EXPOSURE TO THE MAX
Brothers Lee and Liam Fraser’s adventure camping business getting noticed with help of social media influencers
Adventure camping business getting noticed with help of social media influencers.
This summer, thirty-something brothers Lee and Liam Fraser wielded the power of social media to maximize the benefit their adventure tourism business Live Life InTents would receive online.
To this day, more than two years after starting the Margaree Forks company offering glamping in four-person bell tents, camping and customized tours and equipment rentals, they haven’t spent a cent on conventional advertising.
Using word of mouth, but more importantly, by inviting professional photographers with an online following and social media influencers on visually driven platforms such as Instagram to experience the rustic beauty of Inverness County, Lee Fraser said it led to an almost frenetic pace, sometimes “no time to breathe” moments in one of Cape Breton’s most tranquil locales.
The so-called “creative weekends” were held June 1-3 and again on Oct. 12-14. Those interested had to apply and once accepted had to take a minimum of 10 high resolution images that would be shared on social media to their followers, some of whom have tens of thousands of people keeping tabs on them on Instagram. In exchange, the visitors received a free weekend to share with their friends back home, Fraser, 33, said.
“I have a friend who left his job in TV and film in June and came down for a whole week in July. I gave him a free place to stay in one of our glamping tents … and let him use my Wi-Fi from my house,” he said.
“He gave me so much content, so much more than the value of the rentals for the stay. I also lined him up with a bunch of different businesses and got him work while he was down here.”
It’s as much about developing a network of friends who also become a sounding board for new marketing initiatives as it is a way to build a steady clientele who will return year after year, said Fraser. Destination Cape Breton Association, working on a hiking pilot project, partnered with Live Life InTents during the creative weekends.
Terry Smith, a senior marketing partner at Destination Cape Breton, said the association worked with the Frasers in planning the itinerary and selecting 14 micro-influencers with a “decent size” social media following with a particular focus on Instagram.
“The vast majority of the participants were millennials, young adults,” said Smith, adding the first creative weekend attracted
37 people from the Maritimes.
The second weekend in October brought in about 40 people from across the country as well as an Austrian citizen due to a partnership Lee Fraser struck with photography website Images of Canada, which has a following of 273,000 on Instagram.
“It created some fantastic hiking photos and videos for us,” across Inverness County and into the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Smith said.
Live Life InTents (livelifeintents.com) originally started as an adventure blog by the brothers who spent their formative years hiking, swimming and camping in the Margaree Valley with their parents, David and Cathy Fraser.
Still crunching numbers from the past season, which ran June to mid-October, Lee Fraser said during the peak of the season the business averaged 500 people a week who camped, rented equipment and went tubing down a lazy section of the Margaree River. He estimated the glamping sites were occupied 60 to 70 per cent of the time, while the other camping sites were almost always booked up throughout the summer.
The hectic schedule, including planning events such as their version of a competitive sports summer games held in August, created three full-time and two part-time seasonal jobs.
The Cape Breton Partnership
will be honouring both Lee and Liam Fraser at the Vital Cape Breton Excellence Awards this evening in Sydney. They will receive the inaugural Vital innovation award for their work.
They attracted some attention as speakers at the Cape Breton Partnership’s annual conference in Ingonish Beach in early October, but still the brothers have no idea who nominated them for the award. Fraser is now looking ahead to the future with the likelihood the business will actively incorporate fitness programs such as a pilates retreat weekend that was held over the summer.
“It was like a yoga meditation and fitness weekend. We took them to a private dinner and then yoga on a private beach. We’d do boot camps in the morning, (then) got breakfast ready. It was about us feeling it out for (future) fitness retreats.”
And he said exercise as part of the business is an important component since 30-year-old Liam is a self-professed “fitness buff.”
Exploring the possibility of winter tourism is also on their radar.
It’s estimated they’ve invested
$100,000 to $120,000 into the venture and in developing the product over the past three years, Lee Fraser said. To date, the brothers have financed the enterprise themselves.
Lee takes on contract work as a deep-sea diver on offshore oilfields around the world, while Liam is trained as a forestry technologist working full-time for Port Hawkesbury Paper.
Using their own funds so it becomes a stable, self-sufficient venture was important to them before thinking of applying for grants and other forms of government assistance.
“We didn’t want to be built on grant money,” said Lee Fraser.
“We had a full year with no issues. We came out in good standing at the end of the summer and we have some money to play with for next year.
“I’ll go back to work and get some more funding, and hopefully we won’t have to go to the bank. We’ll just apply to some student programs, get some summer students and rock and roll from there.”