carhopper needed content
CarHopper founder and CEO Bora Hamamcioglu was frustrated. He was spending a lot of money with a PR agency for coverage in places like Forbes and TechCrunch, which created valuable exposure for CarHopper through backlinks. But there was no content to keep people there once they got to his site.
Paid marketing was getting him limited results, and Bora quickly realized he needed content.
CarHopper
Business Case Study | Luxury car rental startup
THE
PROBLEM
How do you hire a content writer? Bora valued a lean operation and was hesitant to go through the hassle of adding a full-time writer to the payroll.
hiring a writer also meant
More paperwork
Trying to find a personality who fit
Risking making the wrong hire
Bora needed writers and a platform that:
Consistently met his high standards
Fit the luxury tone of the brand
Had a layer of quality assurance
Offered recourse if the content wasn’t up to snuff
THE
SOLUTION
“I just saw how good the content was—how it was structured. It had the SEO keywords, it had the hyperlinks, it was on brand, and it was exactly the voice that we wanted our company to have.”
Bora Hamamcioglu, Founder and CEO, CarHopper
Bora took Verblio for a test drive and was immediately impressed.
In addition to exploring other content vendors, Bora had also looked at the other end of the spectrum with full-service digital agencies. But paying an hourly rate didn’t sit well with a startup who wanted to be able to track their dollars.
“With Verblio, it’s trackable. You charge me by post—simple as that. You don’t care how long it takes. You charge me by the number of words.”
Bora liked the ease and usability of Verblio's platform. The straightforward onboarding took work off his plate. And the ability to rely on preferred writers gave him peace of mind.
THE
IMPACT
CarHopper's growth was so impressive that in March 2020, the company joined Turo, the world’s largest carsharing community with 5,500 active markets across the globe.
CarHopper’s organic traffic took off. The profiles Verblio wrote for the various cars in CarHopper’s marketplace started ranking on the first page of search results. This streamlined the traditional marketing funnel that had taken customers through the homepage and then to CarHopper’s own internal search results.
Verblio content saved CarHopper time on customer support. With more questions answered in the car profiles for things like specs and luggage space, they had fewer incoming queries to manage—a major relief for a lean team.
Verblio content enhanced overall customer experience. Verblio wrote city-specific articles—like a guide to NYC or the best stops along the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco—for CarHopper’s blog. When customers booked a car, their confirmation email would include articles relevant to their destination to help them plan their trip.
Providing double the value on a single piece of content. The beauty of these city-specific posts is that they brought in organic traffic AND CarHopper smartly leveraged these same pieces to create a better customer experience.
Verblio content helped Carhopper:
Attract new customers via SEO
Improve the experience for existing customers
After raising a $1.8 million seed investment round, CarHopper significantly ramped spend on paid advertising. And while the percentage of their web traffic from organic search should have dropped, it remained consistent at 20 percent of total site traffic, thanks to quality Verblio content.
Both these paid and organic streams took off, leading to tremendous growth for the company overall. Their growth was so impressive that in March 2020, CarHopper joined Turo, the world’s largest carsharing community with 5,500 active markets across the globe.
It isn’t often a client reaches out and offers to do a case study—but, in the case of CarHopper, that’s exactly what happened. Bora considers Verblio one of five key pieces of software in his company’s growth.
"What I liked was that the quality was really, really good. I was so impressed. That's why I’m doing this case study with you guys—I want other companies to benefit from it.”
Ready to power your SEO with Verblio content?
About CarHopper
Business Case Study, Luxury Car Rental Startup
CarHopper is an online marketplace for renting luxury and exotic cars from local providers across the country. Enter your destination and your travel dates, and you’ll get a range of rides to choose from. Bora also writes on startup strategy, growth, and funding at borahamamcioglu.com