Marketing Classic Boats

 

Classic Sailing has developed a reputation for getting ‘bums on berths’ for traditional boats. In the current economic recession we are working with 12 other vessel owners to boost their bookings on voyages from Antarctica to Spitzbergen and we cannot pretend it is easy, but we still manage to run our own Pilot Cutter ‘Eve of St Mawes’ as well as being a sailing travel agent for boats with bowsprits:

 

How many people have abandoned sensible careers, sold their house, spent every penny they have ever earned, and borrowed up to the hilt to buy a classic boat or restore a historic beauty?

Their dream or their justification is a new lifestyle - sailing an eye-catching vessel and earning a new living from chartering.

 

Those with the courage to take the plunge have often spent years building up the sailing experience to do the job. They prepare careful business plans, probe existing charter businesses to convince themselves the customers are out there, and get excited every time a potential charter boat comes on the market.

 

Some are boat builders who know they can restore a boat cheaply though their hard physical labour. Others are often using a successful former career or redundancy package to give themselves a head start. They are all determined people and once they commit themselves to buying a boat – no bank manager or accountant has a hope in dissuading them. (We were just the same !)

 

What does eventually give them pause for the thought is the awful silence of a the telephone. Where are those customers? Why have only 3 people rung up for brochures after that great double page article on the boats restoration? Surely at least one of the hundred thousand readers of the best selling Sunday Times classified advert must be interested in sailing our stunning vessel?

 

 

Two people who think they know the answer are Adam and Debbie Purser who co founded Classic Sailing in 1997, and both skipper pilot cutter replica ‘Eve of St Mawes’. Not only have they managed to keep “Eve” full of enthusiastic sailors from March to November, they have also found hundreds of customers for other operators over the last 8 years: Currently we are working with sailing partners promoting Barque Europa, Gaff topsail schooners Oosterschelde and Tolkein, Barquentine Antigua, Brig Stavros S Niarchos Historic wooden ships Bessie Ellen and topsail schooner Rhea; Brixham Trawlers Leader and Provident, gaff cutter Golden Vanity; Pilot Cutters Eve of St Mawes, Morwenna, Annabel J and Lizzie May.

 

They have both thought about writing a book on the “peaks and troughs” of running a traditional boat charter business, but marketing is a flat out 12 months of the year business, so a few practical tips is all we can manage for the moment:

 

Classic Sailing has helped new start up businesses but we would rather work with those who have already launched their vessel into the charter scene, and help them to survive their own roller coaster ride. 

 

To do just that Classic Sailing are working with a small number of sailing partners who have their own vessels but would like to benefit from Classic Sailing’s marketing experience. Typically our sailing partners are owner / operators who are finding it impossible to concentrate on running their sailing holidays as well as the full time job of promoting their vessel, finding customers and dealing with booking administration. It’s a service for skippers run by skippers. We don’t want to stifle individuality or freedom for charter boat owners to develop their own business plans, but to move forward you everybody needs “bums on berths.”

 

So how have Classic Sailing developed the art of selling berths:

 

The most commercially astute thing we ever did was choose a good boat name, “Eve of St Mawes” this was shortened to just “Eve” for the mainsail, which instantly identified and promoted our home port. Adam grew up in St Mawes, but hadn’t lived there for over 20 years. However “Eve” was adopted by the local community who are still extremely keen to tell newcomers who see her out on the water that they can go sailing on her. We chose “Eve” specifically so we could put a short name on the sail, which was in the style of a pilot cutter’s port of registry initials e.g Cf for Cardiff, without claiming to be an original pilot cutter. It doesn’t have to as be blatant, but you do need to stand out. Sponsorship logos you can live with are an option. Ignore the classic boat purists. They don’t have to earn a living from their pride and joy.

Business advisors told us that Cornwall might be a bit off the beaten track and too far to travel from the main population centres. We soon proved them wrong. Customers living in Canada, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Eire, Luxembourg, Australia, Honk Kong, Argentina, South Africa and Belgium have travelled to St Mawes to sail on “Eve” and we have several sailors who make an annual pilgrimage from Scotland to sail in Cornwall. This year we are also doing it in reverse. Persuading our customers to sail on Lizie May in Largs and Morwenna in Skye based in Skye. Travelling to Skye is a major undertaking, compared to nipping down to the Solent- but where would you rather sail! We have always promoted the land as much as the sea. Our first brochure was titled “Adventure Afloat: Explore Ashore,” and our skippers scramble about the coves and cliff tops with as much enthusiasm as they set sail.

 

We have always looked bigger than we really are. Customers are amazed that our original 16-page brochure was all about one boat. We pioneered many voyages with a new twist. Sailing and Walking voyages were promoted via a “Country Walking” Magazine article. Women Go Wild Voyages were given a wider audience through Health & Fitness Magazine. Places on our Marine Wildlife Workshops were subsidised by a government training grant – so students could afford to sail. Island Hopping in the Scillies became a popular speciality. Our 3-day Taste of Salt voyages made ideal competition prizes for newspapers, magazines and trade journals. Exotic Spring Gardens of Cornwall Voyages encouraged lots of brave non-sailors to come sailing in early March! Fresh Seafood Voyages were jointly promoted with a local seafood specialist and trawler owner. The only disadvantage is you have to put a lot more work into planning the preparing each different voyage.

 

You need to be able to show your boat and voyages to a large audience, not just a specialist market of keen sailors. The Classic Sailing team have never viewed fellow charter boats as competition. They welcome more beautiful boats taking new people out on the water. If you totalled up all the berths on traditional charter boats and sail training ships in the UK they amount to very small fry in the general holiday market. One specialist trekking and adventure company like Exodus would provide more holiday spaces than the whole UK charter fleet in one brochure. Other adventure and activity holidays are where the competition really lies. If you are promoting winter sailing in the Canaries you really are competing for people’s holiday money with ski-ing in the Alps.

 

Your Customer Database is your main tool.

Every marketing course will tell you it is cheaper to fully utilise an existing customer or enquiry than find a new one. Classic Sailing were lucky in that Adam had spent the last 20 years developing a mail order business (selling dolls houses and accessories) so not only had he perfected many marketing skills which could be applied to selling sailing experiences, he had also developed database management to a high level. We can target mailouts and e-mail campaigns to enquiries on our database from geographical areas, just women customers, those interested in sailing and walking, past customers, or a mix of characteristics. Other charter companies and organisations seem very reluctant to post the latest news or voyage offers to thousands or even hundreds of enquiries. Those potential customers would not of enquired if they hadn’t been tempted by the idea of sailing. You just have to nibble away at them in the nicest possible way until the dates fit and they seize the day and book.

 

People dream of holidays at weekends, in the evenings, at work on Monday morning, and some are planning their next holiday in their head 365 days a year. They can ring you at any time, and there is no real season for bookings. As soon as our customers have finished sailing they are thinking of their next fix of fresh air. Credit cards and access to the internet mean more people are booking last minute than ever before. The downside is you need a real person to politely answer the phone in November when you just want to collapse after a busy season, in March when you are at the boatyard up to your neck in dirty jobs, or they ring in August to see if you can squeeze in a family of five over the bank holiday. It’s a service industry and there is no escape if you want “bums on berths.” Sailing is the easy bit.

 

Your Website needs to make waves.

Keeping Classic Sailing website www.classic-sailing.co.uk high on search engines and relevant and interesting to customers takes up the majority of our marketing effort. It has been our main source of new customers for many years. Without giving way too many trade secrets – you need to understand website design and maintain content and design control of your website. We did the recent Website design update in house with technical support from Ali of ‘Sticky web’. It needs to be constantly updated, vibrant and worth regular visits. To keep up with the other holiday competition you will need to use every trick in the book to get people to your site. If you can’t commit that much time to on line marketing then you may have to swallow your pride and promote your vessel through someone else’s website for a commission.

 

A masterful skipper – aloof and mysterious, calmly assesses the situation, busy with the lonely decisions of command. Does this work on a charter boat? No chance. If you don’t like people this is not the job for you. Your guest crew will hang on your every word, want to know where they are going and why? Many are professional people used to be in charge themselves. They are fascinated by your lifestyle, and the job you do. They will only come again if they like you as a person, feel a useful part of the crew, and that they belong to the boat whilst they are on board.

 

Marketing classic boats is a doodle when you think how good they look, it really is an example of one picture equals a thousand words.