Startup acceleration is a cohort-based program consisting of mentorship, educational, and financial components, which are mostly applicable for early-stage, growth-driven companies. The most valuable activity provided by startup accelerators is marketing support, which frequently includes core elements of digital marketing: web development, demand generation, and lead nurturing.
In the third quarter of 2019, I joined the digital marketing team of Key Group Investment Fund. It was founded in 2009 to look for gifted entrepreneurs and implement their ambitious intentions to create successful businesses. Nowadays, Key Group provides the full range of Internet marketing services as a means of promotion of products and services, including SEO, SMM, search advertising placing and maintenance, market analysis, market spending optimization, and online brand reputation management. My top priority was getting the best outcomes for their clients while spending as little as possible.
One of the most recognizable and well-known projects of Key Group is GetTransfer.com – a global P2P transfer bookings and chauffeured car rentals online service, which has over 2 million customers who order transfers through their website at the best prices.
By developing and implementing the best-in-class demand generation strategy based on a combination of paid search, display, and paid social, I was able to deliver over 150,000 transfer requests with an average cost per action of less than $8. At the same time, such an approach had boosted ROI from -60% to +225% in an 8 month period. It is a must to mention that the whole transportation and tourism industry was negatively affected in 2020 - and in some cases nearly destroyed - by the world-wide coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to the main marketing activity of GetTrasfer.com, which was focused on retail clients, I have developed the global digital marketing strategy to promote GetTransfer.com for Business - the ultimate enterprise ground and air transportation solution. As part of that strategy, Andrey Palagin has carried out several market research studies, created marketing personas, identified all the members of the buying center, and detailed the digital marketing mix based on effective b2b marketing communication.
GetBoat.com is another famous project supported by Key Group, designed for yachting and sailing enthusiasts. This peer to peer platform allows chartering or purchasing of luxury boats and yachts around the world on the finest terms. To increase the quality of leads generated by paid traffic, I determined the most valuable markets, set ideal customer profiles, and incorporated several well-targeted SEM and paid social tactics. As an outcome, the average conversion rate increased to 12%, GetBoat.com has started receiving over 1,000 yacht rental and purchase requests per month, which are usually transformed by its sales team into 25-50 deals.
GetRentacar.com is a US-based peer to peer car rental service, which nearly crashed in February 2020 and revived in May. To boost the digital marketing performance of its website, I have allocated all available resources to a few selected markets with developed domestic tourism. The car booking algorithm has been remodeled completely. Since the website was not capable of generating the required quantity of bookings, the additional lead generation via social media tactic was used. In the long run, by September 2020 GetRentacar.com has started generating over a hundred car bookings a month with CPA < $15.
A less popular, highly specialized project managed by Key Group is GetCar.ru - a Russian market-oriented service that helps taxi drivers lease cars to do their job. By taking into account the marketing budget limitations of GetCar.ru, its customer profile, and actual severe economic consequences, I executed an intent-based marketing approach based on Search Engine Marketing and re-targeting, which has helped to overachieve the quantitative and qualitative goals of the aforementioned client.
To summarize, as a part of an innovative startup accelerator team, while being responsible for demand generation management, I demonstrated magnificent results that boosted the digital marketing performance of each account and secured the ROI at a positive level during the crisis of the tourism industry.
