Q2 2019 Progress
At the beginning of Q2 we set the following three goals and used them as a compass to prioritise our work over the last three months. The following is a brief snapshot of how well we did:
Make Timbuktu the best safari planning experience
We recently launched transfers, allowing travellers to easily decide how they want to travel from A to B based on time and cost with options including car, plane, boat and even helicopter! This was driven by regular customer feedback from travellers who wanted to have transparency and control during the trip planning process that extended to transfers.
Trip Ideas was another huge milestone in the last quarter. The tool gives a clearer indication of the cost of different trips across Africa by allowing travellers to quickly and easily choose multiple lodges at their preferred budget level. Their recommended trip is then auto-populated with the accommodation that best fits their style and preference.
Our Africa travel experts have been writing Insider Tips & Advice for our lodges across Africa. The aim of this high-level content is to help our travellers easily decide where to stay, and we have titled the snippets of information: ‘What you’ll love’, ‘Insider’s tip’ and ‘Something to think about.’ You can see an example for Chinzombo Safari Camp here. We’re hugely proud of this additional content and we strongly believe it will make the sometimes tricky dilemma of which lodges to choose that much easier.
Whilst continuing to innovate, we are also continuing our weekly feedback sessions with our customers to hear how we can improve. These sessions have proven invaluable in helping us build the best product for our travellers and make travel to Africa easier. If you’ve got 30-45 minutes spare we’d love to hear your ideas too! Book a feedback session.
Increase revenue
We achieved our record in sales in April (which was also one of our most profitable months of all time). However May and June saw a slight dip. This was partly due to the seasonal fluctuation but also as a result of a landing page experiment which, despite increasing email conversion, led to a decrease in the number of qualified leads.
Over the past three months, we have focused on ramping up the number of qualified leads through our new optimised landing pages. The total number of leads increased by 172% over June and has more than doubled since April, with a large increase driven by search tactics and the addition of Facebook campaigns late last month.
We also launched a new video campaign on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in order to expand our market penetration and increase brand awareness in a targeted and trackable way.
We have recently partnered with several online blogs that have embedded the Timbuktu widget into their articles. The partnerships are based on an affiliate, revenue share model and allow their customer base to easily plan safaris across Africa.
Close our next round of fundraising
We’ve got some great new investors on board and are currently finalising our next round of fundraising. The new injection of capital will enable us to reach our next big milestones sooner and we’re really excited about the months ahead.
Q3 and beyond
We’ve got some very exciting developments in the pipeline in the coming months including the launch of Special Offers, which will make it easier than ever for our travellers to access unique deals across Africa and use them to plan their own dream trip. Watch this space….
This is just a high level overview of what we’ve been working on at Timbuktu HQ. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or would like to hear more!
