How to Grow a Travel Audience In 2024

1 - > Ben Aston: Welcome to the Indie Media Club podcast. 2 - > I'm Ben Aston, Founder of the Indie Media Club. 3 - > We're on a mission to help independent, bootstrapped 4 - > media entrepreneurs succeed, to help people who create, 5 - > promote, and monetize through content - do it better. 6 - > Check out indiemedia.

club to find out more. 7 - > So today I'm joined by Kyle Kroeger and he's an 8 - > analyst turned media CEO. 9 - > He's the Founder and CEO of Black Bear Media. 10 - > They're a boutique online publisher that own and 11 - > operate websites in travel, sustainability, 12 - > and personal finance.

13 - > And what started as a small families travel 14 - > story and blog compounded into 12 plus perspectives 15 - > on ViaTravelers.com. 16 - > And now in 2023, they rank for over half a million keywords, 17 - > have more than 15 million visits generating in excess 18 - > of half a million in revenue. 19 - > So how do you do that?

20 - > Well, keep listening to today's podcast to learn how to grow 21 - > a travel audience in 2024. 22 - > We're talking about next year. 23 - > Yes. 24 - > Hello, Kyle!

Thanks for joining us today. 25 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah. 26 - > Thanks for having me on Ben. 27 - > Hopefully I have the crystal ball, but might be 28 - > a experiment, but we'll see.

29 - > Ben Aston: Yeah. 30 - > So quickly take us back to the beginning. 31 - > Tell us, how did you get into this thing? 32 - > How do you go from an analyst to media CEO?

33 - > How does that happen? 34 - > Kyle Kroeger: I spent a lot of time in the offices 35 - > working in finance, right? 36 - > And love the collegial nature of all of that. 37 - > And, but I also knew that I wanted, I grew up in an 38 - > entrepreneural family, both my parents were entrepreneurs.

39 - > I always knew that like I wanted to build something. 40 - > And I also had this kind of spirit of being a digital nomad, 41 - > digital slow mad, I guess we are kind of are right now, but that 42 - > was a big part of just becoming yet free and independent of 43 - > owning your own lifestyle. 44 - > And so what became a digital camera when I was traveling 45 - > eventually became like a GoPro and a video and drone. 46 - > And I just really unlocked like this new passion 47 - > that I was willing to just embrace full force.

48 - > And I just followed that journey and I was enjoying it so much 49 - > that just made too much sense to, yeah, just not keep going. 50 - > So, followed that path. 51 - > Ben Aston: So quit the day job and decided to 52 - > travel or at least write about travel full time. 53 - > Were you, in the moment that you made that decision, were 54 - > you generating revenue or were you pre-revenue generation?

55 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, I had sort of self taught myself SEO. 56 - > Great. 57 - > Like a lot of other people have done, but maybe not self taught, 58 - > but I just started loving it. 59 - > The maybe like the numbers based in a way, I love that 60 - > numbers based approach and I really turned like dabbled 61 - > with niche sites and stuff and scale them up, sold them.

62 - > And so I had that like model of scaling them up a bit and 63 - > so I replicated that and, but I wanted to foster something 64 - > that was very long term and I knew that travel was something 65 - > that's like for me, it's not going away like anytime soon. 66 - > And so that was something that I could follow a long term 67 - > path and long story short, yeah, I had basically a journal 68 - > and log from all my vacations that, and I just took note of 69 - > basically everything that I did and visited and started 70 - > writing about it and trying to build like a base and then 71 - > felt right to transition.

72 - > Ben Aston: So yeah, tell us a bit about what 73 - > ViaTravelers is all about. 74 - > How would you describe it? 75 - > Kyle Kroeger: I describe it as first it started 76 - > with me, as my personal experiences and, everything. 77 - > And I think that doesn't do a fair justice for everyone that's 78 - > a reader because my lens is so much different for travel.

79 - > I can't continue to just pitch on one angle of travel. 80 - > I believe like travel is one of the only things that 81 - > can stimulate all senses. 82 - > And the underlying goal that we have is immersive travel, 83 - > which is basically meaning like, how can we play into all 84 - > of that, right, in those senses - audio, visual, far from it. 85 - > But yeah, so that was something that is was big 86 - > and so like ViaTravelers I describe it as different 87 - > perspectives of different people from around the world.

88 - > So we have writers and time zones all over and want to 89 - > share all of different cultural perspectives around the world. 90 - > Ben Aston: Awesome. 91 - > And in terms of you we're talking today about building 92 - > and growing an audience and for you, as you were thinking 93 - > about that, I guess, persona of someone who's interested 94 - > then in authentic travel experiences, I guess, to what 95 - > extent did that drive your, the kind of overall strategy 96 - > of ViaTravelers in terms of, was it your hypothesis, for 97 - > example, that people who want these immersive, one kind of 98 - > immersive travel experiences, authentic travel experiences 99 - > have a higher propensity to pay, therefore they're a great 100 - > target audience to go for?

101 - > Or was it more that it just reflected your 102 - > own personal interests? 103 - > Kyle Kroeger: It started with personal interests and 104 - > like my perspective and then trying to branch it out. 105 - > And I, I thought like, and we're going to have a persona 106 - > to be honest, I'm really bad at building like personas and 107 - > that's like my big weakness and branding and stuff like that. 108 - > I wanted to build like a base of stuff from personal experience.

109 - > And so that was like three years ago and the whole 110 - > E-E-A-T thing, like the E part was like the start of it. 111 - > And so, yeah, that was part of like the log. 112 - > But now that we had a, have a base and some data to go off 113 - > of, we're really starting to understand what do people want? 114 - > And I can speak to a millennial audience of maximizing your 115 - > experience without spending tons of money or going on 116 - > just one vacation every year.

117 - > Like, let's do multiple and let's go far. 118 - > And so, yeah, I love that kind of mantra and we want to play 119 - > into that as much as possible. 120 - > And we built a team of writers that kind of say, 121 - > follow that same mantra. 122 - > Ben Aston: Cool.

123 - > And in terms of building them, that audience of people who 124 - > value going far with a little and how did you cultivate and 125 - > grow that audience up to now? 126 - > And how do you think you're going to change the way that 127 - > you do that moving forwards? 128 - > Kyle Kroeger: We did it in the past by basic, yeah, I mean, 129 - > a traditional SEO strategy of finding different things 130 - > in topics that we like truly need to know personally. 131 - > Also big on evergreen travel topics, like travel 132 - > hacking ways to maximize your dollar to, to see more.

133 - > And so really built that foundation and we want 134 - > to dive deeper into that. 135 - > But going forward, I think audience building really 136 - > is about, like our goal for the next year is, I 137 - > don't care about what any other algorithm is doing. 138 - > I need to talk to my people and I need to talk to them directly. 139 - > It doesn't even matter if it's one person or if it's 140 - > some person in person offline marketing, I need to figure 141 - > out how we can make travel easier for people and help 142 - > people travel smarter.

143 - > So that's our big thing we're trying to solve. 144 - > Ben Aston: So, SEO formed a bit of a foundation of 145 - > building an audience for you to generate web traffic. 146 - > How intentional have you been in growing and building 147 - > your audience across other channels and platforms like 148 - > YouTube and Insta as well? 149 - > Kyle Kroeger: To be honest, that's another pain point, 150 - > and I knew it all along.

151 - > Kind of a failure in a way, it was like, focusing 152 - > on writing for one entity and I won't big G, right. 153 - > And spending so much time, it's almost like spending a 154 - > bunch of time on Instagram and going all in on that 155 - > and like only doing that. 156 - > We spend a lot of time like, okay, this is what 157 - > is working and if it's not broken, don't fix it. 158 - > And so, but we're a little bit naive of not spending 159 - > enough time of being like, showcasing in other ways.

160 - > I would say our second biggest channel is newsletter. 161 - > A lot of, I interact personally with the emails, 162 - > very personal touch. 163 - > I mean, we provide a lot of value, but one thing I wanted 164 - > to need to do is leverage some of those other channels more. 165 - > We've taken so many photos, so many videos, huge media bank.

166 - > It's time to tap into that and showcase what 167 - > we've actually done. 168 - > Ben Aston: Yeah, and so you're driving traffic, 169 - > you're building your audience, your owned audience 170 - > through your email list. 171 - > And as you grew that email list, what was the reason 172 - > you gave people to subscribe? 173 - > What was the promise you were offering people?

174 - > Was it a lead magnet or was it just, Hey, stay up to date. 175 - > What was the driver that helped build the audience there? 176 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, being that we started with 177 - > experience first, right? 178 - > Like we didn't have a defined cluster too much of being, cause 179 - > like based on where I went, it was like, it could be California 180 - > and then it could be London.

181 - > Right? 182 - > So those are very two big clusters and so it's spread out. 183 - > And so that's a challenge with travel is that, you need a lead 184 - > magnet for so many different prongs to fit that intent. 185 - > We do have a few bifurcated intent oriented lead magnets 186 - > by location, like packing lists, travel guides.

187 - > On the travel hacking side we have different like 188 - > calculators and tools people can use as well as like a 189 - > general travel newsletter. 190 - > So try to bifurcate it out. 191 - > But as you bifurcate it out, that ends up compounding the 192 - > amount of kind of work it is to manage the newsletter, right? 193 - > Ben Aston: Yeah.

194 - > I'm curious as well, I mean, you just identified it. 195 - > The traveler who might be interested in North American 196 - > travel or South American travel might be a different 197 - > audience for European or African, Asian travel. 198 - > So as you built your audience across different geographies, 199 - > yeah, how did you manage that challenge of, Hey, 200 - > well, this is about global travel, but we've got people. 201 - > Our audiences probably has a propensity to travel 202 - > to different places, but maybe not across the entire 203 - > world because of the budget limitations or time limitations 204 - > that they might have.

205 - > So how intentional have you been at trying to build these 206 - > clusters around certain areas or just kind of more shotgun? 207 - > Kyle Kroeger: Initially it was shotgun. 208 - > Now it's been a lot more precise, right? 209 - > A lot of imagery and content around Amsterdam and the 210 - > Netherlands resonates with me and like I own that cluster.

211 - > And I'm trying to solve for different things that I can 212 - > offer that I know people like it's my backyard. 213 - > So I should know what people need to know. 214 - > And so really building into that and then owning that. 215 - > And even just one of those, in my opinion, and 216 - > what we've seen so far.

217 - > If you do one of those right, get that foundation 218 - > down and then now move to the other spots. 219 - > So it's very replicable. 220 - > In a way, it's what you need to find to fill the problem. 221 - > But once you really own that little mold, you can replicate 222 - > it in a different place.

223 - > Ben Aston: Yeah. 224 - > And in terms of, in terms of your email list that 225 - > you have now, do you mind sharing how big is your list 226 - > that's driving all of that? 227 - > You know, 15 million visits is a ton. 228 - > How much of that comes from email versus SEO?

229 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, it's still only around 10%. 230 - > I mean, we've doubled our email list this year. 231 - > So we've spent a lot of time doing that, focused on 232 - > harvesting an audience and asking them what they want. 233 - > And that's been a real more recent sort of thing that 234 - > we've been really focusing on is, like what do you need?

235 - > And then we will do whatever it takes to solve that, 236 - > written form, whatever that is. 237 - > And so, yeah, it's still a small part, but bit by bit, it's 238 - > not going to happen overnight. 239 - > Just like SEO, as long as we can really focus in on it, I 240 - > think the long game is what's going to matter the most. 241 - > Ben Aston: Yeah.

242 - > And in terms of that long game, as you're assessing 243 - > the health of your media business, what are the metrics 244 - > that are important to you? 245 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, metrics. 246 - > I think like time to produce content, but 247 - > maintaining quality. 248 - > Right?

249 - > So I think one thing that I would be curious if to 250 - > know if other publishers think about this way. 251 - > But I have content that's just like in the, this like purgatory 252 - > middle and it's just sitting, like that's dollars that's 253 - > being just opportunity costs. 254 - > And so we need to have a nice efficient flow. 255 - > If we know it needs edits and we know we need to 256 - > prove it in some way, like it needs that direction.

257 - > So time to produce content, repurposing content. 258 - > I think like keep your eyes on like revenue per 1000 visits. 259 - > So fully stack all of the different revenue 260 - > streams per page. 261 - > And then, and even on that, on top of that, put a dollar on 262 - > your opt ins for that page too.

263 - > And so do a full stack based on per thousand. 264 - > So those are some core that I look at. 265 - > And then obviously like bounce rate and time on page and really 266 - > focusing on the page experience. 267 - > Ben Aston: I mean, let's talk about monetization.

268 - > You talked about stacking monetization channels. 269 - > So yeah, how do you stack monetization on your side? 270 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, it's display ads. 271 - > We have a lot of informative content as well.

272 - > So destination, like inspiration that we know 273 - > that trying to monetize would be, or like with affiliates 274 - > would be kind of forcing it. 275 - > So we do have higher skew to display, call it 66%, 276 - > so two thirds, one third. 277 - > With two thirds being display, one third being affiliate. 278 - > We've done some sponsored stuff.

279 - > We could do more for sure. 280 - > I think that's a, we haven't done enough of direct 281 - > like direct placement and things like that. 282 - > So, but that's a small percentage, like 5% maybe 283 - > that would squeeze into that two thirds, one third. 284 - > And so that's how we stack it now.

285 - > For the future, I would say might look different. 286 - > That's part of the goal. 287 - > So owning our products, owning our revenue stream 288 - > is a huge goal of ours. 289 - > Ben Aston: And so what, yeah, tell me about 290 - > owning your product.

291 - > What does that mean to you? 292 - > Is that a membership product or what's that look like? 293 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, I like, I call it value added content in 294 - > a way where we can leverage our existing content or external 295 - > data sources, combine it with our existing content to provide 296 - > like a tool or a solution, like software light, like not a SaaS, 297 - > but something that's like a tool or a tool kit that offers 298 - > like a package of things or a resource base, knowledge base, 299 - > whatever you want to call it.

300 - > So yeah, it's some form of membership community base. 301 - > I also would love, we took 50,000 photos of 302 - > the last three years. 303 - > I keep saying, I think there's gotta be like 12 304 - > in there that could make a coffee table book people 305 - > would want to like look at. 306 - > So I don't know.

307 - > So I keep wrestling with some of that. 308 - > And I think we know travel enough to find 309 - > something that's a tangible product that would help. 310 - > Ben Aston: Yeah. 311 - > And so as you're thinking about, obviously, so you're primarily 312 - > monetizing through display, secondarily through affiliate.

313 - > So in order to drive your monetization, obviously 314 - > eyeballs are really important and secondarily, 315 - > the funnel for product. 316 - > And so as you're thinking about building an audience 317 - > and creating or generating loyalists and lovers of the 318 - > brand, how do you decide, yeah, what that content in 319 - > terms of the content strategy, what content to create? 320 - > Like in terms of building out the content to support the 321 - > affiliate funnel or creating another page that's a little 322 - > bit more long tail on a keyword, because you know that that 323 - > could generate more page views.

324 - > How do you balance the two monetization streams 325 - > that you have and how that impacts the content strategy? 326 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, I think right now we've been, we 327 - > put that somewhat lower and feel a higher priority 328 - > to filling content gaps. 329 - > If we know that like, oh, look, we haven't even had an 330 - > accommodation guide for this city, but we've covered almost 331 - > every single other angle. 332 - > It's like, we got to just bite the bullet because we 333 - > know this is going to be helpful and we know this is 334 - > going to be good content that plays into all of the other 335 - > stuff that we've produced.

336 - > So some of that's and then we balance the prioritization 337 - > of being like, okay, well, where's content gaps let's 338 - > stack, like let's place, let's get the stuff in order and 339 - > in process that does have a little bit more of a conversion 340 - > angle, we'd probably say. 341 - > But start there in terms of, but with our audience, like we, 342 - > in terms of what they need, we haven't been doing this enough 343 - > and we just started doing it. 344 - > It's just ask them.

345 - > And so we got a great response from just asking 346 - > them being like, how can we be helpful, more helpful? 347 - > We're in all of these locations. 348 - > What do we need to do to get you what you need 349 - > and got a great response. 350 - > And so now we're going to solve backwards for them.

351 - > Ben Aston: What did asking them look like? 352 - > Was that an email or poll? 353 - > How did you do that? 354 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, it was a Google Form.

355 - > So simple Google Form and had some like buzz kind 356 - > of buzz wordy travel, like rather than somewhat likely 357 - > make it more geared towards different prongs of travel, 358 - > whether that's budget, like extending your experiences as 359 - > well as like wild card where they could input anything. 360 - > And yeah, it got some great responses. 361 - > I have to go through that actually this week and our 362 - > number one goal is solving for the masses of, and even 363 - > if it's a small sample size, one thing I want to do this 364 - > year is do more with less.

365 - > So small sample size, if I can get a small tribe of a few 366 - > thousand people that want to buy a product, let's do that. 367 - > Those are my tribe, let's just write that and we can slowly 368 - > compound that over time. 369 - > But even if we just find our number ones, let's just, 370 - > well, I'll ride with the number ones all day long. 371 - > Ben Aston: Yeah.

372 - > And so as you created this survey to understand who your 373 - > audience is in terms of current state, and then you're obviously 374 - > using that to inform the highly engaged audience that yeah, 375 - > might buy a product or is going to keep coming back to the site. 376 - > Has that changed your understanding of what does your 377 - > tribe, what do you think your tribe looks like and how do 378 - > you think that kind of compares to the competition out there? 379 - > Obviously you're fighting for eyeballs and clicks 380 - > from other travel sites.

381 - > So as you're shaping that kind of ideal customer profile, 382 - > what does, yeah, what's that beginning to look like and 383 - > how much are you evaluating what the competition is 384 - > doing to try and find that white space of who your tribe 385 - > audiences is going to be? 386 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, I've been doing a lot of homework on 387 - > that is I want to find it, I want to build into an untapped 388 - > area that we know really well. 389 - > So some of the responses we've gotten a lot on just 390 - > like things that resonate with us personally as a team.

391 - > Things like, I'm cost conscious about where I 392 - > travel, but I like to splurge. 393 - > And that's something that like I do all the time. 394 - > I'm like, I'll cut out the things that are 395 - > like semi important and be very aware of that. 396 - > But then the things I love to do when I get to a 397 - > place like no limit, right?

398 - > And enjoy that and maximize as much as possible. 399 - > And so focus on that and parlaying that though into 400 - > something that will analyze competitors and there's a 401 - > lot of big sites out there in that space that, they cover 402 - > just a lot of generic stuff. 403 - > And honestly, I don't think it's that helpful. 404 - > Yeah, you could get me going on this, but right, like in 405 - > the whole experience thing, it's like, take a photo.

406 - > Like that's actually the person has been there, like 407 - > the author has been there. 408 - > And some of these sites, like they're like, some of 409 - > them are even using Unsplash and still performing. 410 - > So it baffles me, but we'll find our angle 411 - > and our way through it. 412 - > I think there's a couple of spots that are 413 - > unfulfilled in my opinion.

414 - > Ben Aston: Yeah. 415 - > And so as you, obviously Google's telling us that these 416 - > first person view perspectives are super important. 417 - > And how do you see works and what doesn't 418 - > work in travel content? 419 - > Have you seen that actually work for you that your original 420 - > photos and your original content are outperforming 421 - > the generic stock stuff?

422 - > Or do you actually, yeah... 423 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah. 424 - > No, no. 425 - > And that's why I always say the 50,000 photos thing, 426 - > because yeah, I guess maybe not yet, but I've done it all.

427 - > Like I image objects, Kiba with all the XAF data and metadata 428 - > showcasing, like, Hey, I was actually like, I'm in the museum 429 - > and this is literally my photo. 430 - > And I even, map it to like my Adobe profile and everything. 431 - > And my Flickr and all of that, and our images don't 432 - > rank and you'll get like something you can download 433 - > off Shutterstock that's ranking Google image search 434 - > in the top three or whatever. 435 - > So that part baffles me.

436 - > Maybe it'll come around. 437 - > I don't know, but more to my part of like, I would rather 438 - > share that then though with my audience in like our newsletter. 439 - > Like here's a picture of me, like standing 440 - > at the Rijksmuseum. 441 - > I have seen some new competition that have done some cool 442 - > things about having like face.

443 - > I'm not good with having my face in there. 444 - > So that's probably a deficiency, but having like your face 445 - > in the location, really documented in, in all of the 446 - > old tags and descriptions. 447 - > Ben Aston: Yeah, and going back to building your audience, one 448 - > of the things you said was, Oh yeah, we should have probably 449 - > should have thought about building our list sooner and 450 - > being more intentional about that and building on other 451 - > channels and not just Google.

452 - > Can you share what your biggest screw up in that process was? 453 - > Or what would you do differently in 2024 in terms of building 454 - > that audience and owning that audience versus what you've been 455 - > doing for the past few years? 456 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, I think it's playing in 457 - > too much to one entity. 458 - > I kind of alluded to it earlier.

459 - > It's just like, we spent so much time reading every 460 - > single thing, creating comprehensive checklists, 461 - > doing exactly what I was told and like putting stuff in our 462 - > images, creating our images. 463 - > Products, like we get products and do reviews and like we 464 - > have unboxing videos, like testing them and everything 465 - > invested a lot in that. 466 - > So I wish, yeah, probably last year of this time, we would have 467 - > been doing what we're doing now.

468 - > And one thing I think that a lot of publishers always defer 469 - > to as when they say kind of other channels that always 470 - > means like social or whatnot. 471 - > I think other channels of commerce or digital 472 - > products is very effective. 473 - > And I want to really crack it and test it because now you 474 - > have so many different commerce platforms out there that you 475 - > can also, you can have it on your own site, but also multiple 476 - > other commerce platforms.

477 - > Those are customers that buy from you organically there 478 - > that become email and can become long term readers, and 479 - > you can compound that with freely like opt ins as well. 480 - > So I think that's more effective where, cause it's 481 - > directly tied to revenue. 482 - > Ben Aston: Yeah, that sounds very sensible. 483 - > Tell me a bit about your team.

484 - > I know you have a team of writers that are 485 - > creating this content. 486 - > But in terms of how you structure the team as it 487 - > does a writers and then actually getting content on 488 - > the page or on the channel. 489 - > What does that look like? 490 - > What's your team breakdown?

491 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, we have three editors. 492 - > So we have managing editor and then two editors, one focus on 493 - > new content and works directly with new content writers. 494 - > And then we have a revamp renovations team that has an 495 - > editor and it's probably a split of six writers on the 496 - > new content side and six on the revamp side, sometimes 497 - > people go switch between. 498 - > And then we have different operations folks like 499 - > quality control checks as well as outreach.

500 - > And then we do have a project manager as well that 501 - > manages the operations team. 502 - > Ben Aston: So yeah, so how big is your team right now 503 - > and how much content are you publishing a month on average? 504 - > Kyle Kroeger: We're doing about two new articles a day and 505 - > one revamp being reformatted back on the site per day. 506 - > So that's the runway.

507 - > We're still trying to keep that up. 508 - > I think we're maybe paring a little back, that might 509 - > change, but trying to find ways where we can keep that up. 510 - > Current team size, 16, 18, I want to say. 511 - > It always depends with writers because some of the writers 512 - > like couple pieces of a month and then some are like full 513 - > in on our content cycle.

514 - > Ben Aston: And so, and do you calculate and plan ROI 515 - > on a per piece of content? 516 - > Or how do you think about what to produce and whether 517 - > or not you should or not? 518 - > Kyle Kroeger: I have no like specific tracking sheet I 519 - > should and like should know. 520 - > I do use some tools of knowing our numbers, but I don't 521 - > have a curve being like, okay, this has been published 522 - > for this amount of time.

523 - > ROI is this. 524 - > We do do like specific tracking, but a check of the 525 - > good ones, and then try to iterate, again, and replicate 526 - > that same kind of template and always be improving like the 527 - > layout of the page to succeed. 528 - > As a finance person, you think that I would have 529 - > that nailed down, but maybe I have some PTSD. 530 - > Ben Aston: And tell me a bit about your stack.

531 - > What are you publishing on? 532 - > And what are some of the tools you use through that content 533 - > planning, publishing process? 534 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, so I use, yeah, WordPress and then I'll 535 - > have, you know, I have other sites beyond viatravelers.com.

536 - > And so I do have Headless in a way that manages all of the 537 - > sites into one consolidated platform, which is main WP. 538 - > It's an open source that aggregates all 539 - > of the sites into one. 540 - > You can manage all the posts or any admin things. 541 - > Use make.

com for like automation and process flows. 542 - > ClickUp for project management. 543 - > Affilimate has been great for affiliate performance 544 - > optimization at the page level. 545 - > And also even page experience to see like heat maps of 546 - > where people are dropping off, where people are clicking.

547 - > That's been very helpful. 548 - > And then obviously some GPT for like, of course, and integrate 549 - > that into make in our project management to streamline 550 - > any ideation that we can. 551 - > Ben Aston: Cool. 552 - > Well, let's close out with a lightning round, 553 - > some quick fire questions.

554 - > Tell me what is the best advice you think you've ever received? 555 - > Kyle Kroeger: Just start. 556 - > That's been a big thing with me lately is just start. 557 - > Yeah, it's two words.

558 - > Very simple. 559 - > Like yeah, you can never get anything, never get done if 560 - > you don't start so just start. 561 - > Ben Aston: Tell me which of your personal habits do you 562 - > think has contributed most to your success that you've seen? 563 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, it's a double edged sword, but it's 564 - > relentlessness, I guess.

565 - > They're like, yeah, persistence. 566 - > Yeah. 567 - > Won't stop until it's figured out. 568 - > Ben Aston: That's cool.

569 - > And tell me, I mean, we've talked about different tools 570 - > that you use, but is there an internet resource or tool that 571 - > you particularly love and that you just highly recommend? 572 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah. 573 - > I mean, Make has been a whole new thing for me. 574 - > I don't know.

575 - > I just, I might spend too much time on it on start 576 - > creating stuff I don't need, necessarily need. 577 - > So I didn't take a step back from it. 578 - > So, but Make, if you're not familiar, it's like 579 - > Zapier and all that. 580 - > So just no code kind of automation and bringing 581 - > all the tools together.

582 - > It's big for an entrepreneur and really understanding that 583 - > because when you have eight email accounts and four Slacks 584 - > and all of this stuff, it's, that becomes overbearing. 585 - > Ben Aston: Yeah. 586 - > Tell me what book you'd recommend and why. 587 - > Kyle Kroeger: In a similar vein, I think the reason why 588 - > I went to, started getting on the Make thing is because I 589 - > did read this, it's sort of like a directory book in a way.

590 - > Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. 591 - > So, yeah, I always loved processes and being efficient, 592 - > and that opened the door to me of being like, oh, wait, 593 - > there's actual tools on your computer that you should be 594 - > using to make your life better. 595 - > Ben Aston: Awesome. 596 - > Now you've talked a bit about, I mean, the best advice you 597 - > received and just start and be relentless and that's 598 - > being what's propelled you to where you've got to today, but 599 - > for someone at the start of their digital media journey, 600 - > particularly with regards to audience building, what's one 601 - > piece of advice that you'd give?

602 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah. 603 - > Survey a hundred people. 604 - > Yeah, get to know people within that problem right away, 605 - > and also just go forward in terms of creating something, 606 - > who cares about like SEO. 607 - > But if you think that it's going, that audience is going 608 - > to grow in the future, figure out that problem and create 609 - > content around it and ride that growth wave of just that small 610 - > sub angle that is a problem.

611 - > Just that small sub angle. 612 - > You can ride if, yeah, that's all you need. 613 - > And you figure out that and that it's a lot easier. 614 - > Ben Aston: Yeah, I think that's super sound advice 615 - > because, yeah, as the world of SERP changes and generic 616 - > content becomes completely commoditized as ChatGPT can 617 - > spin out generic content all day long, being really clear 618 - > about who we're writing for and who our audience are is I 619 - > think the most important thing.

620 - > Because the reality is, is that these kind of generic sites 621 - > that are producing content for everyone and no one at the 622 - > same time, I think are going to fade into the background and 623 - > what we'll see is the emergence of hyper niche publishers 624 - > and content that targets to a really clear audience. 625 - > And when you have an audience, there's all kinds of ways 626 - > that you can monetize that. 627 - > Whether that is through display, or affiliate, or product, as 628 - > you've been talking about today.

629 - > So, super helpful advice. 630 - > Thanks for that. 631 - > Now, Kyle, just as we finish, tell people yeah, where can 632 - > people find out more about you and what you're up to? 633 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, you can obviously follow us 634 - > on LinkedIn, Kyle Kroeger, you can check me out.

635 - > We'd love to connect. 636 - > ViaTravelers.com is an opt in for our newsletter. 637 - > We'd love to interact with you if anyone likes to 638 - > travel as much as we do.

639 - > So I'm on there and then also you'll see me on 640 - > socials every once in a while @viatravelers for all 641 - > the social media accounts. 642 - > Yeah, Instagram, Facebook, all of the good stuff. 643 - > So there you can see my stuff in real time. 644 - > Ben Aston: Awesome.

645 - > And Kyle offered, very kindly, if anyone is ever going to 646 - > Amsterdam, ping Kyle and he'll take you on a tour. 647 - > But you have to use the magic password "Indie Media Club", um, 648 - > so Kyle knows you're a listener. 649 - > Thank you so much for joining us today, it's been 650 - > great having you with us. 651 - > Kyle Kroeger: Yeah, thanks for having me on Ben, this was fun.

652 - > Ben Aston: And if you like what you heard today, 653 - > please subscribe and stay in touch on indiemedia.club. 654 - > And please, leave us a review on iTunes too. 655 - > But until next time, thanks for listening.