STARTUP STAGE: Wildebeest helps global travel and tourism brands grow organically

Jared Alster, co-founder and chief strategy officer, Wildebeest

Wildebeest is an agency that helps travel technology startups, tour operators and tourism boards develop marketing strategies.

The two-person startup specializes in digital marketing strategy, content marketing, brand strategy, SEO and public relations.

What is your 30-second pitch to investors? 

We aren’t currently raising capital, but our pitch goes a little something like this: Wildebeest is a strategic marketing agency with a focus on growing global travel and tourism brands; specifically travel tech/startups, destinations and tour operators. 

Using a data-informed approach, we dig into consumer intent and the competitive landscape to gain actionable insights that inform digital and brand strategies. We then leverage organic channels such as content marketing, SEO and digital public relations to communicate our client’s message to the right audience in the right channel. 

We have a relentless focus on driving commercially minded results that go beyond vanity metrics and instead, boost the bottom line.  

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

Strengths: Highly experienced team with previous success as travel tech entrepreneurs and operators, both agency and client-side experience, a vast network of freelance talent (best team for every project), well-defined and proven methodology, access to industry-leading tools and measurement platforms, a track record of working with leading travel companies.

Weaknesses: Low current awareness among target clientele, as we just recently launched.

Opportunities: There’s a massive long tail of travel technology companies, tour operators and destinations that desire a marketing partner that truly understands their business; very few agencies exist that are both affordable to small- and medium-size businesses and that also possess knowledge of travel technology, distribution and the travel marketing landscape.

Threats: A few other competitive agencies; a downturn in the global economy that affects the travel industry overall.

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

1. In spite of lackluster overall results, travel marketers continue to spend at rapid rates on Google and Facebook. The average conversion rates for travel ads on Facebook is less than 3%; CTR is .90%. It’s hard to compete on Google Ads unless you can sustain a considerable spend to outbid competition or have a truly unique product offering with little competition, yet sizable search volume.
2. Many companies in the travel sector start advertising on Facebook and Google without first having an organic brand marketing strategy. This is akin to putting a roof on a house before laying the foundation.
3. Marketing vendors who truly know the travel industry are hard to come by. Those that do exist are behemoths and are very expensive due to high overhead costs and bloated staffing.
4. While the concept of SEO and quality content marketing are not new in travel, many brands don’t have a sound strategy in place and find it challenging to "go beyond the blog post."
5. Many travel tech companies, especially seed and A-stage, don’t focus enough on brand strategy and nailing their messaging.
   
   

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

Given our combined 30 years in travel, we are fortunate to have many connections at some of the most well-known companies in the industry. 

We will first rely on organic outreach and recommendations to obtain clients, but also have a strong inbound marketing strategy leveraging SEO and content marketing. So effectively, drinking our own Kool-Aid! 

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

We’ve surveyed executives in the industry to uncover where the opportunity lies when it comes to our service and sector focus.

Additionally, we’ve conducted considerable competitive research to ensure we can position Wildebeest with clear space around our value proposition.

The total addressable market is tough to estimate, as most figures include channels such as Google Ads, which Wildebeest is not focusing on. 

However, according to eMarketer, total digital ad spend across the travel industry overall is expected to increase to $12.97 billion in 2020, from $10.86 billion in 2019.

How and when will you make money?

We’re a service-based business and our revenue will come from both project and retainer-based work.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?

Jared Alster, co-founder and chief strategy officer, is a travel marketing executive that started his career with renowned advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather. His travel resume includes positions as head of U.S. marketing at Intrepid Travel, co-founder/vice president of marketing of venture-backed startup StrideTravel and vice president of marketing at luxury pioneer Cox & Kings.
 
Tom Buckley, co-founder and chief commercial officer, brings executive experience in digital marketing, publishing and technology, with roles at Whatsonwhen.com, Frommer’s, Random House and travel software firm AO. Tom headed up global business development at Melt Content, an agency serving clients such as Expedia, The New York Times and Royal Caribbean.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

Like any startup just beginning their journey, it’s a constant challenge to divide and conquer the many tasks that must get done on a daily/weekly basis. We also found it somewhat difficult to select our sector focus within the industry since we also have expertise across multiple areas. 

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of the lucky ones?

We would argue that we’re a startup only by design. We don’t need to spend time and money building and proving a minimum viable product. 

Our "product" in this case is our prior expertise, success building brands/companies and the intellectual property that comes with that. 

Yes, we need to establish product/market/fit and feel out the market as it relates to our service offering and pricing.

However, we feel that we’re satisfying a substantial niche and capitalizing on macro trends in the digital marketing/media world - with a move away from the massive tech platforms and towards more brand marketing and personalized communications.

A year from now, what state do you think your startup will be in?

Thriving. 

What is your end-game? (Going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.)

Getting rich is not our core focus right now. Of course, we want to do well and make money along the way, but Wildebeest is a business many years in the making, at least conceptually. 

It’s the culmination of our careers thus far and we’re very excited and bullish about the opportunity here. 

At some point, we could see ourselves being acquired by another agency or consulting firm, but for the near future, we’re focused on sustainable growth.