Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
220,000 contacted, a few thousand signed
The outreach machine
Twenty-five marketing assistants each aimed to contact 100 influencers a day, about 2,000 a day in all. At the start, five assistants did the same job. On slow days an assistant got stuck and managed only 40 to 70.
The funnel
The funnel ran on small percentages. Out of 1,000 creators contacted, a strong run was 100 replies, 50 booked calls, and 10 signed. One signing from every thousand is probably closer to normal.
Automation and incentives
Email did most of the work, since the platform stops an account from sending more than a certain number of DMs a day. AI handled the first round of negotiating and passed interested creators to a manager, so an assistant's job ended once the first message went out. Monthly contests with cash or voucher prizes rewarded whoever contacted the most creators and whoever got the most signed.
The fitness market is large enough that creators kept turning up in France, Germany, Spain, the UK, and the US. Cal AI was less picky than most brands: any creator who could work the app into a video at a decent cost per thousand views usually got a yes.
Why do platforms cap daily direct messages?
Caps exist mainly to fight spam, since an account sending thousands of near-identical messages looks like a bot. Platforms apply rate limits that tighten when an account is new or messages many strangers. Email has no single owner, so no one cap applies, though mail providers filter senders who generate complaints.
Where did the sales funnel idea come from?
The funnel traces to E. St. Elmo Lewis, an American advertising pioneer who described a customer's path in 1898. His model, later called AIDA, moves through attention, interest, desire, and action. Each stage loses people, which is why the shape narrows. Marketers still lay out outreach the same way, counting replies, calls, and signings at each step.
Why do contests lift outreach output?
Goal-setting research by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham found that specific, difficult goals produce better performance than vague instructions like do your best. A contest turns a target into a visible scoreboard. Prizes add a reward that arrives quickly instead of at the end of a quarter. Their 1990 book summarized many studies that pointed the same way.
More from The Superwall Podcast
