Discover How One FareHarbor Client Made Over $250,000 In Six Days
Get the inside scoop on how Triton Charters generated $250,000 in bookings.
When we discovered that FareHarbor client, Triton Charters, made more than a quarter of a million dollars in under a week (yes, you read that right!) — we knew we had to find out the details. FareHarbor’s Head of Community, Shane Whaley, sat down with the CMO of Triton Charters, Nate Sinisgalli, to get the whole picture. Read on to hear how they designed this creative promotion and what elements could work for your business.
The company
Triton Charters is a yacht rental company in San Diego, California. They host several types of experiences including ticketed charters, private charters, and special events throughout the year on their 75-foot catamaran.
The promotion
They ran a Black Friday promotion offering their popular 2.5 hour bay cruises for $20 — tickets that usually cost $55 per person. Customers had a limit of 20 discounted tickets per purchase.
Triton Charters generated $250,000 in bookings in just 6 days for a Black Friday special selling discounted bay cruise tickets for $20.
The plan
Executing this promotion was not a spur of the moment decision. Nate spent many months building up Triton Charter’s email and text messaging (SMS) lists as well as their social following. He said that “over nine months, we gathered an SMS list of 1,900 VIP’s and 20,000 customer’s information.”
Two ways Nate built Triton Charter’s engaged audience:
- He did not “over-message” those who subscribe to their email and text messages. For this target audience, the maximum number of communications sent was twice per month.
- They offered various other promotions throughout the year to build excitement to a VIP text list. Many customers received free tickets, merchandise, or discounted private event deals.
These two factors made customers look forward to the messages from Triton Charters — and when the Black Friday deal came around, customers were ready to buy.
With an established email and SMS list as well as a large social following, Triton Charters Black Friday promotion was ready to take off.
Triton Charters used email blasts, SMS blasts, and Facebook Ads to tell customers about their incredible deal. Facebook Ads was the biggest contributor in sales for this promotion (but more on that later). Nate hired a friend to optimize their ads and recommends that unless you are an expert in Facebook ads, this was the right move.
“For me, it’s well worth hiring somebody [for areas of marketing you are less familiar with]. In the experience market, people are trying to do too much. They’re trying to run their business, they’re trying to do their advertising, they’re trying to do all their marketing, they’re trying to do too much.”
They also posted daily on social stories with two static posts per week.
The factors of success
A well thought out plan is just the start. The following factors assisted in the success of the Black Friday.
Offer a can’t-miss deal
As Nate says, “you can’t offer mediocre anymore. Offering a 10% discount and expecting droves of people to line up for your product won’t happen.”
Nate realized for this deal to really work, the promotion had to be great. Discounting the $55 tour to $20 cut the ticket price in more than half and enticed more buyers. (We know that is a massive discount, but read on to discover how Nate turned this into a profitable campaign!)
Furthermore, this ticket is great for Black Friday because it can be a great holiday gift and something for people to look forward to as the weather gets warmer.
Having an unforgettable tour or activity
People had trust in purchasing a $20 ticket because of the five star reviews as well as plenty of pictures and videos.
The owner of Triton Charters also ensures his catamaran is clean and decorated beautifully which helps create that special experience for souls onboard.
High-quality content
Nate and Triton Charters determined that short form videos and images with text overlay perform the best on social media. They enlisted the help of a videographer to capture engaging, beautiful content, then shared it via email, text, and on their website.
Clear landing page
Triton Charter’s landing page is easy to navigate, offers positive testimonials, and includes images of the boat and what passengers can expect.
Most importantly, it clearly pointed website visitors to the Black Friday sale.
FareHarbor’s support
FareHarbor has been Triton Charter’s partner in success and growth for almost three years. When asked how Fareharbor assisted in the Black Friday promotion, Nate said that,
“I think FareHarbor is by far the best booking software there is for experiences and the customer support is crazy good. When you run deals like this, you need to have fast customer service in the instance when things don’t display properly, when you need to add a code, or anything else. If things are not working properly and communication is not fast, you could lose a day of sales.
Wherewolf’s digital waiver integration
After switching from another waiver solution, Nate found Wherewolf was the most successful partner for Triton Charters.
He explained that “the most important part of this campaign was building that audience. Wherewolf stands out from the competition because it gathers data for Google Analytics. And if you’re not gathering customer information, then you’re just losing on so much money.”
The right set of tools
As Nate has mentioned, “marketers are nothing without the tools [they] use”. He walked us through the exact tools and services he used to build out the Black Friday campaign.
Reservation system and payment processing: FareHarbor
Digital waiver software that seamlessly integrates with FareHarbor: Wherewolf
Email marketing campaigns: Mailchimp
SMS Marketing: SimpleTexting
Social Media Ads: Instagram and Facebook
Lead Management Software and CRM: Go High Level
Image Creation and Editing: Canva
Import lead information to appropriate places: Zapier
Ad editor: Premiere Pro
Website and Landing Page Builder with Mailchimp integration: Divi Builder
SEO tool: Ahrefs
One major consideration
Nate pressed that this type of promotion is only possible on a tour or activity where customers spend extra money while on the experience. In this case, on the bay cruise, drinks are served for $12 each with the average customer buying 2.5 drinks.
He does not suggest running a promotion like this unless you have the opportunity for customers to buy add-ons AND they typically spend money during the experience.
The results
From Facebook Ads, emails blasts and SMS blasts, Triton Charters made $250,000 in 6 days.
Although all an important piece, here is a breakdown of where the sales came from:
- Facebook Ads accounted for 39%
- MailChimp Eblasts 30%
- SMS Blast 31%
Aside from the incredible profits made from this promotion, Triton Charters now has the lasting effects of an engaged email and SMS list as well as a new slew of happy customers. The benefits from this promotion will extend for years to come.
While this kind of deal may not work for every business, it is a wonderful example of a bold, well thought out, expertly executed Black Friday sale.