I'm a sucker for fresh ideas, and this is the most unique marketing case study that's come across my desk in ages. In december 2023 Nadine Netherly turned heads with a holiday themed scavenger hunt on her website, aptly named I've elfed myself, the concept nine hidden treasures tucked across her website that had her audience clicking hunting and completely hooked in just 24 days, Nadine grew her list by 50% generated $9,000 in revenue from 68 buyers, and secured two new clients, all without spending a dime on ads.
This innovative marketing campaign also unlocked long term wins, including word of mouth buzz around the scavenger hunt experience in communities outside of her own inbound summit and podcast invitations and a surge in both site sessions and engagement time on her site. Hello, Google optimization. Let's break down the data driven strategies behind nadine's festive marketing magic and the ripple effects it continues to create for her brand.
Welcome to Cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host Ellen Yin, every Monday, go behind the business in a case study style interview with a leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it and what the results and revenue were. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Today I am joined by Nadine Netherly, who is- we were just joking about this coming to us from the future. It's already a Friday morning where, where she is. Nadine, welcome to our show.
Thanks so much for having me. Ellen, I've been a long time listener, long term fan girl. Love everything you do, so I'm super honored to be able to share my little behind the scenes case study.
Well, I'm so encouraged by you know, everything that you shared prior to the interview. I just want you all who are listening to know you are in for a real treat, because Nadine showed up with all of the data, all of the stats for you guys. So this is going to be a really juicy case study, and honestly, one of my favorites that I've recorded in a long time. As soon as I discovered this, this product or experience, if you will, that we're going to be covering in today's case study, I immediately slacked our producer Sabrina, and I was like, we have to have Nadine on the show to talk about this.
So here is a little preview for you all of what we're going to be chatting about today. So Nadine hosted a scavenger hunt promo in December of 2023 from the first through the 24th that resulted in 567 new email subscribers. So that's about a 50% list growth from what what she had previously. 68 digital product sales, one new client project and one new member. So a total revenue injection of $9,180 all in that month, completely organically, by the way, all dollars referenced in this episode today are AUD. So just a heads up for any listeners. Now, before we get into the rest of this case study, Nadine, I have to hear your cubicle the CEO story. How did you make the leap into entrepreneurship?
Yeah. So it's pretty common, unfortunately, for far too many women. So I started in a cubicle, open space office for a major global corporation. Worked in corporate comms, NPR, in corporate sales. So several jobs, but 10 years across the board, and while I was based in a cubicle, I also traveled around the world, around Australia to product launches, to launch fancy, fancy new vehicles, to motor shows, stayed in fancy hotels. So it was really the dream gig, you know, pitching products to automotive journalists publication. I absolutely adored my job. And yeah, really was living the dream, what it felt like at the time.
So I fell pregnant with bub number two, had everything lined up with said corporation to go on med, leave, come back on a part time basis after and then had a phone call from HR, when Bub was three months old, telling me I was no longer required. So that was a huge shock to the system, as you can imagine. You know, hormones were fluctuating anyway, I really started to question everything about myself. You know, was it me? Had I done something? It was just an overall terrible time.
But what I worked out at the time, so in the end. Really thankful for it is that I just never wanted to be a number in the corporate system again, and so it sent me on this soul searching journey. How can I apply my sales skills, my marketing skills, my corporate com skills, to small business? Because ultimately, I felt I could make a far bigger impact on a small scale, supporting primarily women as well, who had experienced similar similar stories, similar faiths along the way, and had to start again and build a passion project based on something they had experienced. So it took me a little while to get there, so didn't know what that would look like to begin with. Had to pay some bills, so went back into full time employment and started a side gig in 2017 after I took a content marketing course.
So I thought, you know, content marketing at the time, Instagram had still organic reach. Everything was glorious. I really enjoyed writing, obviously coming from a PR background, so thought I just dive into all things content marketing. And part of that, course that I did, was a module on copywriting, and that's what it dawned. Oh, my God. I love writing. I love words, I love languages. So how can I turn this into something that not only earns me a living, but also supports those fellow female business owners. So took on clients. Luckily, had a friend at the time who was running Australia's largest baby Expo.
And, you know, women support each other, thankfully. So she was giving me opportunities to start blogging for them, supporting their vendors with content creation. And ultimately, that led to some of those vendors coming to me for support outside of this particular baby Expo. And so yeah, quickly it came to the point where my full time gig and the side hustle really started to compete with each other. I also fell pregnant with number three, and really took that as that decision point, you know, like, I'll just go all in see what happens. The worst case scenario is I just find another job, if it doesn't work out.
But thankfully, yeah, I am here it is. What is it? 2025 now, can't keep track, and I've never looked back. So nowadays, I support my customers in a copywriting capacity, but I've also started to heavily lean into customer experience, something, as you will find out, I'm heavily leaning into myself inside my business. But yeah, I really love supporting my customers with some really infusing elements of surprise and delight in every brand, touch more touch point, and really creating remarkable customer experiences.
So something that really grabs someone's attention, because, let's face it, it seems like creativity is dead. Everyone jumps on the same trends. There are the same reels out there. It is really hard to stand out and grab someone's attention in someone's inbox on your website, so I'm really trying to create those opportunities for my customers so people pay attention, and people open their emails, and people love hearing from them, because they never know what to expect.
Well, you know, obviously it's very devastating how you lost your job originally, and I'm sure there's so many women listening to this podcast, especially here in the United States, where we have even less rights and parental privileges. I'm sure that can relate to what you went through. So I'm so sorry that happened to you.
But to your point, I really feel like you're such a great exemplification of turning your mess into your message and your feeling of never wanting to be just another number to someone or a cog in a corporate wheel, I think carries through so much in your work today and how audience centric both your copywriting and, of course, the customer experience strategy side of your Business is, and so I think that's a beautiful thing.
And I'm really excited to especially dive into the customer experience side in in your case study, the first thing I kind of wanted to just ask you about this whole scavenger hunt idea, right? Because it's so novel, it's so fun, it's so playful, I guess, is like, the best word I would use to describe it kind of just harkens back to childhood and and whatnot. The theme that you had for this, this promo was, I've elved myself, so I just wanted to know, how did you come up with the concept for a treasure hunt, scavenger hunt of sorts, and with, I know this happened during, you know, Christmas time, so obviously the elf theme times ties in there.
But is there also any sort of inspiration that was drawn from the popularity of the Elf on the Shelf toy and it moving around and just curious?
No, but I love that. It really just came about a few months earlier, probably I started thinking about, what can I do to round off the year i. Um, in probably sort of October, early October, I would say, looking back, and I personally have never jumped on the Black Black Friday bandwagon. So in Australia, it's still quite a new concept, like it's getting bigger and bigger every year. But yeah, 2023 was sort of, I think, the first year that it really blew up here. But I personally just didn't resonate with it. Didn't feel right.
And I know personally my inbox blows up and I just go, delete, delete, delete. So again, to the theme of standing out and not disappearing among all the other things, I just really knew that I wanted to do something, something different, so something that would light me up, that I was really invested in and really excited about, but also that my audience would be delighted to participate in.
And looking back to 2023 I know the theme continued in 24 but it was just a really hard year, like roller coaster, really unpredictable when it came to personally. Anyway, my my client flows, or some months were huge. Others were really quiet, where it was questioning everything I was doing.
So I just felt like, let's have some fun. Let's round it off on a high note, and hopefully take my audience along for the ride. And a lot of them happened to be small business owners, so I knew they would totally jump on this and get some some fun from it too. So I just really felt like scavenger hunt. I don't even know where it came from. It just popped up and I went, this is perfect, because it is just not only creative, but it's also super strategic and engages people with my brand, with my content, and looking back, as you said, it really comes from the childhood so I've always loved Easter Easter egg hunts, finding those treasures, remembering the dopamine hit that comes from, you know, being the first and beating your sister to to that best Egg.
So, yeah, it just really spiraled from there. Once I had the initial concept, the initial idea, it only took three weeks from settling on it and launching it to my affiliates, my list, my audience, and implementing it on the website. Because thankfully, it's not very techy. I'm not very techie myself, so if I can pull it off, anyone can do it.
Well, that's encouraging and impressive. By the way, anything that goes from idea to launch in three weeks is definitely no small feat, right? To overlook for those of our listeners who didn't get to experience the magic for themselves when it was live, can you share just a high level overview of the premise of this treasure hunt before we dive into the execution side of things.
So walk us through, you know, from December 1 through 24th I believe there were nine hidden gems on your website. What were these hidden gems? How do people find or redeem them?
Yeah, so I kept it pretty simple. So again, looking back, I've had some ideas. If I run it again, I might experiment. But first time around, I thought, let's keep it easy. So what I did, as he said, I elf myself. So jumped into Canva, came up with some super easy graphics. So me with a Santa hat, and whipped up, literally, an email banner, an Instagram story for myself, but also for my affiliates. And, yeah, that was basically it.
And what I did is I had a pop up box on my home page. So no matter which page you landed on, you had a little pop up box that told you that, hey, I've Ellen myself, if you managed to find me hidden among you. Know, on various pages of my website, you are treated to a little, little hidden gem, little surprise and delight, a reward. And that was it. I literally then hid said little Nadine elf in very strategic places across my website.
And once people clicked on the elf, it took them to a special offer redemption page where it told them, you know, the discount, the freebie, the reward they had seen, and then they could redeem it from there. And that was it, pretty low tech, pretty easy, but very efficient.
So fun. Okay, so you have, I'm imagining this image of you dressed up as like an elf with your Santa hat. So you kind of just took that graphic you created in Canva and shrunk it, I'm assuming, to make it maybe Was it, was it meant to be a little bit harder to find? Or did you kind of make it pretty obvious if someone landed on a page like, there's me, you know, a big picture of me as an elf somewhere.
Oh, small ish, because I did want people to engage with my page and, you know, be pointed at self approve. So, you know, scroll across testimonials also engage with my office they potentially didn't know existed. So I think it had the perfect balance between being obvious enough for people to find. It, but hard enough so people actually had to click around and engage with my with my website content, sorry.
So smart and so smart. The strategic placement too, right? Like hiding it in a weed of of testimonials or whatnot. I understand, like, how the the process worked for for the user, but on the tech side of things, I know you said you're not very techy, and obviously all of our listeners are on different platforms, so this may not apply exactly, but can you share just maybe two or three examples of where you hid your little elf self? And for example, like, was it in a headline and you just like, inserted an image next to a piece of text? Or was it like embedded in some sort of video link, like any any examples would be helpful.
Absolutely. So I'm personally on show it, which makes it super easy to drag and drop, no coding. You can just pop the elf anywhere. So that made it super simple. And yeah, I mentioned I was very strategic. So one elf, for example, was on my about page, so I wanted people to find out who I am, but I he did on the about page in just above the banner that highlighted the amazing clients I've supported. So I wanted people to go she's worked with, x, y, z, great. I also he did on my brand new membership.
So I had just launched my membership a few months before, so a lot of people had no idea. So on the membership page sort of midway through. So people actually had to, again, engage with the with the page, find out about the membership. It was on my, I think yours, for a day, which is like a an intensive day service on that page, right above a testimonial, which is like a really grabbing, attention grabbing testimonial. So they were, yeah, across key pages of my website, offer pages, and really worked a treat.
And you had a mix like you referenced of different rewards that they would reveal things like discounts or freebies, whatnot, if you remember, off the top of your head, the actual nine gems, could you just quickly run us through the list of what you offered?
Oh, I need to have a look. So there was two $9 offers I've got. So the website workflow, which you know, helps you build your own website and screenshot savvy. So these are two $9 offers that I usually, over the past few months as well, have contributed to bundles. So there's sort of freebies that really hook people on my teaching style, which was the whole intention.
So those I gave away for free to, yeah, introduce people to to my thoughts, my opinions, and hopefully get them to purchase more after I also had it, had a discount on the membership so people could join for 50% off the first month, which someone did as well, and that person is still inside my membership.
And for reference here, so it's not a low ticket membership, it's one on one. Support involve Voxer days every month. So it has had a big impact financially on my business, and seeing that they're still here every year after is amazing. There also was a Voxer day of office hours with me. So at the time, the only way to get access to me via Voxer was inside my membership. But I thought again, you know, introduce people to what that can look like.
So hopefully I can then plug the membership off the back of that that was really popular and had let me have a look on my stats, which I've got on the screen here. 56 people sign up. Out of those 56 people, 10 actually interacted with me on the day, which was fun, manageable, and yeah, really just reinforced how much I loved chatting to people on Voxer. There was also my wow factor blueprint for course creators, which was discounted, the case study, cool toolkit was discounted. Maybe, look how much was that? 2345, I can't remember the other ones, but they're all low ticket low ticket offers.
So the highest priced digital product offers $290 so there was, yeah, those freebies, discounts and the box a day off office hours. And the whole thought process behind that really was, again, I didn't want to simply sell I wanted to actually reward people and get people into my world as a little reward. And funnily enough, I came across a Facebook post in inside, like a really engaged Facebook community, where someone posted about, you know, what's, what's happening with 12 days of Christmas?
You know, all these posts like my inbox is blowing up, is creativity dead? And it had 64 comments of people going, yeah, and you know, they're all telling you, you're getting gifts, but they're actually not gifts. They're all discounts. People just want to see. Well. So that was the whole thought process. Yes, obviously, I'm a business owner. I really wanted to finish the year with a nice little income boost, but I totally wanted to introduce people to my universe, even if they weren't ready to buy, particularly off the back of Black Friday, where a lot of people would have just spent a whole bunch of money on other things. So, yeah, that was the thought process at blend off freebies, one on one, interactions with me and discounts.
Well, I think that's a very wise long term approach, right? And speaks to your dedication to the holistic customer experience for the the products that you did actually offer discounts on, do you remember how steep of a discount you offered, or what you found people tended to maybe gravitate more towards versus, you know, another?
Yeah, they definitely gravitated towards the lower priced products. Because, as I said, you know, end of Black Friday, the timing wasn't perfect, but it just shows shot again. You know people, especially people who are new to your universe, still ideally want to get to know you before, so you can throw discounts at them, but there is still that barrier of, yes, it's fun. There's a discount. I don't know that person. I'm just not going to go for it.
So yeah, the lower priced the digital product was, the higher the sales were, and I offered 50% off, which was pretty good, but yeah, it just showed that people do need interactions with you. You need to build that trust and really introduce them traditionally and creatively and intentionally to your to your world before they're ready to buy.
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Absolutely and what is always really surprising, I think, to a lot of people who maybe haven't played as much in the low ticket product range, is the the acceleration in the timeline in which someone can buy, let's say, a $7 or $27 product, and then a send to purchasing, you know, a Multi $1,000 offer on their very next transaction with you happens a lot more frequently, I think, than people even realize.
And so it really isn't, I don't think, an indication of someone's purchasing power if they buy, you know, small from you at first. It really is, to your point, a test of sorts to see, like, is this person trustworthy? Do I like their teaching style, or, you know, any other number of factors. So I think that's an excellent reminder for our listeners. Let's get a little bit into the prep period. Now. You mentioned you went from idea to launch in three weeks, so looking back, did you feel that was ample time, or was it rushed, simply because of circumstance and it being the first time, and what were some of the moving pieces that you had to coordinate during this prep window, because I know you mentioned that it wasn't just you who was promoting this. You also had, I believe, about 10 affiliates who participated in this with you.
Yeah, no. Three weeks was plenty. I'm very logical. I'm originally from Germany, so it's the efficiency. Everything's, you know, in a box, everything's pre planned. So there was a lot of just preparing. So I had, you know, all the elves on the page, but hid them. So on the day that I went live, on the first of December, all I had to do was just, you know, unhide them in and show it. So it was all linked up, all ready to go. All the pages were built. I had a little tracker, because just keeping track of where the elves are, what the offer is, what needs to happen, what's linking to where was somewhat challenging.
So that was really handy, also briefing the affiliate. So nowadays I. Have just under 100 affiliates, so results probably would have looked different as well. Plus, I'm a bit more strategic, but it really I wanted to give them as much lead time as possible, because realizing they just likely promoted other people, people's office. So I really needed to make it juicy enough for them to promote this particular promo, because, let's face it, the return was pretty uncertain for people, because I'm not selling a certain one product, so I couldn't guarantee a certain return. The cookie period really helped.
So 60 days from purchase, or, you know, like their first conversion, and, yeah, 10 people participated. They loved it, which is great, because, again, you know, like, you don't want to promote the same office to your audience. If you have something different, something noteworthy, that you promote to your audience, it makes you look, you know, amazing too, because you're pointing people into something, you know, towards something remarkable. So briefing the affiliates really was important.
So I came up with some swap copies, some graphics they could use. Looking back, I wish I had some sort of challenge link to it where, you know, whoever sent the most sign ups the most conversions my way gets a little incentive. I've just done that for my promo December this year, and that worked a treat. But yeah, apart from that, it felt pretty doable, pretty relaxed. It just meant you had to be organized. So I pre built everything, and then on the first of December, you only had to put it live. And then during December, what I did is just post a few times on social media, email my list a few times. And that was it.
Kept it simple. I love that. We love simplicity around here with the affiliates, did you keep the commission split the same percentage across all paid offers? And if so, what was that? And then for the rewards that were not monetary. So like the $9 products that you discounted to free for this time window, were affiliates compensated in any way for sending, let's say, new opt ins to those things that didn't necessarily result in an immediate sale.
Yeah. So they received the same commission, 30% on the purchase price. And my $9 products that I had in this particular promotion were also, you know, leads to leading into my membership. So down the track. If I promoted the membership and people joined that, that would have meant, so for the membership, it's 20% recurring commission down the track so they weren't compensated for the free sign ups, but still be 60 days cookie period. There was always the chance people converted down the track.
Awesome. And then I'm curious, when you announced this to your audience, like via email and on social, did you disclose up front that there were nine hidden gems, so people could, kind of like, check off their list that they found all nine of you. Or was it more like they kind of didn't really know how many were actually on your website? And if so, did anyone actually email in saying, Hey, I'm having trouble finding, like, this particular one. I'm just kind of curious how that that feedback went.
Yeah, so I didn't tell anyone where they were or how many were hidden. What I did update halfway through, because I thought, let's make it a little bit easy. I added a button to that pop up on my website that took them to the first hidden gem, the first, you know, reward, again, making it easy and getting them started. And I made it one of the $9 freebies, so they didn't start with a discount, but were rewarded straight away with something free, something highly valuable. Yeah. So that really increased conversions.
Looking back, I would probably look at rotating things or launching new gems, new surprises, across the website, throughout the promotion, to keep up the momentum. Again, you live and learn. But it worked really well. And the good thing is, I actually got responses from people who said, I just checked out your website again, I set myself a reminder, because I didn't have enough time to find all of them.
So I'm back, and, you know, it's so much fun. The responses and conversations I had during December were so rewarding and so heartwarming, because, yeah, people took the time to give me feedback and tell me how amazing it is and how clever it is, and how strategic and how they thought, you know, wish they thought of it so it created so many conversations. And a lot of those people who took the time to reply to my emails or added little notes even in their purchases for me, inside their address, you know, best thing ever. It's the first time I actually had a conversation with them.
So it took this element of surprise and delight for them to engage with my emails, and a lot of them are still responding and interacting with my emails nowadays, so it sort of acted like an icebreaker. They now felt they know me on a personal level. You know, it's that excuse to actually start the conversation. And yeah, so good.
Absolutely, I can see how that would be such an easy entry way to, like you said, kick off a conversation, and then to your point, when someone is used to, I guess, behaving in a certain way or having some sort of established relationship, it feels less scary to initiate or to continue to respond.
So I love that you were able to get new connections made out of existing people who are already part of your ecosystem as well. Since people didn't know that there were nine gems, and that was not disclosed during this promo window, do you have any insights or data on how many people actually successfully found and opted into all nine gems? I don't think anyone got all nine. Maybe that's the goal for next time I love that exactly, it's good.
There's still stuff to, you know, check out. So no one found all of them, but feedback I've had is even one or two little gems were enough for them to really enjoy it. And even people who didn't purchase and didn't didn't buy, just loved checking out the concept, questioning how I pulled it off, how it works, the logistics. You know, there's a lot of people that jumped on my website simply to have a look.
Observe what's going on. Yeah, well, now you can send them to this case study interview. All the details are here for them. Easy access. Awesome. So with this promo running almost an entire month, you know, from the first leading up to Christmas Eve, I know you alluded to this a moment ago that you know, looking back, you might have done things a little bit differently, maybe like releasing drip, releasing the gem, so that momentum kept up.
But was there anything else that you noticed either continued momentum throughout the 24 day window, or that looking back, you're like, Ooh, I wish I had done this to kind of prevent any fatigue from setting in and keeping people excited and engaged throughout the entire, you know, three week window.
I probably should have promoted more. So I'm still learning that, you know, people can always opt out. So I gave people the option to opt out of this particular promotion, but I don't think I emailed enough. So I wish I had just sent more emails about it, different angles, you know, even teasing what's hidden on the website.
Because I, yeah, I didn't really lead on what they can find. The other thing I wish I had done slightly different angle, but I didn't actually track properly who came into my universe via this promotion, so I actually have, unfortunately no way of tracking in one glance who went on to purchase from me, even though they might not have purchased during December. So repeat purchases, all that stuff, simply because I was on a different email platform and it didn't integrate with Thrive cards. So complexities there.
So I wish I had been on my current email platform to just automate everything and be able to tell you, you know, how many went on to buy the second time, third time, and how much that actually has impacted my bottom line over the past 12 months, since, since running it. So, yeah, that's one lesson learned, right? Always be able to track and implement the, you know, the tracking tools.
Right? There's never regret, I think, at having more data so you can always not use it, but to collect it, I think, is always key so, and I mean, that's really the benefit of listening into, you know, interviews like this is our our guests get to share their mistakes, so that other people who you know, borrow inspiration, can hopefully start one step ahead.
So I really appreciate your vulnerability there. So another thing, as you're looking back, would you say, if you were to repeat this again, that you still would keep that same length of time in terms of the first the 24th would you shorten it and even with the hidden gems? Do you feel like it was the right quantity nine or would you do more? Would you do less? Any thoughts around timeline and number of rewards?
Yeah, so timeline, I think I would totally adjust it based on the occasion that I run it for. So you know, there are so many opportunities in your business outside of seasonal campaigns to tap into this strategy. So if I, for example, launched a new website, I would run it shorter. Let's go with seven days, and potentially even, you know, reduce the number of gems just to have people engage with my website. So if it's not a you. Primarily money, driving exercise, totally make it shorter, increase the impact within that shorter window.
But yeah, first, the 24th worked a treat. So I thought that was That was perfect. So really, as a quick tip, here, always start with you know your audience. You know your audience best. What they're responding to best, whether they stay engaged for a longer time, whether they really need a quick hit. Also have a look at opportunities in your business. Anniversaries, as I said, website launches, rebrands, these are the perfect opportunities to create high impact, surprise and delight. Delight opportunities like these ones.
So yeah, everything really depends on your audience, the occasion, and also what type of products you have in your business. So you don't want to give everything away for free. If you only have a handful of low ticket products, you probably don't want to discount all of them and give all of them away.
So really have a look at your office suite. What makes sense, you can also pre launch. For example, you know, give pre launch access to something you're about to launch. That's a great incentive to give exclusive access to people who find it on on your website as part of that scavenger hunt. So there's endless opportunities. And really depends on your brand, your audience, all the things.
Great tips for customizing to each each person's business. Did you feel like for your own offers, that the ratio of free offers to paid, discounted offers really hit the spot? Or would you change that mix next time?
Yeah, I think it worked a treat. As I said, the conversion rates for those $9 low ticket items, which really are semi freebies. Let's face it, you know, they're not money generating products. They converted really well, whereas after Black Friday, the chances of monetizing this promotion in a big way were pretty skim anyway, so I would stick with that split potentially create more opportunities for exclusive access to me, which obviously needs to be scalable, because you never know how many people engage with it.
So something like Vox, a day of office hours, works a treat, potentially running two and really just creating opportunities for your audience to engage with you, even if they're not ready to buy and yeah, people are going to listen to what you have to say after coming into your world this way, guarantee you.
Yeah, and I, I totally agree. I think it really is about just giving them an opportunity to interact with you and in some form. So I think those were great tips. We did reference some of your wins at the top of this episode, the immediate wins, right, the 50% list growth, the $9,000 cash boost, 70 customers or sales that came through during this window. But the After Effects, that's, I think another really exciting part of this promotion that goes, like you said, beyond the revenue, beyond making this a money making moment.
So these additional After Effects, you had three summits, invite you to speak, and then three podcast invitations, including this one. I mean, that's how I kind of, I mean, technically, I first discovered you because you joined a peer mastermind that I'm also part of. But it is this particular promotion that really caught my attention and made me immediately want to bring you on as a podcast guest. So I'm curious, how did these other opportunities come about? Were they all inbound invites? Did you pitch this idea as like a unique strategy that you could share on these platforms? Or what was the was the genesis of those, those?
Yeah, yes, it was a mix of both. One of the summit invites. Summits was an invite. The other two are pitched. I'm a huge fan of pitching, whether it's podcasts or summits, if you don't put yourself out there, you know, people usually don't come to you. So, you know, step up. Just present your ideas. So I was pretty certain, after lending the first yes for a summit speaking opportunity, that this is something that resonated with people, because it's different. It's not your usual summit topic or even podcast topic. You know, I had the data to back it up.
So every time I pitched, I made sure I could give the substance like I did to your producer. So yeah, it just is a great angle, and it is a great way into my way of thinking and how I approach my business and my client projects as well. So that was a huge benefit. The other benefit coming, you know, stepping away from some of those visibility opportunities is also just brand awareness. Like, people found out about me a lot of people. So people who participated in the scavenger hunt dropped my name in Facebook communities where people went, Oh, my God, this is awesome. Like, sent me the link.
So even non affiliates were. Sharing about the promotion, and it just puts you out there as someone to watch, someone who does things differently, and someone who really infuses emulsion into the customer experience, which is so important. So it helped me stand out for the right reasons. It also increased my website traffic, which is great for Google. Google loves good stats and really looks at you as someone to watch and a trustworthy business compared to December 2022 because you don't need to compare like for like, I had an increase of 32.9% in engaged sessions per user, so users actually engaging with my content, which is huge, and the engagement time also increased by 10% which means people were spending more time on my website because they were obviously looking for things.
And so that was a nice side effect, which, you know, increases your domain authority with Google, and ultimately shows you towards the top for search results. So yeah, apart from the short term impact, I honestly believe still working for me today in my business.
So smart. Do you feel like the increase in time spent on your website has carried over even beyond December, like because people kind of got again in the habit of maybe spending a little bit more time going through your different web pages. Do you feel like, even now, people that average time spent on website is still higher, maybe than it was previous to you ever doing this promotion?
I haven't checked that, to be honest, but yeah, I do a pretty good job without tipping the Hornet, drawing people in. So my website's got a whole bunch of destinations worth worth checking out. So interesting stat, I actually need to check that out because I'm curious now.
Well, that's a great teaser for our listeners. Go check out Nadine website regardless of whether this promotion is going on, because you'll probably just want to snoop around and kind of see, see how she's set that up. I want to wrap up this case study with just kind of more of like a future thinking question. I know you've done, you know, a similar promotion again in your business, but would you ever try this scavenger hunt concept on a completely different medium altogether? So instead of hosting it on your website, per se, doing hidden gems, like on a social media profile, or maybe even hidden within, like an email series. Just curious. If that's crossed your mind,
No, it hasn't, but I love it. I have to have a look at it. I've done similar things in my emails, where people sort of go, you know, it's like, choose your own adventure type thing, where you know, if you click here or there, and then, based on their behavior, I take them deep into these adventures. But yeah, I need to, need to see how I can pull this off. I'm definitely going to run another scavenger hunt on my website in a different capacity, because I'm curious to gather new data around, you know, changing up a few things. So yeah, that's definitely on the cards. But I've always got creative different things in the making. My brain never stops.
Same. It's always too many ideas, not enough times absolutely can relate to the struggles so much. Well, Nadine, this has been incredibly helpful, and again, one of the most creative case studies that I've come across recently, and so I really appreciate you taking the time to break down the whole execution, bringing all of the numbers to the table for our listeners. Where can our people continue to connect with you?
And there's actually, like, I believe, another creative product you've tested tested recently that you want to share with our listeners as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So you can check out my website, see what's happening there. Can do content.com. I'm also on Instagram at can do content, but if you want to find out more about seasonal campaigns like this one, this scavenger hunt idea, you can get your hands on mastering CX, which is a private podcast with 24 bite sized episodes, which started surprise surprise as another seasonal campaign that I ran from the first to 24th of December in 2024 so just gone where people got daily bite sized episodes, all about the customer experience and how you can create a remarkable one before, during and after the purchase.
And I've now turned it into something you can always sign up to. So if you want to check it out and get your 25 tips for your own customer experience, you can do that via the link in the show notes.
So good, by the way. I subscribed to this private podcast when it first launched as an advent calendar style audio feed, and I, again, just loved the concept, loved the experiential aspect of that.
But seriously, if you were wowed by nadine's brain and creativity in this case study, then you get 24 more of. It was in this in this podcast, this private podcast, so that link to download mastering CX experience and all of the other links mentioned social and website will be below in the show notes. So make sure you check that out. Say hi to Nadine and connect.
Thank you again for joining us today, and we'll catch all of you in the next episode.
If you love today's episode, send it to a friend. Tag us on Instagram at Cubicle to CEO, or give us a five star rating at rate this podcast.com/cubicletoceo you can also access bonus episodes on our private podcast by joining the C-Suite, our flagship annual membership providing exclusive cash savings content and an offline community for small business CEOs, check out the link in the show notes to join us.
