Cruises Marketing – Cruise Marketing Plan & Strategy
Cruise marketing is what often cruise owners ask themselves at some point in their business life cycle. Lets face it marketing for cruises must be somehow expensive as it is a luxury commodity and advertising has to look expensive. However, looking expensive it is costly because you will have to hire models, actors, celebrities etc….to represent your cruise brand since that’s what people like to see. Back in the day the only way cruises market their business was through TV advertising, direct mail, post cards, brochures, catalogs and many other ineffective and overpriced forms of advertising that were un-measurable in terms of metrics. For example, it a cruise owner launched a TV ad, direct mail campaign targeting a specific audience in Boston, MA they would run the TV ads on local New England channels so people around the area will eventually see the TV ad and book the cruise by calling. Now here comes the importance of measuring your marketing metrics: how many people saw the TV ad, how many people open the direct mail envelope, what percentage of this audience actually did actually spend over 10 seconds to glance at the cruise commercial or direct mail offer? Well, you will never know that will you? Old cruise marketing strategies have the “ throw it at the wall and see if it sticks” kind of approach. However, these days that approach may cost you a fortune, as the competition is smarter and faster to adapt to new cruise marketing plans and strategies. Old marketing techniques are great for brand building but at what cost you may ask? If I am spending so much to just a build the brand while my competitor is taking all the customers online because they have taken advantage of new Internet marketing strategies.
Online marketing is the new way to go for cruise business owners and any other cruise business that does not want to break-even but actually increase lead and make a good profit. The great thing about cruise online marketing is that you are already targeting your core audience, the people are actively searching for your service and what a better way speak to them back by getting your website in front of them.
Lets do a search for Boston Cruises:
Take a close look at the map listings and the listings below the map. We can clearly see that Boston Harbor Cruises is the main key player here and is dominating the online space for Boston cruises. Now what that makes the visitors life easier so they don’t have to dig too many pages to find what they are looking for. That’s what the great benefit of online marketing for cruises because the selling point, value proposition can be tailored to meet visitors demand. Having said that I think having a great cruise marketing strategy to penetrate the online space is a must for a cruise business owner, as cruise line marketing it going to get even more competitive as more people discover the value of online marketing.
Having customers find your website book online and talk about your brand is the best customer acquisition strategy that can help any cruise ship company.
