Here we break down how a ‘dream job’ style campaign helped our client build backlinks specifically related to train travel ahead of a busy summer for the business.
Client
Radical Storage helps travellers store their luggage when visiting new destinations. If you were on a city break and wanted to drop off your suitcase before a day out, or before a night train in the evening, you would use their service.
The client has worked with Root for a number of years with the goal of building travel-related backlinks around the world, with a core focus on media in the UK, Europe, and the US.
Strategy
The brief for this specific campaign was to build links where the topic was trains and train travel as this was a key content focus for the client at the time in their own internal SEO content strategy. Tourists often use their luggage storage service before and after hopping on a train to different cities so it’s a key audience for them.
We knew from sources such as Pinterest Predicts that train travel was going to be a trending topic in 2023 and the press was already gearing up with lots of listicles on best train views and buzz around new train routes.
In addition, a new European night train route was launching in the summer of 2023 so we had a natural newshook we could tie it into to launch our campaign with a bit of proactive newsjacking.
We saw a press hunger for unique stories about trains and had a short window to create a campaign that could get people talking about trains alongside our luggage storage client.
While ‘train travel’ can be considered quite a tight brief, we had an idea that we knew we could implement quickly and effectively in the format of a ‘dream job’.
In this case, we put out an ad looking for a ‘Night Train Tester’ – someone who would get paid to do some interrailing, blog about their experience, and of course, use and review the client’s luggage storage near train stations while they went on their adventures.
Results
- Over 12,000 entries from over 30 different countries from teenagers to adventurers in their seniors, with the majority in the Gen Z/Millennial age bracket, a core audience for the client.
- A total of 140 unique linking domains and over 30 extra brand mentions across the world all talking about trains and train travel.
- Features included Le Figaro, the oldest and biggest newspaper in France, Paris’ largest paper La Parisien, DerStandard, TimeOut, The Sun, Miami Herald, Newsbreak, and Poland’s largest news source, Onet.pl.
- A huge search demand with over 5,800 organic clicks to the page, over 6,000 through referrals from press coverage, and over 3,000 of searches included the client’s brand name.
- It impacted the global search demand for ‘Europe night train’ content by reaching new audiences around the world encouraging them to learn more about new routes and interrailing.
- Over 4,300 voluntary newsletter signups for the client’s in-house email marketing.
- Future partnership established with French travel blogger for social media, blog, and press coverage of the Night Train Tester trip in 2024.
- Exclusive interview series lined up in one of France’s largest newspapers with the winner in 2024.
Search demand
With over 4,300 newsletter sign-ups and a huge search demand increase for branded keywords, the impact of this campaign got the brand in front of a large new audience. While the brand impact was a great achievement, we also saw an impact on night trains and European train travel globally.
Below is the Google Search Console graph for branded search queries for the client showing the spikes in organic traffic and impressions this campaign caused.
The second spike in organic clicks and impressions in mid-late June also matches up with a global demand spike for ‘Europe night train’ content (Google Trends) as shown in the graph below.
With our campaign gaining coverage across Europe, the US, and Canada, the largest spike on the client’s site also matches the largest spike of interest for Europe night train content. While we cannot isolate every campaign out there, or other work European night train companies were doing, we’re fairly confident we managed to drive some of that new interest to European night train routes through this Digital PR campaign.