get alerted when they come back on this is more like what street wear companies do you go to their website they're never up you have to sign up for the wait list and then they basically do drops around their new releases wander could do the same thing where it's like drops around Flash Deals

6:17or drops around available weekends that are popular etc those are like three ways to drive email signups now I want to get into a little bit of like a quick audit of the different channels they're doing what I think's working and what I think they could do more a double down on and then we'll get into the ideas so let's go to their I think their Instagram is their leading Channel I mean if you look at email so they've got join 310,000 Wanderers so that's basically how many free accounts they have I would assume and how many people are on the email list so that's their

6:44biggest Channel but in terms of content out let's go to the traditional channel so first this is their Instagram they have the at wander handle which is great 127,000 followers if we go to reals and we just look for what the most popular reals are if you scroll over you can start to see likes and comments the engagement is pretty good on these they have some outsized performers like you saw this one up here this top right has 170,000 views there's 400k there's 1.8 million so if you click on these and you watch them what are these most of these that are doing the best are collab posts

7:19that they partnered with a lifestyle couple lifestyle influencer whether it be travel or not they sent them to the property for free or they sent them plus paid they did a lab post with them and then they were able to Leverage The Views and traffic from existing major accounts so like this 1.8 million one if you click through Laney cherko has 2.3 million followers so this was a collab post so the outsized return for Instagram are these collab posts with travel influencers they should be doing a ton more of these now if you think about content there's kind of like two directions there's inside out so that's

7:56content wanders making to go out to the world and there's out outside in there's content that people on the outside in the world are making for wander it's either being crossposted or it's driving traffic in the outside in approach is pretty straightforward here you just identify the people that you'd want to stay in those homes that are aspirational do this collab Post run this over and over I would say this they have the strategy dialed they should just take it to the Limit do it 10x the Inside Out strategy is where I think they have an opportunity to grow and that's where there's a lot of ideas I

8:24want to get to at the end of the video around what they can do so actually wander created content but I just wanted start by checking in this is Instagram I think it's pretty healthy but a lot of the traffic they have a lot of the followers a lot of the views are coming from outside in and so there's a huge opportunity inside out so that's that's Instagram we talked about their email strategy I think they're doing a good job I think they should do like I said Flash Deals they should be doing a lot more around the existing properties and trying to activate interest of these are

8:50use cases for people that went to these properties and had trips and they were successful they do a really good job when they launch new properties every time I see these I send them to my friends so that is working but I think they could be doing more on email the way they're formatting these is great this really stands out compared to most of the emails that you get Tik Tok they don't really have a presence they have 2700 followers I think this is the main account yeah this is the main account at wander great handle only 2,700,000 followers or 2700 followers I think they could be doing a lot more here we'll get

9:17to that Tik Tok specifically because they don't have the collab features that you would see on Instagram the outside in becomes a little bit more difficult right outside people could be going to wers and making content and tagging them doesn't show up on their account so the flow through is weaker Tik Tok you needs to go more inside out so we'll talk about the ideas there as well let's go to YouTube actually really like what they're doing on YouTube I think the channel is smaller than what it deserves they should keep hammering this there's really two things that they do on YouTube if you go to their most popular

9:46videos the first thing are these House tours which if you look at other comps like real estate or architecture you see a lot of these home tour videos that go crazy and I haven't watched all these videos but I think they would benefit by doing these home tours in like a professional aesthetic way instead of a meant to kind of like showcase what it would be like to stay showcase how cool it looks I think that's one content vertical on YouTube that already Works in other markets that should work here the other thing they're doing which I think is really smart is they're taking entrepreneurs so uh Camila in this case

10:21Jordan in this case these are proven entrepreneurs that is one of the slices of the submarkets that they're going after they're putting them in a wander and they're interviewing them in the wander and talking about why wander was good for their Retreat or for their vacation that makes a lot of sense these are doing well these get to draft off of the benefit of the popularity of the entrepreneurs I like this type of thing as well I think what they're doing is good they could improve the packaging here a significant amount I think because they have such beautiful properties more so than almost any other vacation rental vacation home type

10:54company you want to lean all the way in actually I was watching a few of these the video liked the most that I saw was this Malibu one I don't know if this guy works for wander or is an influencer himself but this felt really relaxed immediately I don't know if it's his delivery or the way they scripted it immediately it felt like I was brought in and I was almost like watching a lifestyle Vlog so again I think they have 240 videos on the channel they're making good content you want to stand behind the beauty of the houses which they're doing and then the other thing I

11:23wanted to show is this example so this is py McCormack's not boring newsletter well actually this post is all about wander but he has included wander ads throughout multiple posts like they'll buy newsletter ads this this episode is brought to you by wander so he talks about it they've been running ads on Packy's newsletter they've also been running ads on my first million which is entrepreneur podcast so it's clear that one of their strategies is to say okay the luxury stay Market one sector that we really want to go after are entrepreneurs who have high discretionary income that might travels but also they can do corporate Retreats

11:58so they're getting placements on surfaces where those people stay I like that strategy a lot I will say though like my first million when you listen to the podcast and you hear it no matter how good the ad is how quickly are you going to go from hearing that to booking a trip as we mentioned earlier the connection point or the amount of friction between exposure and booking is very high for a trip versus something else so I'd be curious to see just how well those are doing although if the entrepreneur cohort is showing in the data that that's the right strategy my first million is one of the best podcast

12:29to be on same thing with not boring although to my point being an email I feel like is a little bit more native to booking trips so I'm curious again I'd love to talk to the team and figure out what the data looks like but in my opinion the best bookings probably come from their organic email strategy and I would engineer all of the content to drive people to make free accounts or to sign up for email weight list okay so now we're going to get into the the money section hopefully this reaches them hopefully I'm going to send this to their team hopefully they get this these

12:59are ideas for new content series or new formats new things I would try based on everything I know about wander that they're not doing today that they could be doing or things I've seen from the outside that may work again this is just like an idea brainstorm I love wander I want them to win so I'm just going to put this out there and if this video format Works maybe I'll do this for other brands but the first content series is around General travel curation so if you think about it most people when they're booking a trip they don't book the trip because of the house they

13:31book the trip because it's in a place they want to go there's things or an event in that place they want to do and the house being sick is a bonus if they have extra money they will pick a sick house over a worse one so that they have better accommodations but most people are not going to book a house just because of the house maybe a corporate retreat where the whole thing is based around the events in the house maybe that's where they would actually book because of the house but I wouldn't rely on that I think there's a much bigger Tam of people who are traveling they

14:00just want the best accommodations so that they're comfortable they also want it to be aesthetic cuz they're taking pictures they're going to share those pictures on social media so it's important to realize the travel is not for the house it's for the area or for the events if I'm going to Joshua Tree it's sick that I got a Joshua Tree House from Wander that's the best one on the Block but I'm not going to Joshua Tree to stay in that house that's a bonus I'm going to Joshua Tree because I want to be in Joshua Tree I want to hike in the National Park I want to be in the desert

14:26I want to feel the feelings that you would feel on a trip to Joshua and I would like to pay more to stay in a dope house so that I'm more comfortable so because of that what I think wander should do is create a curated travel account that makes vertical short form video and potentially YouTube from onef faced creator that curates the best travel inspiration in the country so that could mean restaurants events hikes landmarks like where do you go when you're trying to say hey I want to go to a national park and I want to have an elevated experience what should I where should I

14:58start there really isn't a good place all of that is fractured you see a lot of Tik Tock curation of like these are the top five restaurants in San Diego for example but you don't see the premium luxury aesthetic I think there's room for wander to either create or buy an existing Instagram account that has already been built around luxury travel now they don't have to plug the wander properties every single Post in fact actually suggest they didn't but in the bio it can be powered by wander and then wand becomes the curation layer for dope travel and when they have posts around cities where wander has a house which

15:36that list will increase as wander has more houses they can say hey one of the best places to stay is the wander house but instead of trying to push for people to stay just become known for luxury travel and if you have this consistent content account that becomes another asset obviously for the travel space but I think that is an amazing top of funnel and here's where I think there's extra Alpha a lot of the accounts that were Trav based on Instagram we're photob based and Instagram's in an era right now where photos do not grow so there's a good chance that there's accounts that are kind of zombie accounts that have

16:08huge followings with a lot of amazing travel photos but those people are not video native I think you could go in and buy some of those accounts you could place a creator for 6 7 8K a month full-time against those accounts and have that Creator curate luxury travel videos like make Instagram reals of luxury travel I think that would really CR brush so that's idea number one is to create a sub travel content brand for luxury travel Aesthetics whether it's dining experiences accommodations whatever the through line would be for luxury travel become the engine that powers that it will associate wander with that I think that will have a long

16:47tale so I would do that on short form channels on YouTube all right second idea this is probably the idea I'm most excited about the wander list so wander as a name is amazing you think about the Michelin list for restaurants Michelin sells tires they had no business doing this restaurant list they started doing it it needed to be done all of a sudden Michelin is now probably more popular for the Michelin restaurant list than it is for for their tires they did that list because they wanted to promote tires they wanted to identify the best restaurants and then the only way for people to get there was to drive and to

17:17drive they needed tires that's why Michelin did that I think wander could do the exact same thing for the wander list so what would this be they either long form YouTube or blog or both you basically create the go-to list of things to do in every city so you become the guide every experience every unique thing in the city they want the wander stamp if you can find a way to create the wander list again you don't need to push the wander properties they speak for themsel if you can just get people to the site eventually they're going to see how amazing the properties look and

17:52it will work but I think using the quality as a wedge the wandless kind of goes hand inand with my first idea but it's just a different way to package the information trying to curate luxury curate the best travel experiences become known you want the word wander to be in the head of people when they think luxury travel I think that's a super smart way to do it and the reason why you want to build these content streams is because you eventually would probably have to pay to advertise on those streams it's like if you're if you're an artist would you rather own Spotify or have to pay every time you want to get

18:23on a Spotify playlist you of course would rather own Spotify I think Wander can own like the infatuation but for wander for travel I think that would work super well and again to get tactical the reason you run this Playbook is because you can do a bunch of things that drive email signups so you could say hey we're dropping the top 10 list for La these are the best restaurants or the best experiences in La if you only have 5 days we're dropping it it's gated sign up with your email boom all of a sudden you got 10,000 emails and then that list comes out you have the email capture at the

18:56bottom it starts to drive controversy people that didn't get on the list want to be on the list that spreads more people sign up it creates this nice flywheel to drive the emails this is all assuming that the emails are the best way to convert people to book Because as we mentioned before that's the closest content format to booking all right the third idea is to hire two to three travel vloggers and send them to the wander houses to create short form specific content inside out so this gets back to my point before you have a lot of amazing content coming out outside in and that's leveraging the brand of these

19:31people but if you really think about it most of the following of these influencers follows them because they like the influencer so when the influencer goes to a wander house amazing it's great showcase for wander and you're going to have some stick but for the most part those people are just going to keep it moving right that's like another episode in the influencer TV channel what you really want is to complement this with Inside Out vertical short form that's personality driven so it's really important that you hire a in-house creator that understands travel that has the vibe you're looking for wander did a great job of doing this for

20:05their house tours there's a couple of really really talented kind of like walkthrough people I don't know if they work for wander they're contractors they go to a new house they do the walkthrough videos those are on the website I think that's an amazing way to demonstrate what the house could be in a horizontal format I think you need some of this done native vertical and the best way to do vertical is high quantity tied to one personality that's super charismatic and so I would find a way to bring in a couple of these creators and I would I would give them little side missions or side plots or I would have

20:36them go host little events that were all in wanders and I mean it's the dream job right for paying 6 7 8K a month that Creator is going to fly all over to the vacant wanders that aren't booked and they're going to film content specifically in those wanders I'd probably build one or two Satellite accounts like wander with Stephanie or wander with James and these are people that wander owns the accounts they pay them they're on payroll but they create these narrative driven character-based accounts that's kind of like a baseline idea they should do that regardless but to me that's a no-brainer another idea and this one I would need to think about

21:10a little bit more but it's to try to recreate this Creator house Vibe maybe with entrepreneurs but specifically inside of wanders so right now one of the use cases for wanders are these corporate Retreats and this is basically like a company rents out the full wander goes for a few days it's leadership team it's the whole company if it's a startup and a lot of that is behind closed doors right that's meant to be private how does wander take something like that invert it and then create content out of it can you handpick 6 to 10 entrepreneurs around a certain sector send them all to the same wander for a

21:413-day Retreat facilitated by someone wander hires or maybe facilitated by another neutral entrepreneur that wander puts in and then puts a film crew in there or puts one or two videographers and films the whole thing is it possible to recreate this Creator house reality TV show kind of vibe around entrepreneurs in a house I would take your most aesthetic houses and I would try to almost build a little bit of a reality TV show for entrepreneurs but have wander be the host I think that's there's something really interesting there obviously entrepreneurs don't want it to be drama filed but potentially you could build a business in 36 hours or do

22:17a hackathon in Wander or some sort of centralized event in the wander house and you bring these characters in and then you film it like a bar stoles reality type show I think there's something really really interesting there and I wouldn't do that all the time maybe you do four of those a year or two of those a year but that's like an extra kind of series that really all it takes all you're doing with content is you're layering Tinder you're layering Tinder on to make a big bonfire and you just need one spark once you have all that Tinder gathered you just need one spark it's possible that

22:49everything I've already mentioned and everything wander is already doing is the Tinder and then this show this reality show powered by wander is the spark it is the show Showcase with the Drone footage at the beginning of the episodes showing off the wander houses if you follow the same logic of culture if culture predicts future Behavior why wouldn't there eventually be B2B reality TV shows where instead of Love Island it's this team is building a business in 36 hours and the whole thing is filmed that actually might be a bigger idea than just for wander but I think there's something there Wander can be the foundational host layer for it and all

23:24four of those ideas were kind of like broad reach it wasn't specifically for entrepreneur maybe that last one was but the other three Were Meant to get people who are affluent but not tied to a specific domain I think there's a bunch of other ideas you could do just to try to recruit more entrepreneurs for example if you had podcasters you could send the podcasters to a wanderous have them film an episode but then have the ad placement be wander and like vertically integrate that whole experience I think there's so many little things you could do with the entrepreneur segment specifically there already doing a lot of the great stuff

23:53on YouTube as I mentioned but those are some ideas for Content series and that was just me coming off the dome for 30 to 60 minutes I think sitting and embedding with the wander team really aligning on like who that ideal Booker is based on the data and then coming up with content series to get that ideal viewer so that it can reverse engineer of booking I think that's exactly how I would approach it I'll wrap the video here but in general for something like wander something like travel you want to get to emails you want to get to free signups which they're already trying to

24:21do and using vertical content Andor YouTube content video to drive Intrigue to drive scarcity so people sign up I think that's the best approach so hopefully you guys enjoyed that first time I've ever made this kind of like content strategy series let me know if you want me to make more if so comment what brands you want me to cover next and I will definitely do that see you guys on the next one peace