Case Study: Project Everest Ventures

This is a guest post by written by our friends at Entreprenerd Marketing. They post regular blog content that aims to educate, entertain and inspire self-starting entrepreneurs on the topic of digital marketing. A case study on Project Everest Ventures was selected as it combines our focus of not-for-profit organisations and Entreprenerd Marketing’s focus on entrepreneurs.

Project Everest Ventures is a civic and social enterprise which specialises in sustainable entrepreneurship. They offer internships for “trekkers” who engage in overseas work for the company’s sustainable development projects. The focus of Project Everest’s current ventures is to work in developing areas, collaborating with local communities, in order to establish real social ventures aimed at solving complex issues. This allows students to travel and gain experience in sustainable development work internationally.

Project Everest Ventures started in 2015 with a team of 16 student interns. It is now a million-dollar enterprise with a community of over 700 trekkers from around the world, having trained nearly 100 people in team and senior leadership, and they have university partners all over Australia.

Under its model, the program is funded through the money students and universities pay to take part in a Project Everest program. The cost of the program is built into the usual course fees.

Students can pay for courses that include a Project Everest program through the usual HECS mechanism. The fee covers training in Australia, food, accommodation, transport, and project costs. Students pay for flights themselves.

Digital Marketing Strategy

Testimonials and segmentation

Despite using the typical promotion strategy on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, their marketing is unique in the sense that they utilise testimonials from trekkers who have embarked on ventures with Project Everest.

This is powerful because they help create a deeper, more emotional appeal for their branding. Consumers naturally trust each other more than they trust marketing or curated collateral, so testimonials add more weight to the decision they are trying to make.

Essentially, those initial happy supporters, therefore, encourage more supporters to join, which creates more happy supporters.

Furthermore, with Instagram and Facebook allowing marketers to segment their market using demographics and interests, Project Everest can easily narrow down their target to university students aged 18-25 who are interested in international travel and social entrepreneurship.

When you combine testimonials from your supporters with effective digital marketing techniques, suddenly your message is being amplified in the best way possible.

Social Media Word-of-Mouth

The way that Project Everest have truly gotten their name out there is through word-of-mouth on social media. Trekkers who have gone on ventures are encouraged post trip to post about their experience on their personal social media accounts and to tag Project Everest in their photos. This creates a more authentic message coming directly from the consumer rather than on the company’s own media.

Coupled with posting testimonials on their own social media pages, this gives them the extra boost they need to get the word out there.

Pro tip: Mega influencers may seem like a good idea, but there are many hidden costs and negotiation fees that need to be considered to work with these types of influencers. Consider reaching out to those who are already part of your donor or support list to post on their own social media.

Thanks for reading! We also posted an article on Entrepreneured Marketing’s blog. A case study on Youth off the Streets, click here to check it out.