Cost reduction is nothing new. The great recession accelerated the learning curve on how to reduce marketing expenditures by cutting personnel and marketing investment. However, as we fast forward to a new year and a recovering economy, when asked to reduce marketing expenditures one must take into account the value of marketing and the influence it has on the behavior of your customers and competitors.
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Point-of-view marketing involves communicating your brand story through thoughts, deeds, and actions on how the industry should be served. One avenue to achieve this is through social engagement marketing tactics. When your brand provides authoritative content, supported by experience or scientific facts, it is demonstrating thought leadership.
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When working with companies serving the aviation industry that are transitioning to people-to-people marketing, I stress that marketing content should be centered around two things: 1) solving customer problems, and 2) the journey through the purchasing process – because these are the two main elements of creating brand preference. Yet many times after this suggestion is made there is resistance to change and a tendency to circle back and do things the way they are most comfortable with. This usually takes the form of reskinning their current website with the latest product iteration.
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Aviation manufacturers are slowly warming up to the idea of inbound marketing. Progressive practitioners are realizing the benefits of improved organic search rankings, broader reach of influence, and increased brand preference by investing in a strategic inbound marketing program.
When contemplating the execution of an inbound marketing program there are business, strategic and tactical issues to consider before starting the process.
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In the aviation industry, brands fall into three categories – innovators, challengers and laggards. Innovative brands take calculated risk; they think big, invest smartly and understand the power of marketing. Challenger brands are smart and agile they rely on new technology and materials to disrupt traditional business models. Laggards, well are laggards. Laggard brands practice “Random Acts of Marketing” a term my colleague Paula Willliams uses to describe marketing tactics without strategy.
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Here we are in the age of “Big Data” where everything can be tracked and scrutinized. For aviation marketers is means one more hurtle to jump when trying to justify investment of marketing funds for inbound marketing programs.
Traditional RIO measurement seems very simple – take the gain of the investment, subtract the cost of the investment, and divide the total by the cost of the investment.
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Brand leadership is achieved by communicating brand values, thoughts and deeds. In the digital world this can be achieved by publishing content via blogs, videos and microsites that are interesting and demonstrate the brands values and commitments to both customers and industry.
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More often than not aviation component manufacturer websites are more like electronic brochures than conduits for nurturing customer relationships.
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The website technorati.com has lunched a podcast series, “Social Brands & Influencers”. Technorati interviews top thought leaders and decision makers in the social media and marketing world. Liz Brown Bullock formally of Dell Computer and now CEO of the start up SASI provided her perspective on getting employees involved in social media marketing. Below is my interpretation for aviation marketers.
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Most big-ticket purchases in aviation and related industries are considered purchases. It is the job of marketing to understand what is important to decision makers and influencers in terms of feature, function, and cost benefit. Those are the issues that will be weighted against the competition when the rational purchase process begins.
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Life After Advertising 2.0 