December 5, 2023 • 30 mins
Ever wondered how to turn your travel passion into a thriving online venture?
Dive into this episode with Kyle Kroeger—Founder & CEO at ViaTravelers—as he shares the secrets behind transforming a personal blog into a global travel platform.
Host Ben Aston explores Kyle's content strategy, audience engagement tactics, and innovative monetization methods. As well as the art of balancing content creation with monetization, leveraging audience surveys, and embracing automation.
Tune in for actionable strategies and insights into building a niche audience and monetizing your passion.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Aston (00:05):
Welcome to the Indie Media Club podcast.
I'm Ben Aston, Founderof the Indie Media Club.
We're on a mission to helpindependent, bootstrapped
media entrepreneurs succeed,to help people who create,
promote, and monetizethrough content—do it better.
Check out indiemedia.clubto find out more.
(00:25):
So today I'm joined byKyle Kroeger and he's an
analyst turned media CEO.
He's the Founder andCEO of Black Bear Media.
They're a boutique onlinepublisher that own and
operate websites intravel, sustainability,
and personal finance.
And what started as asmall families travel
story and blog compoundedinto 12 plus perspectives
on ViaTravelers.com.
And now in 2023, they rank forover half a million keywords,
(00:47):
have more than 15 millionvisits generating in excess
of half a million in revenue.
So how do you do that?
Well, keep listening to today'spodcast to learn how to grow
a travel audience in 2024.
We're talking about next year.
Yes.
Hello, Kyle!Thanks for joining us today.
Kyle Kroeger (01:02):
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on Ben.
Hopefully I have thecrystal ball, but might be
a experiment, but we'll see.
Ben Aston (01:09):
Yeah.
So quickly take usback to the beginning.
Tell us, how did youget into this thing?
How do you go from ananalyst to media CEO?
How does that happen?
Kyle Kroeger (01:17):
I spent a lot of time in the offices
working in finance, right?
And love the collegialnature of all of that.
And, but I also knew thatI wanted, I grew up in an
entrepreneural family, bothmy parents were entrepreneurs.
I always knew that like Iwanted to build something.
And I also had this kind ofspirit of being a digital nomad,
(01:37):
digital slow mad, I guess we arekind of are right now, but that
was a big part of just becomingyet free and independent of
owning your own lifestyle.
And so what became a digitalcamera when I was traveling
eventually became like aGoPro and a video and drone.
And I just really unlockedlike this new passion
that I was willing tojust embrace full force.
(01:59):
And I just followed that journeyand I was enjoying it so much
that just made too much senseto, yeah, just not keep going.
So, followed that path.
Ben Aston (02:08):
So quit the day job and decided to
travel or at least writeabout travel full time.
Were you, in the moment thatyou made that decision, were
you generating revenue or wereyou pre-revenue generation?
Kyle Kroeger (02:22):
Yeah, I had sort of self taught myself SEO.
Great.
Like a lot of other people havedone, but maybe not self taught,
but I just started loving it.
The maybe like the numbersbased in a way, I love that
numbers based approach andI really turned like dabbled
with niche sites and stuffand scale them up, sold them.
And so I had that like modelof scaling them up a bit and
(02:43):
so I replicated that and, butI wanted to foster something
that was very long term and Iknew that travel was something
that's like for me, it's notgoing away like anytime soon.
And so that was something thatI could follow a long term
path and long story short,yeah, I had basically a journal
and log from all my vacationsthat, and I just took note of
basically everything that Idid and visited and started
(03:06):
writing about it and tryingto build like a base and then
felt right to transition.
Ben Aston (03:10):
So yeah, tell us a bit about what
ViaTravelers is all about.
How would you describe it?
Kyle Kroeger (03:15):
I describe it as first it started
with me, as my personalexperiences and, everything.
And I think that doesn't do afair justice for everyone that's
a reader because my lens isso much different for travel.
I can't continue to justpitch on one angle of travel.
I believe like travel isone of the only things that
can stimulate all senses.
(03:36):
And the underlying goal thatwe have is immersive travel,
which is basically meaninglike, how can we play into all
of that, right, in those senses- audio, visual, far from it.
But yeah, so that wassomething that is was big
and so like ViaTravelersI describe it as different
perspectives of differentpeople from around the world.
So we have writers and timezones all over and want to
(03:58):
share all of different culturalperspectives around the world.
Ben Aston (04:00):
Awesome.
And in terms of you we'retalking today about building
and growing an audience andfor you, as you were thinking
about that, I guess, personaof someone who's interested
then in authentic travelexperiences, I guess, to what
extent did that drive your,the kind of overall strategy
of ViaTravelers in terms of,was it your hypothesis, for
(04:23):
example, that people who wantthese immersive, one kind of
immersive travel experiences,authentic travel experiences
have a higher propensity topay, therefore they're a great
target audience to go for?
Or was it more thatit just reflected your
own personal interests?
Kyle Kroeger (04:40):
It started with personal interests and
like my perspective and thentrying to branch it out.
And I, I thought like, andwe're going to have a persona
to be honest, I'm really badat building like personas and
that's like my big weakness andbranding and stuff like that.
I wanted to build like a base ofstuff from personal experience.
And so that was like threeyears ago and the whole
(05:02):
E-E-A-T thing, like the Epart was like the start of it.
And so, yeah, that waspart of like the log.
But now that we had a, have abase and some data to go off
of, we're really starting tounderstand what do people want?
And I can speak to a millennialaudience of maximizing your
experience without spendingtons of money or going on
just one vacation every year.
(05:23):
Like, let's do multipleand let's go far.
And so, yeah, I love that kindof mantra and we want to play
into that as much as possible.
And we built a team ofwriters that kind of say,
follow that same mantra.
Ben Aston (05:35):
Cool.
And in terms of building them,that audience of people who
value going far with a littleand how did you cultivate and
grow that audience up to now?
And how do you think you'regoing to change the way that
you do that moving forwards?
Kyle Kroeger (05:50):
We did it in the past by basic, yeah, I mean,
a traditional SEO strategyof finding different things
in topics that we like trulyneed to know personally.
Also big on evergreentravel topics, like travel
hacking ways to maximizeyour dollar to, to see more.
And so really built thatfoundation and we want
to dive deeper into that.
(06:10):
But going forward, I thinkaudience building really
is about, like our goalfor the next year is, I
don't care about what anyother algorithm is doing.
I need to talk to my people andI need to talk to them directly.
It doesn't even matter ifit's one person or if it's
some person in person offlinemarketing, I need to figure
out how we can make traveleasier for people and help
(06:34):
people travel smarter.
So that's our big thingwe're trying to solve.
Ben Aston (06:38):
So, SEO formed a bit of a foundation of
building an audience foryou to generate web traffic.
How intentional have youbeen in growing and building
your audience across otherchannels and platforms like
YouTube and Insta as well?
Kyle Kroeger (06:54):
To be honest, that's another pain point,
and I knew it all along.
Kind of a failure in away, it was like, focusing
on writing for one entityand I won't big G, right.
And spending so much time,it's almost like spending a
bunch of time on Instagramand going all in on that
and like only doing that.
We spend a lot of timelike, okay, this is what
is working and if it'snot broken, don't fix it.
(07:15):
And so, but we're a littlebit naive of not spending
enough time of being like,showcasing in other ways.
I would say our secondbiggest channel is newsletter.
A lot of, I interactpersonally with the emails,
very personal touch.
I mean, we provide a lot ofvalue, but one thing I wanted
to need to do is leverage someof those other channels more.
We've taken so many photos, somany videos, huge media bank.
(07:39):
It's time to tap intothat and showcase what
we've actually done.
Ben Aston (07:43):
Yeah, and so you're driving traffic,
you're building youraudience, your owned audience
through your email list.
And as you grew that emaillist, what was the reason
you gave people to subscribe?
What was the promise youwere offering people?
Was it a lead magnet or wasit just, Hey, stay up to date.
What was the driver that helpedbuild the audience there?
Kyle Kroeger (08:03):
Yeah, being that we started with
experience first, right?
Like we didn't have a definedcluster too much of being, cause
like based on where I went, itwas like, it could be California
and then it could be London.
Right?
So those are very two bigclusters and so it's spread out.
And so that's a challenge withtravel is that, you need a lead
magnet for so many differentprongs to fit that intent.
(08:25):
We do have a few bifurcatedintent oriented lead magnets
by location, like packinglists, travel guides.
On the travel hacking sidewe have different like
calculators and tools peoplecan use as well as like a
general travel newsletter.
So try to bifurcate it out.
But as you bifurcate it out,that ends up compounding the
amount of kind of work it is tomanage the newsletter, right?
Ben Aston (08:46):
Yeah.
I'm curious as well, I mean,you just identified it.
The traveler who might beinterested in North American
travel or South Americantravel might be a different
audience for European orAfrican, Asian travel.
So as you built your audienceacross different geographies,
yeah, how did you managethat challenge of, Hey,
(09:06):
well, this is about globaltravel, but we've got people.
Our audiences probablyhas a propensity to travel
to different places, butmaybe not across the entire
world because of the budgetlimitations or time limitations
that they might have.
So how intentional have youbeen at trying to build these
clusters around certain areasor just kind of more shotgun?
Kyle Kroeger (09:27):
Initially it was shotgun.
Now it's been a lotmore precise, right?
A lot of imagery and contentaround Amsterdam and the
Netherlands resonates with meand like I own that cluster.
And I'm trying to solve fordifferent things that I can
offer that I know peoplelike it's my backyard.
So I should know whatpeople need to know.
And so really building intothat and then owning that.
(09:50):
And even just one ofthose, in my opinion, and
what we've seen so far.
If you do one of thoseright, get that foundation
down and then now moveto the other spots.
So it's very replicable.
In a way, it's what you needto find to fill the problem.
But once you really own thatlittle mold, you can replicate
it in a different place.
Ben Aston (10:10):
Yeah.
And in terms of, in termsof your email list that
you have now, do you mindsharing how big is your list
that's driving all of that?
You know, 15 millionvisits is a ton.
How much of that comesfrom email versus SEO?
Kyle Kroeger (10:24):
Yeah, it's still only around 10%.
I mean, we've doubledour email list this year.
So we've spent a lot oftime doing that, focused on
harvesting an audience andasking them what they want.
And that's been a real morerecent sort of thing that
we've been really focusingon is, like what do you need?
And then we will do whateverit takes to solve that,
written form, whatever that is.
(10:45):
And so, yeah, it's still asmall part, but bit by bit, it's
not going to happen overnight.
Just like SEO, as long as wecan really focus in on it, I
think the long game is what'sgoing to matter the most.
Ben Aston (10:57):
Yeah.
And in terms of that longgame, as you're assessing
the health of your mediabusiness, what are the metrics
that are important to you?
Kyle Kroeger (11:04):
Yeah, metrics.
I think like time toproduce content, but
maintaining quality.
Right?
So I think one thing thatI would be curious if to
know if other publishersthink about this way.
But I have content that's justlike in the, this like purgatory
middle and it's just sitting,like that's dollars that's
being just opportunity costs.
And so we need to havea nice efficient flow.
(11:25):
If we know it needs editsand we know we need to
prove it in some way, likeit needs that direction.
So time to produce content,repurposing content.
I think like keep your eyes onlike revenue per 1000 visits.
So fully stack all ofthe different revenue
streams per page.
And then, and even on that, ontop of that, put a dollar on
your opt ins for that page too.
(11:47):
And so do a full stackbased on per thousand.
So those are somecore that I look at.
And then obviously like bouncerate and time on page and really
focusing on the page experience.
Ben Aston (11:57):
I mean, let's talk about monetization.
You talked about stackingmonetization channels.
So yeah, how do you stackmonetization on your side?
Kyle Kroeger (12:06):
Yeah, it's display ads.
We have a lot ofinformative content as well.
So destination, likeinspiration that we know
that trying to monetize wouldbe, or like with affiliates
would be kind of forcing it.
So we do have higher skewto display, call it 66%,
so two thirds, one third.
With two thirds being display,one third being affiliate.
(12:28):
We've done some sponsored stuff.
We could do more for sure.
I think that's a, we haven'tdone enough of direct
like direct placementand things like that.
So, but that's a smallpercentage, like 5% maybe
that would squeeze intothat two thirds, one third.
And so that's howwe stack it now.
For the future, I wouldsay might look different.
That's part of the goal.
(12:49):
So owning our products,owning our revenue stream
is a huge goal of ours.
Ben Aston (12:52):
And so what, yeah, tell me about
owning your product.
What does that mean to you?
Is that a membership productor what's that look like?
Kyle Kroeger (12:59):
Yeah, I like, I call it value added content in
a way where we can leverage ourexisting content or external
data sources, combine it withour existing content to provide
like a tool or a solution, likesoftware light, like not a SaaS,
but something that's like atool or a tool kit that offers
like a package of things or aresource base, knowledge base,
(13:21):
whatever you want to call it.
So yeah, it's some form ofmembership community base.
I also would love, wetook 50,000 photos of
the last three years.
I keep saying, I thinkthere's gotta be like 12
in there that could makea coffee table book people
would want to like look at.
So I don't know.
So I keep wrestlingwith some of that.
And I think we knowtravel enough to find
(13:41):
something that's a tangibleproduct that would help.
Ben Aston (13:43):
Yeah.
And so as you're thinking about,obviously, so you're primarily
monetizing through display,secondarily through affiliate.
So in order to drive yourmonetization, obviously
eyeballs are reallyimportant and secondarily,
the funnel for product.
And so as you're thinkingabout building an audience
and creating or generatingloyalists and lovers of the
(14:07):
brand, how do you decide,yeah, what that content in
terms of the content strategy,what content to create?
Like in terms of building outthe content to support the
affiliate funnel or creatinganother page that's a little
bit more long tail on a keyword,because you know that that
could generate more page views.
How do you balance thetwo monetization streams
(14:28):
that you have and how thatimpacts the content strategy?
Kyle Kroeger (14:31):
Yeah, I think right now we've been, we
put that somewhat lowerand feel a higher priority
to filling content gaps.
If we know that like, oh,look, we haven't even had an
accommodation guide for thiscity, but we've covered almost
every single other angle.
It's like, we got to justbite the bullet because we
know this is going to behelpful and we know this is
(14:52):
going to be good content thatplays into all of the other
stuff that we've produced.
So some of that's and thenwe balance the prioritization
of being like, okay, well,where's content gaps let's
stack, like let's place, let'sget the stuff in order and
in process that does have alittle bit more of a conversion
angle, we'd probably say.
But start there in terms of,but with our audience, like we,
(15:14):
in terms of what they need, wehaven't been doing this enough
and we just started doing it.
It's just ask them.
And so we got a greatresponse from just asking
them being like, how can webe helpful, more helpful?
We're in all of these locations.
What do we need to doto get you what you need
and got a great response.
And so now we're going tosolve backwards for them.
Ben Aston (15:33):
What did asking them look like?
Was that an email or poll?
How did you do that?
Kyle Kroeger (15:37):
Yeah, it was a Google Form.
So simple Google Form andhad some like buzz kind
of buzz wordy travel, likerather than somewhat likely
make it more geared towardsdifferent prongs of travel,
whether that's budget, likeextending your experiences as
well as like wild card wherethey could input anything.
And yeah, it gotsome great responses.
(16:00):
I have to go through thatactually this week and our
number one goal is solvingfor the masses of, and even
if it's a small sample size,one thing I want to do this
year is do more with less.
So small sample size, if Ican get a small tribe of a few
thousand people that want tobuy a product, let's do that.
(16:21):
Those are my tribe, let's justwrite that and we can slowly
compound that over time.
But even if we just findour number ones, let's just,
well, I'll ride with thenumber ones all day long.
Ben Aston (16:31):
Yeah.
And so as you created thissurvey to understand who your
audience is in terms of currentstate, and then you're obviously
using that to inform the highlyengaged audience that yeah,
might buy a product or is goingto keep coming back to the site.
Has that changed yourunderstanding of what does your
tribe, what do you think yourtribe looks like and how do
(16:52):
you think that kind of comparesto the competition out there?
Obviously you're fightingfor eyeballs and clicks
from other travel sites.
So as you're shaping that kindof ideal customer profile,
what does, yeah, what's thatbeginning to look like and
how much are you evaluatingwhat the competition is
doing to try and find thatwhite space of who your tribe
(17:14):
audiences is going to be?
Kyle Kroeger (17:16):
Yeah, I've been doing a lot of homework on
that is I want to find it, Iwant to build into an untapped
area that we know really well.
So some of the responseswe've gotten a lot on just
like things that resonatewith us personally as a team.
Things like, I'm costconscious about where I
travel, but I like to splurge.
And that's something thatlike I do all the time.
I'm like, I'll cut outthe things that are
(17:40):
like semi important andbe very aware of that.
But then the things Ilove to do when I get to a
place like no limit, right?
And enjoy that and maximizeas much as possible.
And so focus on that andparlaying that though into
something that will analyzecompetitors and there's a
lot of big sites out there inthat space that, they cover
(18:00):
just a lot of generic stuff.
And honestly, I don'tthink it's that helpful.
Yeah, you could get me goingon this, but right, like in
the whole experience thing,it's like, take a photo.
Like that's actually theperson has been there, like
the author has been there.
And some of these sites,like they're like, some of
them are even using Unsplashand still performing.
(18:21):
So it baffles me, butwe'll find our angle
and our way through it.
I think there's acouple of spots that are
unfulfilled in my opinion.
Ben Aston (18:29):
Yeah.
And so as you, obviouslyGoogle's telling us that these
first person view perspectivesare super important.
And how do you seeworks and what doesn't
work in travel content?
Have you seen that actuallywork for you that your original
photos and your originalcontent are outperforming
the generic stock stuff?
Or do you actually, yeah...
Kyle Kroeger (18:52):
Yeah.
No, no.
And that's why I always saythe 50,000 photos thing,
because yeah, I guess maybenot yet, but I've done it all.
Like I image objects, Kiba withall the XAF data and metadata
showcasing, like, Hey, I wasactually like, I'm in the museum
and this is literally my photo.
And I even, map it to like myAdobe profile and everything.
(19:14):
And my Flickr and all ofthat, and our images don't
rank and you'll get likesomething you can download
off Shutterstock that'sranking Google image search
in the top three or whatever.
So that part baffles me.
Maybe it'll come around.
I don't know, but more to mypart of like, I would rather
share that then though with myaudience in like our newsletter.
Like here's a pictureof me, like standing
(19:35):
at the Rijksmuseum.
I have seen some new competitionthat have done some cool
things about having like face.
I'm not good withhaving my face in there.
So that's probably a deficiency,but having like your face
in the location, reallydocumented in, in all of the
old tags and descriptions.
Ben Aston (19:51):
Yeah, and going back to building your audience, one
of the things you said was, Ohyeah, we should have probably
should have thought aboutbuilding our list sooner and
being more intentional aboutthat and building on other
channels and not just Google.
Can you share what your biggestscrew up in that process was?
Or what would you do differentlyin 2024 in terms of building
(20:12):
that audience and owning thataudience versus what you've been
doing for the past few years?
Kyle Kroeger (20:17):
Yeah, I think it's playing in
too much to one entity.
I kind of alluded to it earlier.
It's just like, we spentso much time reading every
single thing, creatingcomprehensive checklists,
doing exactly what I was toldand like putting stuff in our
images, creating our images.
Products, like we get productsand do reviews and like we
have unboxing videos, liketesting them and everything
(20:40):
invested a lot in that.
So I wish, yeah, probably lastyear of this time, we would have
been doing what we're doing now.
And one thing I think that alot of publishers always defer
to as when they say kind ofother channels that always
means like social or whatnot.
I think other channelsof commerce or digital
products is very effective.
(21:02):
And I want to really crack itand test it because now you
have so many different commerceplatforms out there that you
can also, you can have it onyour own site, but also multiple
other commerce platforms.
Those are customers that buyfrom you organically there
that become email and canbecome long term readers, and
you can compound that withfreely like opt ins as well.
(21:25):
So I think that's moreeffective where, cause it's
directly tied to revenue.
Ben Aston (21:30):
Yeah, that sounds very sensible.
Tell me a bit about your team.
I know you have a teamof writers that are
creating this content.
But in terms of how youstructure the team as it
does a writers and thenactually getting content on
the page or on the channel.
What does that look like?
What's your team breakdown?
Kyle Kroeger (21:49):
Yeah, we have three editors.
So we have managing editor andthen two editors, one focus on
new content and works directlywith new content writers.
And then we have a revamprenovations team that has an
editor and it's probably asplit of six writers on the
new content side and six onthe revamp side, sometimes
people go switch between.
(22:09):
And then we have differentoperations folks like
quality control checksas well as outreach.
And then we do have aproject manager as well that
manages the operations team.
Ben Aston (22:19):
So yeah, so how big is your team right now
and how much content are youpublishing a month on average?
Kyle Kroeger (22:25):
We're doing about two new articles a day and
one revamp being reformattedback on the site per day.
So that's the runway.
We're still tryingto keep that up.
I think we're maybe paringa little back, that might
change, but trying to findways where we can keep that up.
Current team size,16, 18, I want to say.
It always depends with writersbecause some of the writers
(22:48):
like couple pieces of a monthand then some are like full
in on our content cycle.
Ben Aston (22:54):
And so, and do you calculate and plan ROI
on a per piece of content?
Or how do you think aboutwhat to produce and whether
or not you should or not?
Kyle Kroeger (23:05):
I have no like specific tracking sheet I
should and like should know.
I do use some tools of knowingour numbers, but I don't
have a curve being like,okay, this has been published
for this amount of time.
ROI is this.
We do do like specifictracking, but a check of the
good ones, and then try toiterate, again, and replicate
(23:29):
that same kind of template andalways be improving like the
layout of the page to succeed.
As a finance person, youthink that I would have
that nailed down, butmaybe I have some PTSD.
Ben Aston (23:40):
And tell me a bit about your stack.
What are you publishing on?
And what are some of the toolsyou use through that content
planning, publishing process?
Kyle Kroeger (23:50):
Yeah, so I use, yeah, WordPress and then I'll
have, you know, I have othersites beyond viatravelers.com.
And so I do have Headless ina way that manages all of the
sites into one consolidatedplatform, which is main WP.
It's an open sourcethat aggregates all
of the sites into one.
You can manage all theposts or any admin things.
(24:10):
Use make.com for likeautomation and process flows.
ClickUp for project management.
Affilimate has been greatfor affiliate performance
optimization at the page level.
And also even page experienceto see like heat maps of
where people are dropping off,where people are clicking.
That's been very helpful.
And then obviously some GPT forlike, of course, and integrate
(24:34):
that into make in our projectmanagement to streamline
any ideation that we can.
Ben Aston (24:39):
Cool.
Well, let's close outwith a lightning round,
some quick fire questions.
Tell me what is the best adviceyou think you've ever received?
Kyle Kroeger (24:48):
Just start.
That's been a big thing withme lately is just start.
Yeah, it's two words.
Very simple.
Like yeah, you can never getanything, never get done if
you don't start so just start.
Ben Aston (25:00):
Tell me which of your personal habits do you
think has contributed most toyour success that you've seen?
Kyle Kroeger (25:06):
Yeah, it's a double edged sword, but it's
relentlessness, I guess.
They're like, yeah, persistence.
Yeah.
Won't stop untilit's figured out.
Ben Aston (25:15):
That's cool.
And tell me, I mean, we'vetalked about different tools
that you use, but is there aninternet resource or tool that
you particularly love and thatyou just highly recommend?
Kyle Kroeger (25:25):
Yeah.
I mean, Make has been awhole new thing for me.
I don't know.
I just, I might spend toomuch time on it on start
creating stuff I don'tneed, necessarily need.
So I didn't take astep back from it.
So, but Make, if you'renot familiar, it's like
Zapier and all that.
So just no code kind ofautomation and bringing
all the tools together.
It's big for an entrepreneurand really understanding that
(25:48):
because when you have eightemail accounts and four Slacks
and all of this stuff, it's,that becomes overbearing.
Ben Aston (25:56):
Yeah.
Tell me what book you'drecommend and why.
Kyle Kroeger (26:01):
In a similar vein, I think the reason why
I went to, started getting onthe Make thing is because I
did read this, it's sort oflike a directory book in a way.
Automate the BoringStuff with Python.
So, yeah, I always lovedprocesses and being efficient,
and that opened the door tome of being like, oh, wait,
there's actual tools on yourcomputer that you should be
(26:22):
using to make your life better.
Ben Aston (26:24):
Awesome.
Now you've talked a bit about,I mean, the best advice you
received and just start andbe relentless and that's
being what's propelled you towhere you've got to today, but
for someone at the start oftheir digital media journey,
particularly with regards toaudience building, what's one
piece of advice that you'd give?
Kyle Kroeger (26:41):
Yeah.
Survey a hundred people.
Yeah, get to know peoplewithin that problem right away,
and also just go forward interms of creating something,
who cares about like SEO.
But if you think that it'sgoing, that audience is going
to grow in the future, figureout that problem and create
content around it and ride thatgrowth wave of just that small
(27:04):
sub angle that is a problem.
Just that small sub angle.
You can ride if, yeah,that's all you need.
And you figure out thatand that it's a lot easier.
Ben Aston (27:13):
Yeah, I think that's super sound advice
because, yeah, as the worldof SERP changes and generic
content becomes completelycommoditized as ChatGPT can
spin out generic content allday long, being really clear
about who we're writing forand who our audience are is I
think the most important thing.
(27:33):
Because the reality is, is thatthese kind of generic sites
that are producing contentfor everyone and no one at the
same time, I think are goingto fade into the background and
what we'll see is the emergenceof hyper niche publishers
and content that targetsto a really clear audience.
And when you have an audience,there's all kinds of ways
(27:54):
that you can monetize that.
Whether that is through display,or affiliate, or product, as
you've been talking about today.
So, super helpful advice.
Thanks for that.
Now, Kyle, just as we finish,tell people yeah, where can
people find out more aboutyou and what you're up to?
Kyle Kroeger (28:08):
Yeah, you can obviously follow us
on LinkedIn, Kyle Kroeger,you can check me out.
We'd love to connect.
ViaTravelers.com is anopt in for our newsletter.
We'd love to interact withyou if anyone likes to
travel as much as we do.
So I'm on there and thenalso you'll see me on
socials every once in awhile @viatravelers for all
the social media accounts.
Yeah, Instagram, Facebook,all of the good stuff.
(28:31):
So there you can seemy stuff in real time.
Ben Aston (28:34):
Awesome.
And Kyle offered, very kindly,if anyone is ever going to
Amsterdam, ping Kyle andhe'll take you on a tour.
But you have to use the magicpassword "Indie Media Club", um,
so Kyle knows you're a listener.
Thank you so much forjoining us today, it's been
great having you with us.
Kyle Kroeger (28:52):
Yeah, thanks for having me on Ben, this was fun.
Ben Aston (28:55):
And if you like what you heard today,
please subscribe and stayin touch on indiemedia.club.
And please, leave us areview on iTunes too.
But until next time,thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Indie Media Club podcast.
I'm Ben Aston, Founderof the Indie Media Club.
We're on a mission to helpindependent, bootstrapped
media entrepreneurs succeed,to help people who create,
promote, and monetizethrough content—do it better.
Check out indiemedia.clubto find out more.
(00:25):
So today I'm joined byKyle Kroeger and he's an
analyst turned media CEO.
He's the Founder andCEO of Black Bear Media.
They're a boutique onlinepublisher that own and
operate websites intravel, sustainability,
and personal finance.
And what started as asmall families travel
story and blog compoundedinto 12 plus perspectives
on ViaTravelers.com.
And now in 2023, they rank forover half a million keywords,
(00:47):
have more than 15 millionvisits generating in excess
of half a million in revenue.
So how do you do that?
Well, keep listening to today'spodcast to learn how to grow
a travel audience in 2024.
We're talking about next year.
Yes.
Hello, Kyle!Thanks for joining us today.
Kyle Kroeger (01:02):
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on Ben.
Hopefully I have thecrystal ball, but might be
a experiment, but we'll see.
Ben Aston (01:09):
Yeah.
So quickly take usback to the beginning.
Tell us, how did youget into this thing?
How do you go from ananalyst to media CEO?
How does that happen?
Kyle Kroeger (01:17):
I spent a lot of time in the offices
working in finance, right?
And love the collegialnature of all of that.
And, but I also knew thatI wanted, I grew up in an
entrepreneural family, bothmy parents were entrepreneurs.
I always knew that like Iwanted to build something.
And I also had this kind ofspirit of being a digital nomad,
(01:37):
digital slow mad, I guess we arekind of are right now, but that
was a big part of just becomingyet free and independent of
owning your own lifestyle.
And so what became a digitalcamera when I was traveling
eventually became like aGoPro and a video and drone.
And I just really unlockedlike this new passion
that I was willing tojust embrace full force.
(01:59):
And I just followed that journeyand I was enjoying it so much
that just made too much senseto, yeah, just not keep going.
So, followed that path.
Ben Aston (02:08):
So quit the day job and decided to
travel or at least writeabout travel full time.
Were you, in the moment thatyou made that decision, were
you generating revenue or wereyou pre-revenue generation?
Kyle Kroeger (02:22):
Yeah, I had sort of self taught myself SEO.
Great.
Like a lot of other people havedone, but maybe not self taught,
but I just started loving it.
The maybe like the numbersbased in a way, I love that
numbers based approach andI really turned like dabbled
with niche sites and stuffand scale them up, sold them.
And so I had that like modelof scaling them up a bit and
(02:43):
so I replicated that and, butI wanted to foster something
that was very long term and Iknew that travel was something
that's like for me, it's notgoing away like anytime soon.
And so that was something thatI could follow a long term
path and long story short,yeah, I had basically a journal
and log from all my vacationsthat, and I just took note of
basically everything that Idid and visited and started
(03:06):
writing about it and tryingto build like a base and then
felt right to transition.
Ben Aston (03:10):
So yeah, tell us a bit about what
ViaTravelers is all about.
How would you describe it?
Kyle Kroeger (03:15):
I describe it as first it started
with me, as my personalexperiences and, everything.
And I think that doesn't do afair justice for everyone that's
a reader because my lens isso much different for travel.
I can't continue to justpitch on one angle of travel.
I believe like travel isone of the only things that
can stimulate all senses.
(03:36):
And the underlying goal thatwe have is immersive travel,
which is basically meaninglike, how can we play into all
of that, right, in those senses- audio, visual, far from it.
But yeah, so that wassomething that is was big
and so like ViaTravelersI describe it as different
perspectives of differentpeople from around the world.
So we have writers and timezones all over and want to
(03:58):
share all of different culturalperspectives around the world.
Ben Aston (04:00):
Awesome.
And in terms of you we'retalking today about building
and growing an audience andfor you, as you were thinking
about that, I guess, personaof someone who's interested
then in authentic travelexperiences, I guess, to what
extent did that drive your,the kind of overall strategy
of ViaTravelers in terms of,was it your hypothesis, for
(04:23):
example, that people who wantthese immersive, one kind of
immersive travel experiences,authentic travel experiences
have a higher propensity topay, therefore they're a great
target audience to go for?
Or was it more thatit just reflected your
own personal interests?
Kyle Kroeger (04:40):
It started with personal interests and
like my perspective and thentrying to branch it out.
And I, I thought like, andwe're going to have a persona
to be honest, I'm really badat building like personas and
that's like my big weakness andbranding and stuff like that.
I wanted to build like a base ofstuff from personal experience.
And so that was like threeyears ago and the whole
(05:02):
E-E-A-T thing, like the Epart was like the start of it.
And so, yeah, that waspart of like the log.
But now that we had a, have abase and some data to go off
of, we're really starting tounderstand what do people want?
And I can speak to a millennialaudience of maximizing your
experience without spendingtons of money or going on
just one vacation every year.
(05:23):
Like, let's do multipleand let's go far.
And so, yeah, I love that kindof mantra and we want to play
into that as much as possible.
And we built a team ofwriters that kind of say,
follow that same mantra.
Ben Aston (05:35):
Cool.
And in terms of building them,that audience of people who
value going far with a littleand how did you cultivate and
grow that audience up to now?
And how do you think you'regoing to change the way that
you do that moving forwards?
Kyle Kroeger (05:50):
We did it in the past by basic, yeah, I mean,
a traditional SEO strategyof finding different things
in topics that we like trulyneed to know personally.
Also big on evergreentravel topics, like travel
hacking ways to maximizeyour dollar to, to see more.
And so really built thatfoundation and we want
to dive deeper into that.
(06:10):
But going forward, I thinkaudience building really
is about, like our goalfor the next year is, I
don't care about what anyother algorithm is doing.
I need to talk to my people andI need to talk to them directly.
It doesn't even matter ifit's one person or if it's
some person in person offlinemarketing, I need to figure
out how we can make traveleasier for people and help
(06:34):
people travel smarter.
So that's our big thingwe're trying to solve.
Ben Aston (06:38):
So, SEO formed a bit of a foundation of
building an audience foryou to generate web traffic.
How intentional have youbeen in growing and building
your audience across otherchannels and platforms like
YouTube and Insta as well?
Kyle Kroeger (06:54):
To be honest, that's another pain point,
and I knew it all along.
Kind of a failure in away, it was like, focusing
on writing for one entityand I won't big G, right.
And spending so much time,it's almost like spending a
bunch of time on Instagramand going all in on that
and like only doing that.
We spend a lot of timelike, okay, this is what
is working and if it'snot broken, don't fix it.
(07:15):
And so, but we're a littlebit naive of not spending
enough time of being like,showcasing in other ways.
I would say our secondbiggest channel is newsletter.
A lot of, I interactpersonally with the emails,
very personal touch.
I mean, we provide a lot ofvalue, but one thing I wanted
to need to do is leverage someof those other channels more.
We've taken so many photos, somany videos, huge media bank.
(07:39):
It's time to tap intothat and showcase what
we've actually done.
Ben Aston (07:43):
Yeah, and so you're driving traffic,
you're building youraudience, your owned audience
through your email list.
And as you grew that emaillist, what was the reason
you gave people to subscribe?
What was the promise youwere offering people?
Was it a lead magnet or wasit just, Hey, stay up to date.
What was the driver that helpedbuild the audience there?
Kyle Kroeger (08:03):
Yeah, being that we started with
experience first, right?
Like we didn't have a definedcluster too much of being, cause
like based on where I went, itwas like, it could be California
and then it could be London.
Right?
So those are very two bigclusters and so it's spread out.
And so that's a challenge withtravel is that, you need a lead
magnet for so many differentprongs to fit that intent.
(08:25):
We do have a few bifurcatedintent oriented lead magnets
by location, like packinglists, travel guides.
On the travel hacking sidewe have different like
calculators and tools peoplecan use as well as like a
general travel newsletter.
So try to bifurcate it out.
But as you bifurcate it out,that ends up compounding the
amount of kind of work it is tomanage the newsletter, right?
Ben Aston (08:46):
Yeah.
I'm curious as well, I mean,you just identified it.
The traveler who might beinterested in North American
travel or South Americantravel might be a different
audience for European orAfrican, Asian travel.
So as you built your audienceacross different geographies,
yeah, how did you managethat challenge of, Hey,
(09:06):
well, this is about globaltravel, but we've got people.
Our audiences probablyhas a propensity to travel
to different places, butmaybe not across the entire
world because of the budgetlimitations or time limitations
that they might have.
So how intentional have youbeen at trying to build these
clusters around certain areasor just kind of more shotgun?
Kyle Kroeger (09:27):
Initially it was shotgun.
Now it's been a lotmore precise, right?
A lot of imagery and contentaround Amsterdam and the
Netherlands resonates with meand like I own that cluster.
And I'm trying to solve fordifferent things that I can
offer that I know peoplelike it's my backyard.
So I should know whatpeople need to know.
And so really building intothat and then owning that.
(09:50):
And even just one ofthose, in my opinion, and
what we've seen so far.
If you do one of thoseright, get that foundation
down and then now moveto the other spots.
So it's very replicable.
In a way, it's what you needto find to fill the problem.
But once you really own thatlittle mold, you can replicate
it in a different place.
Ben Aston (10:10):
Yeah.
And in terms of, in termsof your email list that
you have now, do you mindsharing how big is your list
that's driving all of that?
You know, 15 millionvisits is a ton.
How much of that comesfrom email versus SEO?
Kyle Kroeger (10:24):
Yeah, it's still only around 10%.
I mean, we've doubledour email list this year.
So we've spent a lot oftime doing that, focused on
harvesting an audience andasking them what they want.
And that's been a real morerecent sort of thing that
we've been really focusingon is, like what do you need?
And then we will do whateverit takes to solve that,
written form, whatever that is.
(10:45):
And so, yeah, it's still asmall part, but bit by bit, it's
not going to happen overnight.
Just like SEO, as long as wecan really focus in on it, I
think the long game is what'sgoing to matter the most.
Ben Aston (10:57):
Yeah.
And in terms of that longgame, as you're assessing
the health of your mediabusiness, what are the metrics
that are important to you?
Kyle Kroeger (11:04):
Yeah, metrics.
I think like time toproduce content, but
maintaining quality.
Right?
So I think one thing thatI would be curious if to
know if other publishersthink about this way.
But I have content that's justlike in the, this like purgatory
middle and it's just sitting,like that's dollars that's
being just opportunity costs.
And so we need to havea nice efficient flow.
(11:25):
If we know it needs editsand we know we need to
prove it in some way, likeit needs that direction.
So time to produce content,repurposing content.
I think like keep your eyes onlike revenue per 1000 visits.
So fully stack all ofthe different revenue
streams per page.
And then, and even on that, ontop of that, put a dollar on
your opt ins for that page too.
(11:47):
And so do a full stackbased on per thousand.
So those are somecore that I look at.
And then obviously like bouncerate and time on page and really
focusing on the page experience.
Ben Aston (11:57):
I mean, let's talk about monetization.
You talked about stackingmonetization channels.
So yeah, how do you stackmonetization on your side?
Kyle Kroeger (12:06):
Yeah, it's display ads.
We have a lot ofinformative content as well.
So destination, likeinspiration that we know
that trying to monetize wouldbe, or like with affiliates
would be kind of forcing it.
So we do have higher skewto display, call it 66%,
so two thirds, one third.
With two thirds being display,one third being affiliate.
(12:28):
We've done some sponsored stuff.
We could do more for sure.
I think that's a, we haven'tdone enough of direct
like direct placementand things like that.
So, but that's a smallpercentage, like 5% maybe
that would squeeze intothat two thirds, one third.
And so that's howwe stack it now.
For the future, I wouldsay might look different.
That's part of the goal.
(12:49):
So owning our products,owning our revenue stream
is a huge goal of ours.
Ben Aston (12:52):
And so what, yeah, tell me about
owning your product.
What does that mean to you?
Is that a membership productor what's that look like?
Kyle Kroeger (12:59):
Yeah, I like, I call it value added content in
a way where we can leverage ourexisting content or external
data sources, combine it withour existing content to provide
like a tool or a solution, likesoftware light, like not a SaaS,
but something that's like atool or a tool kit that offers
like a package of things or aresource base, knowledge base,
(13:21):
whatever you want to call it.
So yeah, it's some form ofmembership community base.
I also would love, wetook 50,000 photos of
the last three years.
I keep saying, I thinkthere's gotta be like 12
in there that could makea coffee table book people
would want to like look at.
So I don't know.
So I keep wrestlingwith some of that.
And I think we knowtravel enough to find
(13:41):
something that's a tangibleproduct that would help.
Ben Aston (13:43):
Yeah.
And so as you're thinking about,obviously, so you're primarily
monetizing through display,secondarily through affiliate.
So in order to drive yourmonetization, obviously
eyeballs are reallyimportant and secondarily,
the funnel for product.
And so as you're thinkingabout building an audience
and creating or generatingloyalists and lovers of the
(14:07):
brand, how do you decide,yeah, what that content in
terms of the content strategy,what content to create?
Like in terms of building outthe content to support the
affiliate funnel or creatinganother page that's a little
bit more long tail on a keyword,because you know that that
could generate more page views.
How do you balance thetwo monetization streams
(14:28):
that you have and how thatimpacts the content strategy?
Kyle Kroeger (14:31):
Yeah, I think right now we've been, we
put that somewhat lowerand feel a higher priority
to filling content gaps.
If we know that like, oh,look, we haven't even had an
accommodation guide for thiscity, but we've covered almost
every single other angle.
It's like, we got to justbite the bullet because we
know this is going to behelpful and we know this is
(14:52):
going to be good content thatplays into all of the other
stuff that we've produced.
So some of that's and thenwe balance the prioritization
of being like, okay, well,where's content gaps let's
stack, like let's place, let'sget the stuff in order and
in process that does have alittle bit more of a conversion
angle, we'd probably say.
But start there in terms of,but with our audience, like we,
(15:14):
in terms of what they need, wehaven't been doing this enough
and we just started doing it.
It's just ask them.
And so we got a greatresponse from just asking
them being like, how can webe helpful, more helpful?
We're in all of these locations.
What do we need to doto get you what you need
and got a great response.
And so now we're going tosolve backwards for them.
Ben Aston (15:33):
What did asking them look like?
Was that an email or poll?
How did you do that?
Kyle Kroeger (15:37):
Yeah, it was a Google Form.
So simple Google Form andhad some like buzz kind
of buzz wordy travel, likerather than somewhat likely
make it more geared towardsdifferent prongs of travel,
whether that's budget, likeextending your experiences as
well as like wild card wherethey could input anything.
And yeah, it gotsome great responses.
(16:00):
I have to go through thatactually this week and our
number one goal is solvingfor the masses of, and even
if it's a small sample size,one thing I want to do this
year is do more with less.
So small sample size, if Ican get a small tribe of a few
thousand people that want tobuy a product, let's do that.
(16:21):
Those are my tribe, let's justwrite that and we can slowly
compound that over time.
But even if we just findour number ones, let's just,
well, I'll ride with thenumber ones all day long.
Ben Aston (16:31):
Yeah.
And so as you created thissurvey to understand who your
audience is in terms of currentstate, and then you're obviously
using that to inform the highlyengaged audience that yeah,
might buy a product or is goingto keep coming back to the site.
Has that changed yourunderstanding of what does your
tribe, what do you think yourtribe looks like and how do
(16:52):
you think that kind of comparesto the competition out there?
Obviously you're fightingfor eyeballs and clicks
from other travel sites.
So as you're shaping that kindof ideal customer profile,
what does, yeah, what's thatbeginning to look like and
how much are you evaluatingwhat the competition is
doing to try and find thatwhite space of who your tribe
(17:14):
audiences is going to be?
Kyle Kroeger (17:16):
Yeah, I've been doing a lot of homework on
that is I want to find it, Iwant to build into an untapped
area that we know really well.
So some of the responseswe've gotten a lot on just
like things that resonatewith us personally as a team.
Things like, I'm costconscious about where I
travel, but I like to splurge.
And that's something thatlike I do all the time.
I'm like, I'll cut outthe things that are
(17:40):
like semi important andbe very aware of that.
But then the things Ilove to do when I get to a
place like no limit, right?
And enjoy that and maximizeas much as possible.
And so focus on that andparlaying that though into
something that will analyzecompetitors and there's a
lot of big sites out there inthat space that, they cover
(18:00):
just a lot of generic stuff.
And honestly, I don'tthink it's that helpful.
Yeah, you could get me goingon this, but right, like in
the whole experience thing,it's like, take a photo.
Like that's actually theperson has been there, like
the author has been there.
And some of these sites,like they're like, some of
them are even using Unsplashand still performing.
(18:21):
So it baffles me, butwe'll find our angle
and our way through it.
I think there's acouple of spots that are
unfulfilled in my opinion.
Ben Aston (18:29):
Yeah.
And so as you, obviouslyGoogle's telling us that these
first person view perspectivesare super important.
And how do you seeworks and what doesn't
work in travel content?
Have you seen that actuallywork for you that your original
photos and your originalcontent are outperforming
the generic stock stuff?
Or do you actually, yeah...
Kyle Kroeger (18:52):
Yeah.
No, no.
And that's why I always saythe 50,000 photos thing,
because yeah, I guess maybenot yet, but I've done it all.
Like I image objects, Kiba withall the XAF data and metadata
showcasing, like, Hey, I wasactually like, I'm in the museum
and this is literally my photo.
And I even, map it to like myAdobe profile and everything.
(19:14):
And my Flickr and all ofthat, and our images don't
rank and you'll get likesomething you can download
off Shutterstock that'sranking Google image search
in the top three or whatever.
So that part baffles me.
Maybe it'll come around.
I don't know, but more to mypart of like, I would rather
share that then though with myaudience in like our newsletter.
Like here's a pictureof me, like standing
(19:35):
at the Rijksmuseum.
I have seen some new competitionthat have done some cool
things about having like face.
I'm not good withhaving my face in there.
So that's probably a deficiency,but having like your face
in the location, reallydocumented in, in all of the
old tags and descriptions.
Ben Aston (19:51):
Yeah, and going back to building your audience, one
of the things you said was, Ohyeah, we should have probably
should have thought aboutbuilding our list sooner and
being more intentional aboutthat and building on other
channels and not just Google.
Can you share what your biggestscrew up in that process was?
Or what would you do differentlyin 2024 in terms of building
(20:12):
that audience and owning thataudience versus what you've been
doing for the past few years?
Kyle Kroeger (20:17):
Yeah, I think it's playing in
too much to one entity.
I kind of alluded to it earlier.
It's just like, we spentso much time reading every
single thing, creatingcomprehensive checklists,
doing exactly what I was toldand like putting stuff in our
images, creating our images.
Products, like we get productsand do reviews and like we
have unboxing videos, liketesting them and everything
(20:40):
invested a lot in that.
So I wish, yeah, probably lastyear of this time, we would have
been doing what we're doing now.
And one thing I think that alot of publishers always defer
to as when they say kind ofother channels that always
means like social or whatnot.
I think other channelsof commerce or digital
products is very effective.
(21:02):
And I want to really crack itand test it because now you
have so many different commerceplatforms out there that you
can also, you can have it onyour own site, but also multiple
other commerce platforms.
Those are customers that buyfrom you organically there
that become email and canbecome long term readers, and
you can compound that withfreely like opt ins as well.
(21:25):
So I think that's moreeffective where, cause it's
directly tied to revenue.
Ben Aston (21:30):
Yeah, that sounds very sensible.
Tell me a bit about your team.
I know you have a teamof writers that are
creating this content.
But in terms of how youstructure the team as it
does a writers and thenactually getting content on
the page or on the channel.
What does that look like?
What's your team breakdown?
Kyle Kroeger (21:49):
Yeah, we have three editors.
So we have managing editor andthen two editors, one focus on
new content and works directlywith new content writers.
And then we have a revamprenovations team that has an
editor and it's probably asplit of six writers on the
new content side and six onthe revamp side, sometimes
people go switch between.
(22:09):
And then we have differentoperations folks like
quality control checksas well as outreach.
And then we do have aproject manager as well that
manages the operations team.
Ben Aston (22:19):
So yeah, so how big is your team right now
and how much content are youpublishing a month on average?
Kyle Kroeger (22:25):
We're doing about two new articles a day and
one revamp being reformattedback on the site per day.
So that's the runway.
We're still tryingto keep that up.
I think we're maybe paringa little back, that might
change, but trying to findways where we can keep that up.
Current team size,16, 18, I want to say.
It always depends with writersbecause some of the writers
(22:48):
like couple pieces of a monthand then some are like full
in on our content cycle.
Ben Aston (22:54):
And so, and do you calculate and plan ROI
on a per piece of content?
Or how do you think aboutwhat to produce and whether
or not you should or not?
Kyle Kroeger (23:05):
I have no like specific tracking sheet I
should and like should know.
I do use some tools of knowingour numbers, but I don't
have a curve being like,okay, this has been published
for this amount of time.
ROI is this.
We do do like specifictracking, but a check of the
good ones, and then try toiterate, again, and replicate
(23:29):
that same kind of template andalways be improving like the
layout of the page to succeed.
As a finance person, youthink that I would have
that nailed down, butmaybe I have some PTSD.
Ben Aston (23:40):
And tell me a bit about your stack.
What are you publishing on?
And what are some of the toolsyou use through that content
planning, publishing process?
Kyle Kroeger (23:50):
Yeah, so I use, yeah, WordPress and then I'll
have, you know, I have othersites beyond viatravelers.com.
And so I do have Headless ina way that manages all of the
sites into one consolidatedplatform, which is main WP.
It's an open sourcethat aggregates all
of the sites into one.
You can manage all theposts or any admin things.
(24:10):
Use make.com for likeautomation and process flows.
ClickUp for project management.
Affilimate has been greatfor affiliate performance
optimization at the page level.
And also even page experienceto see like heat maps of
where people are dropping off,where people are clicking.
That's been very helpful.
And then obviously some GPT forlike, of course, and integrate
(24:34):
that into make in our projectmanagement to streamline
any ideation that we can.
Ben Aston (24:39):
Cool.
Well, let's close outwith a lightning round,
some quick fire questions.
Tell me what is the best adviceyou think you've ever received?
Kyle Kroeger (24:48):
Just start.
That's been a big thing withme lately is just start.
Yeah, it's two words.
Very simple.
Like yeah, you can never getanything, never get done if
you don't start so just start.
Ben Aston (25:00):
Tell me which of your personal habits do you
think has contributed most toyour success that you've seen?
Kyle Kroeger (25:06):
Yeah, it's a double edged sword, but it's
relentlessness, I guess.
They're like, yeah, persistence.
Yeah.
Won't stop untilit's figured out.
Ben Aston (25:15):
That's cool.
And tell me, I mean, we'vetalked about different tools
that you use, but is there aninternet resource or tool that
you particularly love and thatyou just highly recommend?
Kyle Kroeger (25:25):
Yeah.
I mean, Make has been awhole new thing for me.
I don't know.
I just, I might spend toomuch time on it on start
creating stuff I don'tneed, necessarily need.
So I didn't take astep back from it.
So, but Make, if you'renot familiar, it's like
Zapier and all that.
So just no code kind ofautomation and bringing
all the tools together.
It's big for an entrepreneurand really understanding that
(25:48):
because when you have eightemail accounts and four Slacks
and all of this stuff, it's,that becomes overbearing.
Ben Aston (25:56):
Yeah.
Tell me what book you'drecommend and why.
Kyle Kroeger (26:01):
In a similar vein, I think the reason why
I went to, started getting onthe Make thing is because I
did read this, it's sort oflike a directory book in a way.
Automate the BoringStuff with Python.
So, yeah, I always lovedprocesses and being efficient,
and that opened the door tome of being like, oh, wait,
there's actual tools on yourcomputer that you should be
(26:22):
using to make your life better.
Ben Aston (26:24):
Awesome.
Now you've talked a bit about,I mean, the best advice you
received and just start andbe relentless and that's
being what's propelled you towhere you've got to today, but
for someone at the start oftheir digital media journey,
particularly with regards toaudience building, what's one
piece of advice that you'd give?
Kyle Kroeger (26:41):
Yeah.
Survey a hundred people.
Yeah, get to know peoplewithin that problem right away,
and also just go forward interms of creating something,
who cares about like SEO.
But if you think that it'sgoing, that audience is going
to grow in the future, figureout that problem and create
content around it and ride thatgrowth wave of just that small
(27:04):
sub angle that is a problem.
Just that small sub angle.
You can ride if, yeah,that's all you need.
And you figure out thatand that it's a lot easier.
Ben Aston (27:13):
Yeah, I think that's super sound advice
because, yeah, as the worldof SERP changes and generic
content becomes completelycommoditized as ChatGPT can
spin out generic content allday long, being really clear
about who we're writing forand who our audience are is I
think the most important thing.
(27:33):
Because the reality is, is thatthese kind of generic sites
that are producing contentfor everyone and no one at the
same time, I think are goingto fade into the background and
what we'll see is the emergenceof hyper niche publishers
and content that targetsto a really clear audience.
And when you have an audience,there's all kinds of ways
(27:54):
that you can monetize that.
Whether that is through display,or affiliate, or product, as
you've been talking about today.
So, super helpful advice.
Thanks for that.
Now, Kyle, just as we finish,tell people yeah, where can
people find out more aboutyou and what you're up to?
Kyle Kroeger (28:08):
Yeah, you can obviously follow us
on LinkedIn, Kyle Kroeger,you can check me out.
We'd love to connect.
ViaTravelers.com is anopt in for our newsletter.
We'd love to interact withyou if anyone likes to
travel as much as we do.
So I'm on there and thenalso you'll see me on
socials every once in awhile @viatravelers for all
the social media accounts.
Yeah, Instagram, Facebook,all of the good stuff.
(28:31):
So there you can seemy stuff in real time.
Ben Aston (28:34):
Awesome.
And Kyle offered, very kindly,if anyone is ever going to
Amsterdam, ping Kyle andhe'll take you on a tour.
But you have to use the magicpassword "Indie Media Club", um,
so Kyle knows you're a listener.
Thank you so much forjoining us today, it's been
great having you with us.
Kyle Kroeger (28:52):
Yeah, thanks for having me on Ben, this was fun.
Ben Aston (28:55):
And if you like what you heard today,
please subscribe and stayin touch on indiemedia.club.
And please, leave us areview on iTunes too.
But until next time,thanks for listening.
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