Why is a marketing strategy important for ferry companies?

Who is not intended to sustain its company and develop its business?

Promoting Differentiation

Adopting a good marketing strategy is very important for your brand’s differentiation, especially in a sector where companies offer similar services such as ferry transport. Indeed, brand recognition and differentiation allow service companies to stand out and remain competitive.

There is therefore a double advantage to developing a promotional campaign, you can attract more customers (increase your turnover) and at the same time strengthen your brand awareness (which gives you more credibility), with a minimal investment cost. You just need to be creative and to know what are the exact expectations of the consumers of your service.

Ferry passengers’ segmentation

There are several types of services for ferry operators: simple passenger transport; roll-on roll-off transport of vehicles and passengers; excursions and visits. Each service requires a different level of organization and different technical and structural skills.

Indeed, the big difference is that consumers of these services have distinct buying behaviors. It is then a question of adopting marketing strategies adapted to each segment. But how to segment your market?

Ferry passengers’ motivations

You can use "purpose of travel" as the basis for your segmentation and then focus on the segments that are most interesting to you. For example, there are two main types of travelers: regular customers who travel from one island to another by ferry to work; tourists, more interested in full services including for example a meal on board or excursions.

We can also segment the market more precisely, by identifying more travel motivations: tourism, leisure, visiting relatives or friends, interests, business and others. These motivations will influence the form of the trip requested by your customers. Some will look for a service with added value (such as a guided tour, a meal included or even accommodation) while other customers are looking for a simple transport service from point A to a point B at the most accessible price possible.

Ferry passengers’ buying behavior

As mentioned earlier, the purchasing behavior of your potential customers is influenced by the reason of his trip. Indeed, there is a relationship between the passengers' travel patterns and the extent of the services they are likely to buy on board of the ship.

Locals (or regular customers) provide you with a steady stream of revenue throughout the year, especially if you are successful in building loyalty (by offering loyalty programs or discounts) but are reluctant to ask for additional services.

On the other hand, passengers travelling for tourism reasons are those who are looking for greater added value and are more favorable to buy services on board, so it is thanks to them that you can generate the most turnover.

This is where marketing comes in, and it's very important. Because in order to capture these foreign customers, you must stand out from the competition and get their attention. Check out our blog posts for more information about tourism marketing to better understand how the life cycle as online consumers is when it comes to the tourism sector.

Online marketing

Nowadays, when we talk about marketing, we also talk a lot about e-commerce and digitization, which are becoming more and more important for consumers. The best illustration of this phenomenon is undoubtedly the development of mobile solutions for reservations and cancellation.

In addition, online marketing is the best way to reach a wider range of consumers. And this is because on the Internet there is no limitation of space or time to show your content, a content that can be accessed at any time of the day. Nowadays, almost everyone uses the Internet to search for information, since Internet has no borders.

For this reason, an online marketing platform is essential at the moment in which a passenger transport company decides to position itself on the Internet. Because there are several actions that can be implemented to stand out from the competition and fight for a niche with your product and services. Actions that will allow you to attract more users to your website and get them to become customers.

Now is you time!