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Part 4: What Aviation Companies Can Do to Improve Their Marketing

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

Why? Why should a customer buy from you?

This question is often overlooked by companies in their marketing. Back in the 1960s, renowned advertising executive Rosser Reeves coined a term called the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. Reeves proclaimed that every successful marketing campaign contained four key elements.

Make a specific proposition to your customers, such as “buy this product and you’ll get this specific benefit.”
The proposition must be unique, or perceived unique, by your customers, something that your competitors don’t have or offer, and ideally would be difficult to imitate.
It should be compelling or relevant to your ideal customer to entice them to try your product or service, something that addresses their needs, fears, frustrations, or desires.
It must be simple and easy to articulate and communicate, so your customer will quickly understand why you’re different and the benefit to that.

Although created in the 60s, the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP for M&M's Candies, "It melts in your mouth, not in your hand", is still being used today.

These elements should be at the core of your marketing sales message. And although the concept was created decades ago, it’s still very relevant today. In fact, the USP Reeves developed for M&M’s Candies in the 1960s, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands,” is still being used today.

Remember to consider also that what might be important to you, might not be important to your customers. For example, your aviation business may have just passed its 25 year milestone of being in business, which is a great accomplishment. But what benefit does this provide your customers? Not much really.

However, if in the 25 of years of business you haven’t incurred a serious safety defect, and safety is important to your customers, then that may be an important benefit you can offer. Something that says “25 years without a serious safety defect” can be a great way of incorporating your 25 year anniversary with an important benefit to your customers.

Remember, when developing your unique selling proposition, or USP, it’s important to think benefits for the customer and not just features of your product or service.

Tags: customer benefits, rosser reeves, unique selling proposition, usp
Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

Part 3: Where are your customers?

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

Understanding your customers and their lifestyles are key to developing and effective media plan

The question to part 3, of developing can effective aviation marketing plan is “where.” Where are your customers located? Are they local, regional, national, or international?

For example, a local FBO or flight school is going to be looking primarily to a local market. An airport or an air charter would focus more on a regional audience. A company that makes avionics or other aircraft equipment would be marketing themselves on a national basis. And, of course, larger firms and airlines would be marketing themselves internationally as well.

Knowing where your audience is located geographically is important because it helps to determine what form of media you’re going to utilize to reach them, and also what type of media tactic, or marketing tactic, should be used.

For example, if you’re reaching someone on a local basis, your best choice to reach this audience is primarily local magazines, newspapers and radio stations. For companies marketing themselves on a national basis, they would look to national magazines, or trade magazines that serve their particular customers, to carry their message.

In a previous post, which dealt with “who are your customers,” we said that you need to really know who your customers are and what motivates them. This also plays into the question of “where” because if you really understand your customers, then you’ll probably know the publications they read, or the radio stations they listen to, or the TV stations they watch.

Knowing your customers also means understanding the types of activities that they are most likely to be involved in. Are they golfers? Are they hikers? Are they risk-takers? This understanding helps you formulate a media plan that will utilize the media which caters to these affinities and best zeros in on your target audience.

Another consideration is whether the media is appropriate for your product or service. For example, if you’re promoting a high-end, upscale image for your charter company, you’re probably not going to want to advertise in a local newspaper because this medium is perceived as being of low quality. You may want to consider a larger regional newspaper to advertise in, such as the New York Times, which carries a higher cachet value. Even though the New York Times might serve a much larger area than the local market you want to target. You may have to accept a certain amount of waste, because the image of the New York Times as being a sophisticated, knowledgeable publication is better aligned to the brand image you want to promote despite the higher cost.

Tags: Marketing Plan, Where are your customers
Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Part 2: Set Goals – What aviation companies can do to improve their marketing

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

What Are Your Marketing Goals

This is the second of a series of posts, which referred to the question, “What is the one thing aviation companies can do to improve their marketing?” What I recommend the first thing an aviation business do to improve their marketing is to develop a marketing plan and went on to discuss that an effective marketing plan really addresses in detail your basic 5 interview questions: who, what, where, why, how, and in addition, how much.

In the first post, I already dealt with “who,” as in “who is your customer?” So let’s move on to “what”. What do you want your marketing to accomplish? What are your marketing objectives? And how do they align themselves with your overall business goals?

The quick answer might be, “I just want to increase sales.” But, I would challenge you to be more specific than that. By how much do you want to increase sales? 10%? 20%? And what type of sales are you looking for? Is there a particular product that you would really want to sell more of than another? Or do you have a particular service that you would want to promote more than others?

I help my clients establish goals for their marketing, and particular I like to set SMART one, which is an acronym for:

“S” is for specific – be very specific about the goals you want to achieve.
“M” is for measurable. Are these goals that you can measured and quantified?
“A” is for attainable. You want to push the envelope, but you also want to be realistic in what you can achieve.
“R” is for relevance. Of course your goals should be relevant to your business and your marketing objectives, or they will be of little of no value to your business.
“T” is for time-bound. You want to be specific about when these goals are to be achieved. Set long-term deadlines as to when you want accomplish your objective. And in addition, set short-term, daily or weekly goals that are components of your larger objective so that progress is continually made over time. I’ve found that those that take action every day, however small, quickly and easily achieve what they set out to accomplish.

Tags: Aviation Marketing, goal setting, marketing goals, Marketing Plan
Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »