Building a Content Marketing Flywheel — Fares Ksebati, MySwimPro

Bought a domain (myswimpal.com) and built a page with a mockup of the app, four value propositions and an email capture to 'download' the app. Searched Twitter for people tweeting about swimming, favorited their tweets and DMed them the URL (today the equivalent would be Instagram DMs). Principle: put the screen you want to test in front of paid or free traffic and measure demand.

From 2015 wrote about one article a week answering basic swimming questions people search Google for (how to do a flip turn, improve freestyle technique/efficiency). Picked topics from keyword tools and from the questions users sent by email and WhatsApp. Kept it a continuous weekly routine for years.

The founder's phone number was in every automated email, so users sent the same questions by email and WhatsApp daily. Instead of copy-pasting answers, he explained swimming terms on a whiteboard on camera, then made it a weekly 15-minute series, 'Whiteboard Wednesday'. Every Wednesday at a WeWork: pick a topic, draft, film, edit and publish the same day, then write the blog post and email from what he said. Treats YouTube as the second-biggest search engine.

Created an account on every channel early (Twitter first, Snapchat later dropped, TikTok from 2019). Each long-form YouTube video is split into multiple shorter versions and posts per channel; what works differs by platform (some cuts work on TikTok but not Reels). ~7,000 Instagram posts. Goal is to be 'everywhere, all the time' where people spend their phone time; takes more manpower.

Once long-form viewership was large enough, turned on YouTube AdSense on both the founder's and the company's channels and began taking brand deals (mid-video sponsor segments), which pay more than AdSense because of audience trust. A part-time, commission-only person manages inbound brand deals for the founder and the company.

For ~2 years the founder did everything. 2018: first hire (now VP of marketing) took over the blog and email; then a video editor took editing so the founder only concepts, films and reviews. Now: filming on location (pool deck, swim camps) with a videographer, ~2 weeks to publish, two full-time editors managed by the VP of marketing, a part-time commission brand-deal manager, and a social media poster.

Every video has at least a minor CTA (a sentence or on-screen note), but ~30% have a solid 60+ second integration where the app screen is shown while teaching. Best format is a story series: a 5-part series training for the Masters World Championships using the app (app on screen ~30% of the time), 30-days-straight and mile-a-day-for-100-days challenges. Answer the viewer's actual question first (e.g. flip turn), then mention the app where relevant. Content must educate, entertain or inspire.

The company YouTube channel runs 'gold medal moments': stories of users who, for example, lost 100 pounds or did extreme swims at 67, showing they used the MySwimPro app to get there.

Uses App Store custom product page URLs, a different one for YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and the website, to measure leads and attribute revenue per channel. Also surveys subscribers and free users on how they learned about the app (not in onboarding).

Three rounds of paid acquisition at different stages, in-house and with agencies, at different prices and download conversion rates. The first two lacked analytics to know what spend (e.g. $1,500) produced and did not iterate on creatives fast enough, so money burned before winners were found. Small budgets are also disadvantaged by ad algorithms. The third round has the best analytics infrastructure so far.

Attends swimming events and now hosts swim camps (also used as filming locations for content). Exploring partnerships to get a presence at pools.

Started free, then $10/month (copying what fitness apps charged), then added a yearly plan around $100, raised to $120, then $180. About eight price points over the app's life, each run for 3-6 months, with ongoing A/B tests. The app was improved continuously at the same time.

After hearing the Ladder founder on Sub Club, sent the four-question price sensitivity survey (too cheap / cheap / expensive / too expensive) to free members and to paid members; plotted the four lines and read the ideal range between them. Plan: add packages and tiers for the high-willingness segment instead of one A/B-test-winning price for everyone.

Launched free in 2015; in 2016 added a $10/month subscription and paywalled some of the free workout categories, and over the years moved more free features behind the paywall.

In 2016 went through a University of Michigan accelerator (open to non-alumni), raising $50,000. Gains: customer discovery skills, mentor network, and forced repetition of a short pitch ending in a 3-5 minute demo-day pitch. Recommended for first-time founders or when the program's focus (e.g. health and wellness) matches the app; less useful for mature companies.

After the accelerator, ran several equity crowdfunding rounds instead of traditional VC.

Testing in-app invites and promotions that give power users a reason to invite others, because organic App Store traffic has plateaued.