1. Silversea Cruises: Luxury Travel
Acquisition through Digital and
Emerging Media

2. Presenting
Alejandra Lopez Jeannette Kocsis Matthew Rosenblatt
Interactive Manager SVP Digital Marketing EVP Creative
Silversea Cruises The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks
@alejalopez
@jnetk @mattrosenblatt

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

4. 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

5. 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

6. But first let’s start with..

7. Conceptualizing Luxury
Luxury is subject to interpretation by the
consumer, based on their definition
Luxury is personal.. And emotional
Luxury is a personal indulgence.. Or can
mean bringing the family together
Ultimately affluents are seeking a self-
reward of.. I deserve

8. Who is considered “affluent”
Upper 20% - $250K+/Year Income
Middle 60%
Lower 20%

9. What Do They Do With Their Time?
Publications are both online and offline

10. 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

11. What Do They Expect From a Brand?
Customization Exceed
34% expect products & Expectations
services customized to
32% expect surprise &
their needs and
delight (once in a
desires
lifetime experiences)
True
Distinctiveness
32% expect the brand
to be an innovator

12. What Does Vacation Look Like?
• 66% anticipate traveling domestically this year, 33% international
– International travel includes cruises

13. What Does Vacation Look Like?

14. How Much Will They Invest?
43%
anticipate spending more on travel this year than last

15. Looking for Calls to Action

16. Affluent Travel Trends
75% make plans
less than 6 months
Plans
in advance; 11%
within one month
60% of young
DIY affluents want to
book themselves
54% plan on
redeeming
Rewards
rewards, but 14%
say not a factor

17. The Assignment

18. DRIVE NEW
QUALIFIED LEADS

19. 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!

20. The Situation
Many factors influence declining occupancy

21. The Situation
Previous efforts
brought many
people into the
funnel – and the call
center sorted them
FPO
out

23. The Solution
A Targeted Media Plan
With
Where At the Right
Relevant
Affluents Moment in
Call-to-
are Online Time
actions

24. The Solution

25. The Approach
Target affluents online to reduce call
center loads and improve conversion
• Age
• HHI
• Net worth
• Retargeting
FPO

26. Media Mix Optimization
Media Spend Mix
Channel
22%
Search
34%
Social
3% Content
Display
Email
23%
18%

27. Banners
“Luxury
Cruises”
• First changes were to add call to actions
“Senior
“Luxury
Cruises”
Cruises”
(Tablets Only)

28. 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%
LuxuryLink CruiseCritic CruiseCritic

29. 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?”

30. Mobile
• Using mobile search, Click to
Call, leveraging the call center
• New opportunities will
include mobile app banners

31. 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

32. 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

33. Landing Page Conversion
Landing pages were optimized to increase conversion
Added imagery of the ship
Removed questions relating to working with travel agents

34. Initial Results
CTR
increased Lead
volume has
by 36%
increased
by 98%
CPL has 78%
increase in
dropped conversion
by 12%

35. New Opportunities

36. New Media Opportunities
Exchange

37. 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

38. Natural Search

39. 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

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

41. 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

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

43. Moving Forward

44. Future Plans
• Continuing to optimize
– Media
– New rich media opportunities
– Conversion
– Lead process
• Starting a rebranding effort

45. Engagement Nirvana

46. What We Learned
OUR 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 ROI
5. Our overall customer experience needs to reflect
our brand – from prospect to loyal customer

47. Thank You!
Alejandra Lopez Jeannette Kocsis Matthew Rosenblatt
Interactive Manager SVP Digital Marketing EVP Creative
Silversea Cruises The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks
@alejalopez
@jnetk @mattrosenblatt