Selling cruises newspaper verus internet
Agency owner Jerry Lack turned to the local newspaper for his most successful promotion. Not only did he sell more cruises, he says:
“I also added over 1200 names of potential clients.”
Mr Lack, who for the past two years has owned Cruise Holidays of Central New Jersey, thought of the idea of approaching the circulation manager with Greater Media Publications. The idea: promote both cruises and the newspaper itself through its classified ads.
“Part of the reason it worked so well is that the newspaper has a circulation of over 300,000,” said Mr Lack, whose small agency specializes in cruises.
The newspaper ran a contest for four weeks where readers seeking to win a free cruise had to find a small symbol, then paste the symbol to a card mailed to the newspaper. The newspaper then held a drawing for those who had regularly sent in their symbols.
The free advertising Mr Lack received was worth $35,000. The newspaper also was a winner.
“Basically, it forced people to go through and read the newspaper,” said Mr Lack.
Cruise Holidays recognized the promotion as the “Most Successful Marketing Idea” for stores with sales volume under $1.5 million at its annual convention.
Mr Lack says he has done other promotions but nothing that has worked so well. He does not know how many actual sales it brought, but he recommends it to others. And he plans to do it again.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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