We’re thrilled to present the latest addition to Afluencer’s content lineup – our podcast series featuring insightful conversations with influential brand owners. In this inaugural article, we have the privilege of introducing Liz Galloway, the visionary Director of Marketing and Communications at UnCruise Adventures of UnCruise Adventures, as our esteemed guest.
Meet Liz Galloway: The Mind Behind UnCruise Adventures
Liz Galloway, the innovative mind driving UnCruise Adventures, takes center stage in the Afluencer podcast series. With a wealth of experience in the world of influencer marketing, Liz shares captivating insights, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped her brand’s journey.
Podcast Premiere: Delving into the UnCruise Adventures Universe
Join us in exploring the enchanting world of UnCruise Adventures through the eyes of Liz Galloway herself. We’ve embedded the riveting YouTube podcast video below, offering an exclusive glimpse into the transformative power of influencer marketing.
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Key Takeaways
00:00 🌍 *Liz Galloway’s background and journey to Uncruise Adventures*
– Liz Galloway has a rich history in international travel, tourism, and adventure spanning 20 years.
– She started her journey in Costa Rica, where she came across Uncruise Adventures while working in the luxury sector.
– Liz eventually joined Uncruise Adventures as part of the crew, taking a career sabbatical for two years.
10:11 🚢 *Advantages of smaller cruise ships like Uncruise Adventures*
– Smaller ships provide a balance between comfort and access to unique destinations.
– Uncruise Adventures emphasizes local experiences, sustainability, and intimate connections with nature.
– Flexibility in activities allows guests to choose from a range of adventures or tranquil experiences.
17:11 📣 *Marketing Uncruise Adventures and influencer collaboration*
– Marketing strategies include showcasing inspiring travel content, humorous commercials, press releases, and digital ads.
– User-generated content and collaborations with influencers play a significant role in promoting the brand.
– Influencers with engaged audiences, even with a moderate following, are sought after for collaborations.
15:59 🏝️ *Latest influencer collaboration: Hawaiian seascapes with a twist*
– The collab focuses on Uncruise Adventures’ Hawaiian travel experiences, emphasizing local culture and nature.
– Recent events like the Maui fires have led to a revised messaging approach to support affected communities.
– The campaign aims to balance promoting travel with charitable contributions to Maui and other impacted areas.
19:29 ✉️ *Contacting Uncruise Adventures for collaboration*
– To collaborate with Uncruise Adventures, reach out to their PR team at pr@uncruise.com.
– You can also explore collaboration opportunities through their profile on influencer platforms or visit their official website, justuncruise.com.
Transcription Insight: A Peek into the Conversation
Gain an insider’s perspective as we burrow into the transcription of our engaging conversation with Liz Galloway. Discover the strategies, anecdotes, and wisdom that have fueled UnCruise Adventures success, all captured in this in-depth transcription.
In Conversation with Liz Galloway, Director of Marketing and Communications at UnCruise Adventures of UnCruise Adventures:
Brett:
Welcome to our influencer podcast. Special guest this week is Liz Galloway with UNR Adventures and Brand Sanity Media with everyone emerging from their caves here in this kind of post covid world and travel being at a premium. That’d be great to get Liz on. Cruise has a new collab opportunity that we want to talk about, we want to talk about on cruise adventures and all that fun stuff. First, Liz, let’s talk about your background. So welcome and can you give us a little history on Liz Galloway, so yourself and what led you to join up with on Cruise Adventures?
Liz:
Yeah, I’ll give you the short version rather the long version. I feel like I’ve lived about nine lives so far on this planet with nine more to live. Right. We all want to do a little bit of everything, but I’ve been in the international travel tourism adventure sector for, I mean, I would say 20 years now, even though I look so young, but
Brett:
I was going to say, we need to see an id. The math doesn’t work.
Liz:
So I’ve worked internationally, domestically with various brands, really inspiring brands and have worked with some great people. And interestingly enough, when I was working with brands out of Costa Rica and living there for several years, I came across the re brand, and that was simply because I was working in the luxury sector and they were in the adventure sector, but they do have a vessel that comes into the bay where I worked or close nearby. And so eventually it’s a small town. You get to know some of the crew members as they would come onto shore for changeover and things like that and began to talk with them and always was so fascinated. And they had all these adventures and these beautiful photos and this amazing stuff. And Costa Rican in itself is beautiful anyway. And so there’s all kinds of destinations that I’m cruise goes to.
And so many years later when I moved back to the states via Morocco, via Spain and all these other places, and I was thinking, I really need a career sabbatical. I truly wholly believe that sabbaticals are not just for right when you’re out of high school or you need to back around that adults and people throughout periods of their life really need to take career sabbaticals. They’re super healthy, they do a lot. And I said, I really need a break from all the pressure and the big marketing stuff. And reached out to one of those contacts from years back from Costa Rica and cruise from the vessel and said, how would I go about, I just want to go crew on this ship for a couple years and I’ve got other backgrounds such as certified as a massage therapist and fitness trainer and yoga teacher and all that.
So those skills can come in handy. And they needed some wellness people on board. Needless to say, came about, reached out to them a couple months later. I was living and working on board for the next two years. I took a career sabbatical, just kind of taking people out, kayaking, teaching them fitness, keeping them well on board and being part of that crew. And so when I came back to being an adult, I guess going back to being adult life, I went back and I was working with other inspiring brands with ones that have adventure companies, Antarctica and things like that. And it popped up that the land side of the Unre brand that I had crewed for was looking for marketing communications people to lead that team. And so here I am kind of heading up that department along with other departments and working with other inspiring brands outside of that as well. So I told you I was given you the short version. I guess I was still kind of long, but there you go.
Brett:
Well, that’s great. Yeah. So you managed to take the sabbatical but then still work during it as a crew member? I did. And was that your background before your sabbatical and PR and marketing or one of your backgrounds alongside your other 10 different wellness?
Liz:
Right, right. Yeah. Expertise,
Brett:
Certifications.
Liz:
It was all of them. Yeah, I have always had those. I’ve had those certifications for many years. But yeah, my background really is in business, hospitality management, international tourism, marketing, public relations, those types of things as a specialty for sure.
Brett:
That’s great. Where in Costa Rica were you living
Liz:
In Manuel Antonio? On the Pacific side.
Brett:
On the Pacific side. Okay. And that’s where the on cruise was docked? Yes,
Liz:
They would come into Manuel Antonio National Park is one of their locations because that’s part of the ethos of the brand is to really have those local experiences and those small footprint experiences. So national parks are a big part of that.
Brett:
Yeah, great, great. Were you early in on the Americans in Costa Rica side as a more popular destination now? We’ve actually been over a couple of times and it kind feels like you can almost pick your level of tourism where if you want to can kind of do the common things right, the R N L and the tamarinds and stuff, or you can go to a town where there’s literally nobody even follow up. We were following a three-legged dog out to the coast as our tour guide showing us where the beach was. So it seems like you can get a little bit of everything out there now.
Liz:
Yes. Yeah, that is so true. And I guess originally this was back in 2002 ish, so yeah, it was definitely before a lot more of the bigger boom now because it is way even much more built up then There’s a big now cruise dock and all kinds of things have changed. So I would say not way pre the massive tourism there and expat kind of lifestyle that is integrated and intertwined there, but definitely for sure more than it is now. So I did get some of that more local flavor and really inundated into the community there.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s awesome. New airport. That’s a benefit over on the west side. You don’t have to fly into San Jose every time now you can go.
Liz:
Yeah, there’s a lot that has changed.
Brett:
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So on the ship services, it seems like there’s a lot of advantages to having the small size being on a small size cruise ship versus the large giant, the brand names we all know. What are those types of advantages? What did you enjoy working on the crew for a smaller size ship?
Liz:
What did I enjoy about being part of
Brett:
The crew? Yeah, what did you enjoy about the smaller cruise ship?
Liz:
Yeah, I mean, it’s big enough to do what you want to do, have your space be comfortable, but it’s small enough to go in places where other ships can obviously have a smaller footprint, be more sustainable, and then you literally live on the boat. It’s not about stopping into ports and shopping, those types of things. It’s really, you’re launching all of your daily operations for the most part off the back of the boat, kayaking, snorkeling, zodiacs, skiing, all types of things that you can do right from there. And so it’s very integral with the natural elements around you and you can kind of really fill that piece, whether it’s from Alaska to down in Baja or Costa Rica where they also go. So that’s one of the biggest parts of it is just kind of being in nature, feeling like you’re a little bit more a part of nature rather than disrupting it or disturbing it.
And they’re very active kind of based, so you have daily activities, of course, we have people that are more older, more senior level, and then we’ve got families, multi-generational families that come in, the kids. So there’s a little bit of something for everyone on the activity level. So you can go really, really hard and do everything and just be super tired all day. You’re always going to have a choice or you can take it a little bit more tranquil, hang out on the bow, do some wildlife watching, do some shore walks, stuff like that. So I think just the flexibility, the adaptability and the sustainability of it are really great things that I enjoyed as part of the crew. And then also in promoting of the brand. They’re just a great piece of storytelling and connection.
Brett:
It sounds like it on the storytelling side. So how does that look from a marketing standpoint in terms of getting the word out? Obviously there’s only so many of you waiting in the dock for that ship to come in, so to speak. How do you actually spread the word about cruise adventures and get people to learn that this is even available and beyond just the big names that people may consider when they’re booking a cruise?
Liz:
Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s kind of two pieces to that. When the pandemic hit, it was kind of interesting in the sense that that was a really big learning kind of teaching opportunity to let people know that there are these other types of styles of travel that aren’t these massive cruise ships, thousands of people, or you have to always be in a crowd or a line. So there was a lot of educational elements that came out as a benefit to that in the storytelling because hey, guess what? There are other ways to travel and options to travel. So that became its storytelling piece naturally, and people sought that out more because it became more of a situation where people didn’t want to be in these mass tourism spots and lines and crowds. So that’s great. And we’ve had a lot of brand awareness expand upon that, but also we have a lot of just people who return repeatedly.
So there’s a lot of loyalty. There’s just a lot of, I guess fandom if you will, of like, Hey, you really need to hear about this, right? You really need to find out. There’s these other things that you can do. And so that’s part of it, but we kind of attack it in a multi omni-channel presence, if you will, like most brands would, right? And so you’ve got your elements where you’re showing beautiful, inspiring travel of what we’re really doing on board so people can get inundated there. We’ve got fun commercials that put some of our humor and playfulness into it because that is part of the brand ethos as well. And then you’ve got your traditional marketing right from the writers and the press trips and the press releases and digital ads and things like that. So everything is kind of looked at that way.
But I think what tends to work the most is people talking about it themselves and having people be inspired by it, finally do their bucket list on this type of adventure or user generated content that people are creating for us and sharing for us and about us is always super helpful and great. And we don’t necessarily ask them, people are just naturally doing that because it’s so Instagrammable or post if you’ll anything that you’re doing with that brand. And then of course when working with collaborations like Influencer and other people who we bring in specific campaigns where people are again working with us to showcase elements of that content really those work really great.
Brett:
Sounds like a very cool collab to be a part of. So your most recent one, can you tell us about that in terms of what the opportunity is for influencers and who specifically you’re looking for? I guess I’m curious to hear whether from your standpoint, you’re looking to connect with people, travelers who are looking specifically for a cruise or if it’s, that’s not that you’re looking for this type of profile where, hey, we’re looking for this type of adventure and on cruise adventures is a good way to do it. Maybe they didn’t have a cruise in mind ahead of time, and then how that maps to the influencer in terms of potentially reaching these people.
Liz:
Exactly. Yeah, it’s a little bit of all of that. I guess I would say that we’re not necessarily looking for people who are cruisers because a lot of cruisers associate cruising with the big ships and then we’re not that. So sometimes it transfers over, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we can convert those people and they become lifelong. I’m never going on a big ship again. This is amazing type of thing. And then we’ve got all kinds of people who have been looking for us and didn’t even know we existed. So it’s really about the brand awareness. I’m not specifically looking for someone who’s got a massive following or it doesn’t have to be that. It just has to be someone who’s got engaged people. And we like to say with the particular Unre brand that we’re more attached to adventure than we are to cruising. So that could be people who have an audience that are into adventure, they’re into nature, they’re into photography, they’re into wildlife, they’re into water sports, they’re into activity.
There’s so many different things that can be played because the angles all work towards that, and they’re all provided within that element on that seven or 14 night experience. And so I think I kind of like to keep it open, and it’s really nice to see when new influencers that maybe we haven’t worked with before come on board and they’ve got a new element to take. And we like to also work with them in the sense of making it easy if we cannot host them on board, which doesn’t always happen because there’s a very limited space for that type of thing. We like to work with them on having them create their own content, but we will provide them with files of photos, videos, all kinds of great things, and they can put their spin on it. They can put their, oh my God, have you heard about this? Or This is why I want to do this, or the top 10 reasons, or I want to take my family, or I’m a solo traveler and this is perfect for me. It doesn’t really matter. But we want them to share their perspective with the content that’s still inspiring around the brand.
Brett:
Yeah, it’s a very cool opportunity for an influencer. They can be aspirational in that respect. And from a logistics standpoint of sharing, sounds like you make it very easy for them having resources available but not necessarily mandatory to use. They have the creative control in terms of how they want to share, and they know how they can best connect with their audience. Is there a certain type of engagement rate that you’re looking for when you do look at, let’s say someone who’s into adventure, looks like their followers are onto adventure, so there’s a good alignment there. What are the steps you take to consider someone then to potentially partner with?
Liz:
Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, it’s the conversation and the communication. It’s got to be that fit and there’s got to be an ease with that. Are they reliable? Are they going to follow through on the campaign, hashtags, requirements, posting times, that type of thing. And then as far as engagement, it doesn’t have to be massive. It just has to be real and it has to be authentic. Two 3% could be fine. It just really depends on, it’s kind of a case by case basis. So we do look at and vet each one of those people if they’re a fit for the brand because not everybody is, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t keep them on the list for consideration, something down the line or another brand or opportunity that I work with because I do work with other brands. So there’s just an openness there.
Brett:
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. I always kind of tell the, try to teach the newbie brands who come in and say, well, what’s the most important thing? I’m always, well, it’s like any marketing, right? As you alluded to, it’s about having the specifics that are aligned with what you’re just, so you want someone who their content is exactly what you’re trying to reach in terms of the end user. It’s like any marketing. So that’s more important than just a magic kind of engagement rate number. Absolutely. Because you can have somewhat high engagement, but if it’s a very broad, this is why I think sometimes celebrities get a bad rap in terms of the influencer world, celebrities, so they’re widely followed, but it’s a very broad audience, and if you’re trying to sell something specific, which most of us are, it’s challenging. So you kind of want someone who’s laser focused on that element of it. Which brings you to, let’s talk about your latest collab then. What is it and what types of influencers are we looking for here?
Liz:
Yeah, our latest one is around our travel with RIS Adventures to Hawaii. As Hawaii Seascapes. It visits four islands in one week, seven days. So essentially we put this out as where the Aloha spirit meets adventure as it’s kind of bringing in all the things we believe in there, connect with our local community, our local people, the local cultures, and the native peoples that have been there since Time Memorial, right? Also with that, we launched this a while ago, and then as most people will know that have been in the news, know that there has been some very devastating recent fires on the island of Maui in Laa, which is one of the locations that are listed in our adventures. And so with that, the collab will continue and it’ll just be delayed a few weeks with that. And we have, if not already, let our influencer people know, but we will and continue to work with them on that to get the messaging just the way that will work for our brand and also be appropriate to the level where we can support the people in the way they need to be supported.
So yes, we want to continue the information about visiting there and the beauty, but we also need to first and foremost put communities first, put other things first. And so we will continue on that, but with a slightly different messaging and we’ll attach that to also promoting the charitable contributions to specific locations like Maui Strong, for example, and supporting those local people in the island of Maui with anybody who gets any kind of booking with On Cruise or comes through that link or anything like that. So we want to be sensitive to that. So we’ll continue, but it’s going to be slightly different.
Brett:
Got it. Yeah. Thanks for the update. Now I was going to ask if Lena was a docking station, and yeah, it’s very sad everything you see from there and having been there, anyone who’s been there, it’s hard to picture, but thanks for the update and that’s great on the Maui Strong, helping out the local charities and such. Liz, let’s talk about brand Sanity media before we get you out here as well. So you work with other brands and it sounds like, is this a firm that you started in parallel as you came back from the crew side of Unre and you were helping them with their PR and communications, and obviously the things that you do there are very transferable to other brands, different markets potentially, but it’s the same type of formula I would imagine from, Hey, what’s our story, how we convey this authentically? How can we maybe find influencers to scale this? Or what other online mediums do we need to do? Can you tell us what you’re doing there with Brand Sanity?
Liz:
Got it. Yeah. Thanks for the update. Now I was going to ask if Lena was a docking station, and yeah, it’s very sad everything you see from there and having been there, anyone who’s been there, it’s hard to picture, but thanks for the update and that’s great on the Maui Strong, helping out the local charities and such. Liz, let’s talk about brand Sanity media before we get you out here as well. So you work with other brands and it sounds like, is this a firm that you started in parallel as you came back from the crew side of Unre and you were helping them with their PR and communications, and obviously the things that you do there are very transferable to other brands, different markets potentially, but it’s the same type of formula I would imagine from, Hey, what’s our story, how we convey this authentically? How can we maybe find influencers to scale this? Or what other online mediums do we need to do? Can you tell us what you’re doing there with Brand Sanity?
Brett:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it makes perfect sense that your approach storytelling and doing things, I guess organically is really important. I think especially for wellness brands, because if you’re a new brand getting going or you’ve got your product out there and you’re trying to figure out how to scale, it’s very challenging to look at these traditional advertising mediums. And I’ll kind of go through the math often with either brand owners or marketing people and say, okay, well this is Google Ads, this is not, probably not where we want to be competing with the major wellness names. This is Facebook. It could work. But it’s tricky from a paid standpoint. So a lot of these paid mediums are, especially on the wellness side, because the competition, right? You don’t want to compete with the big players, you want to be somewhere else, and that somewhere else tends to be that organic approach. Instead of buying ads on Facebook, have some user generated content or have someone tell your story. Is that what you find, that your money just goes farther? From a marketing standpoint, if you’re doing stuff organically in the wellness arena, travel adventure, I mean,
Liz:
It’s variable and I think it’s very brand specific, and it is applicable to use some of the pay to play or the paid ad types of things if it works for the strategy and the budget, right? Because yes, you are exactly right. It can get very expensive and very competitive. So trying to create that different niche within a niche at Story can work very well. And that also can work for newer brands, startup brands, smaller boutique brands, things like that. And so that does come in where you’ve got user-generated content, res shareable content, press stories, press trips, campaigns that work with influencers to get the message out, those types of things because you’re amplifying your same message with usually a smaller budget. It depends, but that can also put the jumping off point for other things to happen and more brand awareness to happen where more people are then aware of the brand and coming in and that opens up other things.
Then you can tell more stories. And if you can get earned content, for example, you could pay for an ad in a magazine or an advertorial, or you could get an earned article written about you that you’re not paying for, but maybe it was a press trip or some type of trade that way, or maybe not even that. It was just simply that you pitch that story correctly and it fits right because you’re working that type of angle. So it is so variable, but I think it’s really knowing the depth, the voice and the tone of the brand and putting it out there out and being consistent about it.
Brett:
I love that niche within a niche. Keep slicing, keep getting more specific until you keep
Liz:
Slicing
Brett:
Until you’ve got it. That’s great advice. Great. So for our influencers out there, we will put the link to on Cruise’s brand profile and then your latest collab there so we can opportunity to collapse, support the people of Hawaii, Maui. And from the brand standpoint, Liz, give us the info as well, not only how people can contact on Cruise and net collab, and again, I’ll get the link under, but also to contact you in brand Sanity Media for our folks who do need some PR help, storytelling, communications help as well.
Liz:
Yeah, absolutely. For people who want to work with the Unre brand and travel opportunities there, I would say if you want to get ahold of me directly and the PR team, just pr@unre.com is a great email to reach out to, that will always get filtered back to me to kind of assess any type of pitches that may come through that way. So that’s a direct way, places like Influencer and just posting, Hey, we want to collaborate with you is a great way as well. And then our profile there and just on dotcom is the direct website. So there’s plenty of information about what that brand does, where we go, what we offer, that type of thing, and where we will be expanding to in the future. We’ll always be, I believe, looking for additional influencers and the right people to work with. And then for other people who are looking for something more, just brand sanity media.com, I like to say stay sane my friends, we like to try to bring people back to their sanity in their brands because it can get really crazy out there trying to figure things out and do those strategies all yourself.
So just brand sanity.com is where you can get ahold of me as well.
Brett:
That’s great. Liz, with the Avita for our Brand Mind,
Liz:
I haven’t heard that for a while.
Brett:
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Taking it back, you forgot
Liz:
The end. You got to do Theta My, you got to do the, oh,
Brett:
Is that right? Okay, gotcha. That’s good. See, we know what you went to the authentic parts of the country. Thanks again, it a really fun conversation. Appreciate you joining us today.
Liz:
What a pleasure. It was great talking marketing. It sounds like you’re a marketer yourself too, and I appreciate being here
Brett:
Little bit. Yeah. We can’t stay away from it, right? Yeah. Thanks again.
Liz:
Thank you.
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Reflecting on a Journey of Innovation and Influence
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Now, if you haven’t already, let’s get acquainted with the Affiliate Nerd, Dustin Howes. Brett had a chat with Dustin in our previous podcast which you can catch here.