Using Continuity For Guaranteed Income

January 28th, 2013 by Diane Conklin under Uncategorized. No Comments.

We could easily spend days talking about the masterful marketing techniques of the cruise industry. If you’ve never been on a cruise and you get the chance, you should take it. There are great marketing and business lessons to be learned on cruises. Just watching and paying attention to how they market everything and thinking about how it pertains to your business can make the cruise so worthwhile.

This isn’t about selling you onto a cruise. This is about lessons learned just by watching what others do. The cruise industry is an industry that really capitalizes on what they do.

First, they work with a very targeted audience, whoever’s on their ships. Now as a business owner, you might be thinking that’s only about a couple of thousand people, and you’d be right. So it’s important to the cruise line to capture that market and make the most of it every time they leave the port area.

One of the ways they capitalize on their numbers too, is by using continuity strategies. Take for example drinking on a cruise. They offer a drink of the day, every day. It’s a different drink every day and it comes in a souvenir cup every day. They charge you about $1.50 to $2.00 more for the drink in the souvenir cup, but you get to keep the fun cup they served it in.

Now, it’s a cruise, so you have to remember, people are on vacation. Most people will have a drink, or two, while they’re on vacation. Not everyone will drink alcohol so the cruise line also offers a soda club for guests. The point is, by offering this little bonus at just a small cost, they monopolize on the limited market available to them.

The cruise ships have a variety of services like this. They offer things like wine clubs, dinner clubs and soft drink clubs. They also offer pictures and all kinds of items you can buy just so you can remember your time on their ship. They provide all of these things at a small additional cost to you. So, even if only a small percentage of the people take advantage of their offer, and even if it’s only a dollar or two more per person, those additional profits can add up very quickly.

What extra services can you offer in your business that could get you a little more profit from clients who are already paying you for other things? What are the conveniences or little things you can provide your clients, for just a little bit more money than they’re already paying? Where is the hidden money in your business? Find it. Deliver these little conveniences or bonuses for that little bit more and see your results, and your profits, really soar.