To consistently fill their ships, luxury cruise lines are using highly targeted and personalized direct mail campaigns that make the process of acquiring new customers more efficient. Some luxury lines, like Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, work in partnership with travel agents on campaigns that target the agents’ wealthy clients.
They build their mailing lists with addresses of their target demographic drawn from multiple agent sources for six month campaigns that are personalized and branded with the agencies’ logos and contact information. These partnerships produce higher response and conversion rates than either partner could produce individually. This is because they analyze larger amounts of data for super-specific targeting. Cruise lines pay a steep price to print and mail high-quality brochures for these programs because they know that the mailing lists are bound to bring in customers.
Cruise lines also know that many of the consumers in their market decide on cruises based on deals. Their mailings tend to offer better and better deals as the cruise date gets closer. Because passengers typically spend around 33% of the ticket price on other on-board expenses, these companies have no problem offering ticket deals that have them breaking even; when it gets down to the final weeks before departure and the tickets aren’t sold out, revenue is revenue and they’ll do whatever it takes to get people on-board and spending money. No matter how small the profit, it’s a win because they can then add those people to their customer list and try to bring them back for another cruise. Oceania does this by mailing a “welcome home” piece to guests as soon as they return from their cruise, which contains a discount coupon for a future cruise.
The direct marketing success of luxury cruise lines is a great example of how businesses in any industry can partner to collect data and improve the efficiency of their marketing. Using well-targeted and personalized mailings with increasingly good offers, they fill their cruise ships and maximize profits for every cruise, all while expanding their customer base which they will continue to tap into down the road.
Plum knows the science behind a successful direct mail marketing campaign in any industry. Check out our website for more information or call us at (800) 992-9663 to learn more and get started!
