Case Study

The Wild Source

Meet Bill Given – Founder of The Wild Source, LLC

Bill Given is the owner of The Wild Source, LLC out of Golden Colorado (TheWildSource.com). Bill is a wildlife biologist who for years worked along the front range of Colorado performing research and studies for governmental and corporate clients. Although Bill owned his own highly successful business, he wanted to follow his passion – which was planning and leading safari trips to Africa.

Problem:

While Bill was well versed with running his own company, he wasn’t familiar with what would be required for attracting a whole new set of clients. Bill figured that clients from Colorado would be the best clients for his business since he could provide his stellar safari presentations to them face to face. He figured that he would have the best chance of turning Colorado prospects into clients. But he also was interested in booking clients from the rest of North America and around the world.

Economic Crisis

On top of all of this, the chips really seemed to be stacked against Bill. He started his business in August 2008 in the middle of one of the most serious worldwide economic downturns in decades. Trying to get clients who could afford a trip to Africa would be a challenge. He needed help finding clients for his new business during adverse economic times.

Solution:

I was able to try a multi-tiered approach to bring clients to Bill’s business. As described in the “Results” section, Bill now has so many client requests that he is suffering from major sleep deprivation.

Website

We took a look at the safari websites that were out there and decided that many of them didn’t focus very much on wildlife. Bill’s approach was different, and we wanted to service a niche of safari enthusiasts who were concerned more about the wildlife than other considerations (like having a luxury experience). To that end, we crafted a very educational and informative website that focuses on the animals – this meets the need of Bill’s target clients.

Newsletter

For Bill, an online marketing newsletter called "The Roar" was established. The newsletter offers Bill an opportunity to communicate directly with his clients each month. The newsletter is not a sales pitch, rather it is another opportunity to provide value and information to his clients. He provides information about Africa safari camps, wildlife sightings, photo links, video links, and more. While other techniques like "search engine optimization" and "pay-per-click advertising" are the buzzwords in online marketing, without a doubt the most important online tool for Bill’s business is the monthly newsletter. It should be the workhorse of many companies who wish to have an online presence.

A Blog

Bill says that this is currently his most frequent source of new clients. Clients go to a search engine, search for something safari related and end up on his blog. Google Analytics backs up Bill’s assertion that the blog is by far the most frequently visited portion of the website, and generates a disproportionate amount of safari planning requests.

Online Advertising (Pay-Per-Click)

We established advertising campaigns on the major search engines. This allowed us to capture search engine users who were typing in the exact phrase of a safari related service that The Wild Source offers. The result has been numerous bookings through these advertising efforts.

Search Engine Optimization

Bill’s company currently ranks very well for many key phrases related to his safari offerings. The primary source of traffic to his website is through Google searches on certain keywords that send people to his blog. As part of setting up the website, I ensured that the website was properly set up to be optimized for search engines. There is no trickery (or black hat techniques) involved with doing search engine optimization properly. We figured out early on who Bill’s target audience was and continuously put content on the website to meet this target audience’s demand. The results take a while to achieve, but they are there.

Results:

As I write this in June of 2009, Bill is currently suffering from sleep deprivation from all of the safari planning requests that he receives from the website. He has met his monthly break-even point months ahead of schedule.

The pace of client requests should actually increase – despite the adverse economic climate – keeping Bill from getting a good night’s sleep for quite some time to come. Hopefully in the next few months, Bill will be able to hire additional help to assist him with the current state of affairs.