Silversea Cruises: Luxury Travel Acquisition through Digital and

Emerging Media

PresentingAlejandra LopezInteractive ManagerSilversea Cruises@alejalopez

Jeannette KocsisSVP Digital MarketingThe Agency Inside Harte-Hanks@jnetk

Matthew RosenblattEVP CreativeThe Agency Inside Harte-Hanks@mattrosenblatt

Agenda

• About Silversea Cruises• About Affluent Consumers• The Assignment• The Situation• The Solution• New Opportunities• Top 5 Things We Learned

Silversea Cruises• A global, luxury cruise line with six ships serving over 450

destinations around all seven continents– All ocean-view suites– Butler service for every passenger– Gourmet cuisine and choice of dining venues– Complimentary wine and spirits– Exotic and adventurous destinations

• Average customers have $1 Million plus net worth, are 55+ and with over $250,000 annual HH income

Targeting Luxury

• It wasn’t so long ago that people thought– Rich people don’t use the Internet– Or search engines– Or social media– Or even mobile

• What do they do with their time?

FPO

But first let’s start with..

Conceptualizing Luxury

Who is considered “affluent”

Lower 20%

Upper 20% - $250K+/Year Income

Middle 60%

What Do They Do With Their Time?

Publications are both online and offline

How Active Are They on Social?

Affluents of all ages are active in social networks, although the study showed that Affluent Seniors are more likely to be involved in cause-related or family discussions

About 50% visit YouTube on a monthly basis and 14% visit LinkedIn

What Do They Expect From a Brand?

Customization

34% expect products &

services customized to their needs and desires

True Distinctiven

ess32% expect the brand to be an

innovator

Exceed Expectations

32% expect surprise & delight (once in a lifetime

experiences)

What Does Vacation Look Like?• 66% anticipate traveling domestically this year, 33% international

– International travel includes cruises

What Does Vacation Look Like?

How Much Will They Invest?

43%anticipate spending more on travel this year than last

Looking for Calls to Action

Affluent Travel Trends

54% plan on redeeming rewards, but 14% say not a factor

60% of young affluents want to book themselves

75% make plans less than 6 months in advance; 11% within one month

The Assignment

DRIVE NEW QUALIFIED LEADS

The Situation

• Silversea Cruises is competing against other luxury cruise brands on experience– And all other cruise ships on share of voice

Over 80 Cruise lines in the world!

The Situation

Many factors influence declining occupancy

The Situation

Previous efforts brought many people into the funnel – and the call center sorted them out

FPO

Strategic Drivers - Social Monitoring

I love Silversea Cruises for many reasons, the butler is one of them!

I slept well on Silver Whisper during my cruise that ended last Saturday. Now I’ve learned that the luxury line will offer Pratesi custom made bed linens.. I may not get out of bed on my next cruise.

It’s quiet, grown-up, and passengers tend to be able to amuse themselves… Age really isn’t a factor. It’s always an interesting group of people who enjoy getting to know you.

You deserve to be warned about just how addictive Silversea is.

The SituationBrand Love

The Solution

The Solution

The ApproachTarget affluents online to reduce call center loads and improve conversion• Age• HHI• Net worth• Retargeting

FPO

Media Mix Optimization

34%

18%

23%

3%

22%

Media Spend Mix

Search

Social

Content

Display

Email

Channel

Banners

• First changes were to add call to actions

“Senior Cruises” (Tablets Only)

“Luxury Cruises”

“Luxury Cruises”

Increased Performance

• “Butler Service” banner has a record breaking CTR, without a call to action or button to click on

• Adding call to actions to the other banners increased their performance by 200%

CruiseCriticLuxuryLink CruiseCritic

New Ways to Place Banners• New banner ads include 2013 Brochure messaging

— Strategically positioned on CruiseCritic.com once discussions around the release of the brochure were identified within the site’s forum pages through Social Listening & Monitoring

“the much anticipated 2013 (brochure) finally made its way to NYC…a few lucky souls have reported to receive theirs early”

“They did a nice job on the book…for those of us who now enjoy having ‘the book’ in our hands…what are your impressions?”

Mobile

• Using mobile search, Click to Call, leveraging the call center

• New opportunities will include mobile app banners

Social

• Advertising on Facebook, targeted to affluents

• Initial Results:– Global is still not very effective– US generates the most leads,

and although higher CPLs, they were more targeted

Going Global

• Translated paid search ads and landing pages from English to Spanish and German – global reach/presence in strong markets like Europe & Latin America

Spanish (Mexico) Portuguese (Brazil)

German

Landing Page ConversionLanding pages were optimized to increase conversion

Added imagery of the shipRemoved questions relating to working with travel agents

Initial Results

Lead volume has

increased by

98%CPL has dropped by 12%

CTR increased by 36%

78% increase in conversion

New Opportunities

New Media Opportunities

Exchange

Facebook Application

• We are creating a Facebook application to assist fans who are planning a trip– Application will allow the fan to browse and choose per

ships, destinations, amenities. Get virtual brochures, suite /ship tours and most importantly, share their trip plans with their communities.

– Lead acquisition with immediate opt-in – Build an online community – brand presence and

awareness

Natural Search

The Situation• Silversea.com had not been optimized for

search, and most traffic was based on branded terms

• SEO scorecard showed that the site needed the most effort placed on keyword selections and content

The SolutionThe right keywords is the first step

KeywordMonthly Search

VolumeGoogle Position

Yahoo! Position

Bing Position

Mediterranean cruise 18100 24 97 96all inclusive cruises 12100 6 48 47silversea 6600 1 1 1best cruises 3600 - - -panama canal cruise 3600 19 - -Caribbean cruise 2900 - - -luxury cruise lines 2900 3 12 13Mexico cruise 2900 45 - -silversea cruises 2900 1 1 1Asia cruise 2400 95 59 57cruise specials 2400 17 - -world cruise 2400 2 2 2transatlantic cruises 1900 88 - -silverseas 1600 1 2 1luxury cruise 1300 5 12 12small ship cruises 1300 - - -Baltic cruise 880 20 43 42new England cruise 720 18 62 -silverseas cruises 480 1 1 1silversea cruise 390 1 1 1best luxury cruise lines 320 12 - 41luxury cruise ships 260 2 8 7silversea cruise reviews 260 7 8 9luxury cruise line 170 2 14 14silversea cruise line 140 1 1 1long cruises 110 - - -small luxury cruises 110 4 8 11expedition cruises 91 7 9 13small luxury cruise lines 73 1 5 5grand voyages 16 3 5 5

The Solution• Keyword map to pages, based on Web analytics, and focused

on conversion• Conversion goals are:

– Sign up for Offers– Order a Brochure– Request a Quote– Request a Call

• Meta data and content updates• Incoming links analysis and requests

International SEO

• The site is also being optimized in Spanish and German, to leverage SEO in related countries

Moving Forward

Future Plans

• Continuing to optimize– Media– New rich media opportunities– Conversion– Lead process

• Starting a rebranding effort

Engagement Nirvana

What We LearnedOUR TOP 5 LIST

1. Affluent consumers are active online, and spend time researching for what they want

2. Address the young affluents as they age into our cruise line

3. Think out of the box; social media monitoring is critical

4. Balance the media mix to achieve maximum ROI5. Our overall customer experience needs to reflect

our brand – from prospect to loyal customer

Thank You!

Alejandra LopezInteractive ManagerSilversea Cruises@alejalopez

Jeannette KocsisSVP Digital MarketingThe Agency Inside Harte-Hanks@jnetk

Matthew RosenblattEVP CreativeThe Agency Inside Harte-Hanks@mattrosenblatt