by Karl Sakas on March 9, 2010
Advertising complacency will kill you.
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” -Winston Churchill
Are you running the same ads year in and year out? If you aren’t making adjustments based on your sales are coming from, you could be wasting thousands of dollars a year on ineffective ads. Or worse, you could have been making thousands more if only you’d used the money to try something new that might work even better.
The first time I tested a Facebook ad campaign for trips on the Dover Harbor Pullman car, I failed to restrict the ad distribution to the D.C. area. We spent $100 on all of Maryland and Virginia and got zero sales. I monitored the results, edited the ad, and ran a larger campaign, now targeting ads to a 50 mile radius from the departure point at Washington Union Station.
The result? Way more profitable. We got a 300% return on investment (ROI) the second time.
Do I always get it right as a marketing manager? Absolutely not. But I’m willing to test different options, and I learn from my mistakes. I help clients track their sales, analyze which ads are working, and recommend changes so they can spend their ad budget more effectively. Customers hear about your train rides and events, and everyone’s happy.
Are you taking risks and measuring the results? You’re losing out if you aren’t.
About the Author: Marketing manager Karl Sakas helps tourist railroads and private railcar operators use smart marketing to make more money, in order to preserve history and keep the trains running. Schedule a free telephone consultation — or hire him to help your business or non-profit organization — at www.HeritageRail.biz.
Photo credit: Statue of Winston Churchill, by Jose L. Marin, via Creative Commons
by Karl Sakas on June 9, 2009
You can take at least four business insights from Trip of a Lifetime by Paul Grescoe, a corporate history of the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train in Canada:
- “We’re in the tourism business, not the transportation business.”
- “The trains provided the customer volume, but the add-ons drove profits.”
- Putting customers into hotels at the halfway point (in the early years) let everyone see the mountain scenery during the day. Coupled with serving meals on trays at passengers’ seats, they could run a mostly coach-seating train, instead of a less-efficient consist with sleeping cars and dining cars. (Today, they offer several First Class options.)
- For service crew members, it’s a job — but for passengers, it’s the “trip of a lifetime.”
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by Karl Sakas on May 1, 2009
Are you making the most of Amtrak’s second annual National Train Day event on May 9, 2009? Your railroad, museum, or private railcar can piggyback onto the U.S. national event to get free local publicity and free sales leads.
Amtrak makes it easy with several free marketing tools, but you’ll have to do the legwork for your organization. Here’s what you need to get started! [click to continue...]
by Karl Sakas on April 18, 2009
Marketing is more than just advertising—it’s how your customers and visitors experience your railroad, museum, or railcar in any way. When they buy tickets, visit your website, call to ask questions, or ride your trains, that’s all marketing.
I recently experienced a bad example of train-related marketing. [click to continue...]
by Karl Sakas on February 9, 2009
Drew McLellan, a marketing blogger in Iowa, illustrates how a small change can have a big effect:
Over 50 million people eat fast food every day in the United States. A vast majority of those eat their fast food meal in their car. And I dare say, a good percentage of those eating in the car — end up dripping ketchup or burger juice or something onto their shirt. (First two stats are legit, third one is my supposition).
So that’s a lot of stained shirts and irritated customers.
Panera solved this problem with a dash of glue.
[click to continue...]
