Kintell is an on-demand marketplace that allows anyone to book a one-to-one video session with one of Kintell's thousands of vetted advisors for help with anything from learning a new language to changing career.
Background
Kintell is an on-demand marketplace and platform that allows anyone to book in a one-to-one video session with one of Kintell's thousands of vetted advisors for help with anything from learning a new language to changing career. In addition, it offers an enterprise version of the platform that is white-labelled for large institutions and clients, such as The University of New South Wales.
Founded in 2018, Kintell was poised to enter a phase of rapid growth when I came in as Head of Marketing in May 2020.
My duties included: recruiting and managing a high-performing team, crafting strategies for the marketing team (digital, advertising, communications, and creative), managing monthly & annual budgets, and setting/monitoring/reporting on key marketing objectives and results. In my first year at Kintell, I increased conversions by 103.7% and website traffic by 192.8% year-over-year (YOY)
Content Marketing
Because Kintell is a peer-to-peer marketplace, we had a unique opportunity to leverage our advisors to create a compelling and comprehensive content marketing strategy.
Using a video-first strategy, we interviewed a wide range of Kintell advisors and leveraged that parent content piece to create blogs with video, a Netflix-style video library with binge-able content, as well as video to boost the credibility of advisors product cards and social-sharable micro-content.
This strategy has been wildly successful as it gives prospective customers a taste of their product: the advisors. So rather than telling customers how great Kintell's advisors are, they experience it first-hand.
AppSumo featured this approach in an article called "How To Nail Video Email Marketing (With Real Examples)" that put Kintell's video-first strategy in the spotlight.
Social Media
The content marketing strategy didn't start and end on Kintell's website. We took the "Gary Vee" approach to repurposing content contextually across a variety of platforms and to serve multiple audiences.
On Instagram, we developed an IGTV series called "In Conversation" as well as creating IG Reels to maximize views of our content to match the evolving algorithmic preferences and user preferences. Additionally, we leveraged images from those interviews, along with quotable content to create a well-curated Instagram profile that builds credibility in Kintell's advisors and their brand.
The content marketing strategy didn't start and end on Kintell's website. We took the "Gary Vee" approach to repurposing content contextually across a variety of platforms and to serve multiple audiences.
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On YouTube, we leverage the world's second most powerful search engine (which also influences the first most powerful engine: Google) by creating key playlists with valuable content. One playlist includes all of the edited, long-form interviews with advisors. Another includes user testimonials. Both of which have been tremendously valuable for Kintell's rapid organic growth.
On LinkedIn, we primarily shared micro-content from our In Conversation With Series. I'm proud to say that the LinkedIn results have been better than any business I've previously worked on. Traffic from LinkedIn visitors has an incredible time-on-site of 9 to 20 minutes with a very low bounce rate and a high number of page visits.
Ads
Video has been a tremendously powerful medium for Kintell.
We brought in a documentary filmmaker to film a case study, which we used to build a series of approximately 30 second long YouTube pre-roll ads (which play before a video and can be skipped after 5 seconds). With a small budget, we were able to achieve an astounding 71,000 views with a 98% completion rate in under 6 weeks.
Along with using the most popular online advertising platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, we wanted to leverage more under-utilised platforms.
Because of the niche nature of our advisors, Reddit was the perfect place to run topical ads for a great return on ad spend. In this case, our team used a creative stop-motion video approach to grab attention and stand out from the competition.
Search Engine Optimisation
When I joined Kintell in May 2020, our search engine traffic was abysmal.
We deployed two key link-building strategies to build high-quality referral links. We drove brand awareness and clout in our industry, and build our reputation generally.
The first strategy was to lend our company's expertise to journalistic stories, which we did using a platform called HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to act as a source for reporters, leading to many stories appearing around the globe with quotes or input from myself, or other members of the Kintell leadership team.
Secondly, we leveraged the knowledge and personal story of Kintell co-founder Jane Qiu to get thought leadership pieces published in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and more. As a female founder in tech and an immigrant to Australia, Jane's perspective is especially relevant in our industry.
As an added bonus, much of the content from both strategies was syndicated on multiple sites, giving those articles a second wave of influence in growing our search results massively in just one year.
High-Converting Landing Pages
With all the new, high-quality traffic we were driving to Kintell from organic social media, online advertising, earned media, and search, it was a priority for us to maximize the value of that traffic.
The team used A/B testing to develop and iteratively improve a portfolio of high-converting landing pages.
We prioritized key verticals where no one owned the space in the Australian market, and we could offer a valuable service. One of those verticals that we created a high-performing landing page for was in the mental health space, another was in the career development and change space.
In both of these cases, we cultivated top Kintell advisors that covered a variety of specialities within the vertical, all of whom had video interviews ready. This gave customers the confidence that they'd found a source that could truly serve them in Kintell, as well as helping them feel a connection with our advisors so they have confidence moving forward with a booking.
Once we launched our landing pages, we began A/B testing a variety of factors over time to optimize their performance.
Not only did we change page headlines and visuals to improve performance, we also changed out the featured Kintell advisors over time. Because customers are choosing a person to consult with, we had to be sure to present a balanced blend of genders and ethnicities.
Mark is a marketing wiki alive! He is a great listener and can help you with very clear answers. He is also creative and can come up with marketing ideas that would impress you. So you’ll learn a lot from him, whether you’re looking for quick advice on what are the do’s and don’ts of marketing in ANZ/APAC (or globally) or what should be the strategy or tactics for your Linkedin/Facebook campaigns.
