Beckoning Prospects Aboard

Princess Cruises turns to e-mail to qualify leads

princess Cruises aims to provide vacationers with the best cruise experience possible – both virtually and traditionally.

While a passenger arriving at the dock may expect the “Love Boat” experience, there is no online version of Captain Stubing.

Princess, therefore, has free reign in its virtual creativity. And it takes advantage of that opportunity through its Web site and e-mail to draw customers on board.

Prospects and customers are able to gather information online prior to a trip by logging onto the company’s Web site (www.princesscruises.com) or through affiliated travel sites, such as Uniglobe.com and Mytravelco.com.

They can generate quotes for a possible cruise vacation, choose a cabin for that trip, and explore an on-board dinner and wine menu. And if they choose to, they can even reserve a 25-night trip to Africa.

The company’s Web site takes online services one step beyond the practical and into the “Princess experience.” For example, a Web visitor can e-mail an online postcard of a man and woman swimming in idyllic blue water, deliver a ceramic mug trimmed with 22-karat gold to a cruise passenger, download a screensaver featuring a ship under a full moon, or add the “Princess feeling” to a desktop by downloading nautical icons and the sounds of the sea. All of these amenities promote Princess, of course, with very little ongoing effort on the company’s part.

This brand development and marketing was expanded to e-mail back in February. “We were looking for opportunities where we could target our existing customer base in the quickest way possible,” says Jeff Dash, Princess Cruises’ director of database marketing. “In this day and age, e-mail is the quickest way to target customers and deliver a message.”

These messages, which used to take more than three weeks to deliver by traditional marketing means, can now be transmitted within days. “We have a meeting once a week, on Tuesdays,” says Dash. “If we decide in that meeting that we want to have additional marketing to help sales for one particular cruise, we can deliver the e-mail campaign by Friday.”

Once a marketing campaign is finalized, target lists are easy to come by, says Dash, noting that potential customers routinely seek information from the company.

“Our ability to get e-mail addresses has been simple,” he explains. “People have been knocking down our door to give us their e-mails.”

Visitors to the company’s Web site are asked to provide an e-mail address upon entering the site. A pop-up box offers the opportunity to receive e-mails about discounts on cruises. And when visitors send an online postcard or purchase a gift, Princess also collects those e-mail addresses.

Prospecting e-mail is frequently used to generate leads. “We send e-mails telling people about our product,” says Dash. “They can then look at the product and decide whether they are interested.”

And this method really delivers for Princess. The strength of e-mail marketing, notes Dash, is that it offers customers the opportunity to get the latest information at the earliest possible time.

“It allows us to be more relevant to customers,” he says. “I can send out an e-mail campaign in five minutes to hundreds of thousands of e-mail addresses, without needing additional resources or the necessary technical people in-house.”

The e-mail campaigns, Dash explains, “work in tandem with our brand recognition in delivering a message.”

They have been so successful, he concludes, “because we already have tremendous brand recognition.”