Context and Opportunity
Given the success of Baldino, Look at my iFood!, in a meeting in November 2023, I brought more similar ideas to Fernando Baldino and we saw an opportunity to get more free leads through the promotion of monthly programming material that iFood itself makes available to store owners within the community.
Fernando already had a very large lead base from past launches, along with over 80 thousand followers at the time (today he has much more). But this audience was very lukewarm and only came to life during launch periods. The Calendar idea was precisely to add something that would keep this audience warmed up and engaged monthly.
How the System Works
This gave rise to the iFood Marketing Calendar, a simple lead capture system where, by filling in name, email and phone number, the lead is redirected to a page where they can download the marketing calendar pdf for that month directly to their cell phone or device.
All lead data is stored in a Google Sheets spreadsheet, and later, they are sent to a WhatsApp group where the draw takes place weekly. The link is published on Instagram organically through posts and stories, with campaigns that last 3 to 5 days per month.
Results and Impact
From the beginning, the idea proved promising. Since its creation, more than 12 thousand leads have been collected over this 1 year of the project, which entered the funnel for free and were later used to advertise other products, serving as a constant entry into the sales funnel.
The most interesting thing is that all these leads came from completely organic traffic, through Instagram posts that already had a solid base of over 80 thousand followers. This means there was no investment in paid media, making the acquisition cost of these leads practically zero.
Tools and Technical Implementation
To make all this work, we used a lean but efficient stack: Elementor as a site builder, Elementor Forms as a form complement, Google Sheets to store data, Make.com for no-code automations that connect everything, and LeadLovers for the lead nurturing email system.
The automation works quite simply: the lead fills out the form, the data goes directly to Google Sheets, from there they are sent to the page where they can download the pdf, and at the same time they enter the email marketing flow to be nurtured with relevant content.
My Participation and Success Factors
I participated in the conception of the project and user flow. The expert’s adherence was fundamental to the success of this innovation, as it fit perfectly into his personal and work routines. Since he was already comfortable recording stories and the calendar was released in campaigns of 3 to 5 days 1x per month, it became quite light for the routine and still brings great results today.
What makes me most proud of this project is how we managed to create something sustainable that really works in the long term. It wasn’t just an experiment that worked for a few months – the iFood Marketing Calendar became a permanent lead capture tool that continues to generate consistent results to this day.
Conclusion
The key to success was understanding that Fernando needed something that was simple to execute, but that kept the audience engaged between launches of his main products. iFood’s monthly calendar was the perfect material: useful for the target audience, always updated, and that already had credibility for being official from the platform.
This project also proved that we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel – sometimes the best strategy is to identify resources that already exist (like iFood’s official calendar) and find creative ways to transform them into lead capture tools. The secret is to align the solution with the expert’s routine and the real needs of the target audience.
This success case also shows the importance of thinking about long-term strategies that keep the audience engaged between major launches, creating a constant flow of qualified leads for the sales funnel.
