Virgin America exemplifies their brand by portraying their customers as young, hip, and digitally connected.
Without a clear brand identity, you may have visibility but no personality.
“Commerce is about selling more products and services, but people are about desires and aspirations.”
Marc Gobe, Emotional Branding, Revised Edition
What do Victoria’s Secret and Virgin America share in common? Both understand the power of a brand culture and are able to translate that into a memorable brand experience. Aviation marketers that are seeking to define their brand need to consider a people-to-people marketing approach and understand that relevant brands are not based on messaging or logo design but on the experience associated with the brand.
Customers no longer measure brands based on message, but on interactions they have with them.
Social marketing is changing the way customers interact with your brand
My theory on why the aviation industry has been slow to adopt and implement social marketing is because aviation manufacturers are stuck in the mindset of business-to-business instead of people-to-people marketing.
The business-to-business (B2B) mindset is based on selling products and services to accounts. Contrast that mindset with people-to-people (P2P) where the emphasis is focused on improving the customer experience. Customers no longer measure brands based on message, but on interactions they have with them.
Aviation marketers that have successfully adopted social marketing understand that delivering on the brand promise can be done effectively on social platforms. Take a look at Jet Blue, Southwest, or Virgin America Airlines. Each one has been able to get tangible results through social marketing about how well they deliver on their brand promise.
Aviation marketers that choose to ignore the power of social marketing run the risk of becoming a second tier brand by not being able to monitor the customer experience in an unadulterated environment.
8 behaviors required to enhance the customer experience:
Good customer relation management (CRM) starts with good traditional CRM. You cannot expect to improve CRM by adding a social component if the legacy CRM platform was not good to begin with.
Customers expect more. Resolution of problems is a given. Now, customers expect a brand to be proactive within the community of users.
Build customer empathy at all levels of interaction. This should be the golden rule for sales, marketing and customer service – Treat customers as you would like to be treated yourself.
Everyone is a representative of the brand. It only takes one bad experience to drive a customer to a competitor.
Talk with the customer, not at the customer. Customers can tell when the conversation is scripted. Authentic conversation starts with empathy for the customer’s situation and offer of a resolution based on a thorough understanding of the product and service offering.
Don’t leave customers waiting. We live the era of real time engagement. Responding to a customer service issue in 24 hours is not acceptable.
Use social media platforms for problem solving. Enabling self-help through social platforms spreads knowledge and customer feedback across the community of users.
Change the way you measure customer satisfaction. Backward looking measurements that tell you what happened are no longer as effective. Consider a forward looking measurement like a net promoter score that tells you how satisfied your customer is with your service or product offering.
People-to-people marketing is the measure of brand engagement. Creating trust through conversation and helping customers solve problems builds brand loyalty.
I’m interested in hearing from my fellow aviation marketers. What have been your greatest challenges in implementing social marketing? Please share your experiences in the comment section below.
Offering valuable content extends the engagement cycle
Historically, digital banner ads average a .05% click-through rate. So what’s happening with the other 99.95% of the viewers that see your online advertising? Mostly, the viewer already knows what is waiting on the other side of the ad — your website. That’s not to infer that your website is of poor quality or lacking content, but most aviation industry websites are electronic brochures with a “contact us” page.
Differentiating your brand from the competition involves more than just features and benefits.
In the aviation industry all brands have competition. A successful brand goes past the product’s functionality of features and benefits and creates an emotional connection with their customers. Understanding what drives your customers’ decision-making process provides the foundation for brand differentiation and preference.
Integrating social media with your overall brand strategy can create an emotional connection with your brand.
“How Social Media Is Changing Brand Building,” published by Forrester Research, identifies three strategic roles that social media should play in brand building. Author Tracy Stokes correctly identifies that social media in and by itself cannot build brands but must be integrated with overall brand strategy and complement paid and owned media.
Extending brand engagement through digital services
Technology can enhance and solidify the emotional connection to the brand.
Digital technology is affecting the 4 marketing P’s – Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion – by extending brand engagement. Adept aviation marketers are adding value to their brand by providing digital services that complement the user’s life style and the core product offering.
In the digital ecosystem, brand engagement is achieved by continuing the conversation.
I recently attended a seminar put on by the Digital Knowledge Centre in conjunction with the American Association of Advertising Agencies. The topic for the full day event was integrated digital brand strategy. An excerpt:
First aviation marketers should fully grasp the explosion of media channels and how that is impacting the distribution of content. In the modern media landscape brand engagement happens in three categories — bought, owned, and earned media.
Technology is a disrupter. It destroys business models and rewards those that find the gem in the rubble of destruction.
“Airlines Entertain Tablet Ideas,” published by The Wall Street Journal reports on air carriers ditching the old hard-wired seat back video systems, and moving toward wireless delivery of inflight entertainment and information via tablets. This is a growing trend and a great opportunity for innovative aviation marketers to provide a customized branded entertainment experience to an influential audience.
In Marc Gobé’s book, “Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People,” Gobé puts forth 10 commandments for emotional branding. One I found particularly relevant for aviation manufacturers and marketers was the premise:
Connecting with your customers’ emotions can create a brand preference
In aviation marketing, the purchase decision is often solely based on the performance specifications of a product. Each product on the market, no matter the manufacturer, will fulfill the client’s baseline need. With different products of standard utility competing for business, one way to differentiate is by manipulating the price point. Although not terribly flexible, a price can be offset by manipulating variables within the company such as service, warranty, and delivery policy.
Life After Advertising 2.0 