How Yoto's Community-Focused Strategy Tripled its Club Page Traffic

Yoto Player is a screen-free audio device controlled by physical cards that play stories, music, activities, podcasts, and radio.

• 35K Facebook Community Members
• 61K Community Page Visits

The purpose of this report is to reveal the successful marketing tactics Yoto employed to expand its community and enhance member engagement.

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Key Takeaways

In October 2022, Yoto's new "Yoto Club" launch tripled their monthly page visits. The primary change to the club offered members the freedom to select their own Yoto Cards.

• Recommendations
  Continuously offer tailored choices and act on user feedback for subscription improvements.
  (i) Provide member-exclusive deals and simplify the sign-up process with clear benefits.
  (ii) Encourage referrals by giving mutual rewards and then advertise this program on Meta.

Yoto's Facebook Community has rapidly grown to 35K members in just two years, showcasing vibrant engagement with over 1.3K posts in the last month.

• Recommendations
  Continue to utilize your Facebook Community for customer interactions.
  (i) Let members lead discussions while moderating.
  (ii) Set clear community guidelines to that define group purpose, ensure positive interactions, and prevent spam.
  (iii) Share product news, solicit feedback, and offer community-exclusive promotions.
  (iv) Dedicate a team to promptly respond to community inquiries.

In March 2023, Yoto unveiled "Yoto Space," a digital platform, aimed at complimenting its Facebook Community by overcoming its shortcomings and introducing new features. 

• Recommendations
  Consider the feedback from your Facebook Community to identify any areas of opportunity. Use this feedback to determine if your brand should initiate an online community hub similar to Yoto Space.
  (i) Engage consistently with your community, seeking feedback and including them in key decisions.
  (ii) Communicate transparently about any changes and ensure users are recognized and appreciated.
  (iii) Leverage an online community platform to enhance your Facebook Community, introducing distinct and exclusive functionalities specific to that platform.

Since launching, Yoto Space has generated 61K visits, with social driving 20% of this traffic.

• Recommendations
  Cultivate a community grounded in peer-to-peer collaboration.
  (i) Promote community discussions for troubleshooting and experiences.
  (ii) Organize events and challenges, allowing members to showcase creativity and engage with peers.
  (iii) Share a variety of content including UGC and create a welcoming space for pet-related shares like photos and memes.
  (iv) Utilize giveaway competitions to drive signups and participation.

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In the past 12 months, Yoto has experienced a +103% YoY increase in web traffic.

*Past 12 months — July 2022 - June 2023. Mobile & Desktop Traffic

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Yoto's strategy leans heavily on mobile — with a +97% YoY rise in mobile traffic from July 2022 to June 2023.

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Yoto has enhanced user retention, witnessing a +149% YoY increase in returning users.

*New users are visitors who have not been spotted visiting the website in the past 3 months, the remaining visitors are returning users. Desktop Traffic traffic only

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Social media drives 6% of Yoto’s traffic, with 47% of these visits coming from Facebook. 

*Based on mobile + desktop traffic from July 2022 - June 2023.

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In October 2022, Yoto launched its new club. Since then, their average monthly club page visits have almost tripled*.

*This is an archived link and might not load on all browsers.

 *Average monthly traffic from Oct. 2022 - June 2023, compared to prior year. Desktop only, worldwide traffic to “club” pages. 

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Offer personalized selections for members.

The primary change to the club offered members the freedom to select their own Yoto Cards.

• ‍Ask for customer feedback directly through surveys such as Yoto did. Send to your most loyal customers such as your newsletter subscribers and Facebook Community members. 
• ‍Motivate participation by providing incentives, like Yoto did by offering the chance to win 10K tokens for taking part.
• ‍Utilize feedback to enhance the membership experience. Yoto improved its Yoto Club based on member input and acknowledged the changes were a result of their customers feedback.

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Provide members with exclusive offers.

Such as product discounts and free shipping without any minimum purchase requirement.

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‍Make the sign-up process easy and clearly highlight the membership benefits.‍

• ‍Feature a CTA to join the club on a hero banner on your website, encouraging people to join for access to free shipping.
• Use words like "today" and "now" to create a sense of urgency.
• Make your sign-up buttons stand out with vibrant colours.
• Offer yearly and monthly options.
• Tell customers they can cancel at any time to reduce commitment fears.
• Clearly state the value proposition. 

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Promote membership perks via social ads to attract potential members, such as free shipping, two club credits, etc.

After reintroducing "Yoto Club," they spent $26.7K on Meta ads to attract new members, making up just 1% of their entire ad budget. 

• ‍Clear Value Proposition: The first line sets the stage by outlining the core offering - building a Yoto Card collection for a monthly fee.
• ‍Implement retargeting strategy to reach individuals who've recently interacted with your website or have engaged with your brand on social. 

Spend $7.2K | Impressions 994K | CPM $7.24

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Leverage loyal customers to turn their like-minded friends into members using referral incentives.

Yoto awards points for actions like friend referrals or purchases. Referring a friend earns members 1500 points, worth $12.50. 

• ‍Minimum Purchase Requirement: For the referee to earn the reward through Yoto's referral program, the referred individual must make a purchase of at least $99.99.

• Mutual Rewards: Not only does the referring user get a reward (1,500 points), but the referred friend also receives an incentive in the form of a 10% discount on their first purchase. This creates a win-win situation for both parties.

• Multi-Channel: Yoto rewards users for not only making purchases but also for engaging across multiple channels – from signing up for the newsletter to following them on various social media platforms.

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Leverage social media followers and newsletter subscribers to target members with referral ads.

Yoto allocated $4.3K to promote its referral incentive.

Spend $3K | Impressions 390K | CPM $7.17

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Spend $800 | Impressions 101K | CPM $7.94

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Spend $700 | Impressions 97K | CPM $7.20

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Leverage Facebook Communities as a medium to cultivate community, boost customer loyalty, and gather feedback.

Yoto's Facebook community has 35K members in two years, with over 1.3K posts in past month (June 23-July 25, 2023).

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Members’ posts fall into four main categories: Community Discussions, Opinions & Advice, Buying & Selling and Support. 

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Provide a space for customers to connect with the community and get real-time advice and opinions from fellow users.

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Actively respond and answer customer questions and use common questions to help guide your FAQ page or content.

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Let the community lead the conversation while maintaining clear group objectives and established guidelines.

Yoto has only posted 98 times in the group in the past two years, focusing on engaging rather than leading the conversation.

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Engage your community with product updates, feedback surveys, giveaways, and exclusive promotions or early launches.

While limited, Yoto’s community content centers on collecting feedback, highlighting product updates, hosting giveaways, and promoting sales.

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At the end of March 2023, Yoto announced the launch of Yoto Space, a collaborative online platform for the Yoto community. 

This digital hub provides the community with exclusive audio content, creation tools, expert advice, and interactive discussions. 

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Since launching, Yoto Space has generated 61K visits, with social driving 20% of this traffic.

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Engage your community, maintain transparency, and enhance what's already effective instead of replacing it.

Before launching, Yoto openly discussed the new platform's purpose, reassured members, and involved them in the naming journey.

• ‍User-Centric Approach: Yoto values community feedback and involves members in decisions such as naming the new platform.
• ‍Transparency: Yoto openly communicates the reasons for the new platform and their intentions behind it and ensures users that they won't be getting rid of the Facebook Community. 
• ‍Complementing Facebook: Yoto explains the Facebook Community's limitations and how the new platform will fill in these gaps. They assure users that they're not abandoning the familiar platform but adding more value elsewhere.

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Yoto Space fosters an engaged online community by offering the following features:

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Utilize giveaway competitions to drive signups and participation.

Yoto celebrated the debut of Yoto Space by hosting an Audio Maker Contest, inviting individuals to participate on the new community platform.

Engagement 321

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Views 15.5K

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*Breakdown based on past 100 posts from July 24, 2023

*Total ad spend in the US in from Oct. ‘22 - Jul. ‘23 in USD. Digital Advertising Data Source Caveat