Case study · Harbor Boating, Baltimore
Relaunched in a month. Sold out all summer.
Baltimore’s legacy water taxi operator changed hands weeks before a season with new boats and new services. We had about a month to get it ready. Then its new flagship sold out nearly every sailing.
~1 month
from ownership change to launch-ready
11x
return on ad spend across summer event cruises
Sold out
nearly every summer sailing on the new flagship, ahead of its date
The situation
A new owner, a bigger fleet, and a season about to start.
Baltimore Water Taxi has worked the Inner Harbor since 1975. In early 2026, Harbor Boating, the company behind it, was mid-sale, and marketing stayed on hold until the deal closed.
By the time it did, the season was close and the business had grown. It now ran a water taxi, a harbor trolley, public cruises and private charters, with several new boats including a flagship, the Lady Thames. Every one of those needed a reason to book, and there was no time for a slow ramp-up.
What we did
A season of preparation, compressed into about a month.
Positioning for every service
A clear reason to ride or book for the water taxi, trolley, public cruises and private charters, so each could be sold on its own.
A refreshed website
Updated to reflect the expanded business and get visitors from interest to tickets.
Print, signage and sales collateral
Dock signs, charter sales kits for corporate, nonprofit, wedding and private events, and screen slides for every line of business.
Paid campaigns
Ready the same week the boats were, and run sailing by sailing through the summer.
Press
PR around the new season and expanded services, earning broadcast, print and radio coverage.
Hospitality Night
An invitation-only evening aboard the Lady Thames for the people who book Baltimore’s events, with its own invitations, landing page and RSVP flow. Most of the region’s event planners came aboard.
The results
The flagship sold out. Then we added sailings.
The Lady Thames’ event sailings sold out ahead of their dates, one fast enough that we added a second sailing, which sold out in two days. Across the summer event cruises, paid media returned 11x, and every paid channel beat travel and hospitality benchmarks.
When recurring sailings began, the first sailing of a new Sunday cruise series sold out too, with no event behind it and no existing search demand.
Behind the results
Tracking you can trust, sailing by sailing.
We tightened the existing conversion tracking across the website and ticketing, and closed the gaps that were letting sales go unrecorded. We built retargeting audiences that carried from one sailing to the next.
Ad platform, analytics and booking data were reconciled after every sailing, giving leadership a clear view of what was actually driving sales.
Key outcomes
- Launch-ready in about a month after the ownership change closed
- Nearly every summer sailing on the new flagship sold out ahead of its date
- 11x return on ad spend across summer event cruises
- Every paid channel beat travel and hospitality benchmarks
- Demand added a second sailing, which sold out in two days
- The first sailing of a new Sunday cruise series sold out
- Broadcast, print and radio coverage for the new season
- Most of the region’s event planners aboard the Lady Thames for Hospitality Night
- Conversion tracking tightened and retargeting audiences built across every sailing
“We’ve worked with a lot of marketing and creative firms over the years and What Works stands apart. They rebuilt our website, produced a full suite of marketing materials, and executed a successful PR campaign, all on a compressed timeline with almost no ramp-up. Not just to deliver, but to deliver at a high level. They were genuinely invested in our success from day one, and it shows in the work they produced.”
What’s next
In 2027: a full rebrand, redeveloped websites and an expanded marketing program across every Harbor Boating service.
Have a season coming up?
15 minutes. We’ll look at your site and booking flow together and show you what we’d change first.