Aviation Marketing Technology and Techniques - Why Are We Behind the Times?

Aviation Marketing Technology and Techniques – Are We Behind the Times?

Are we behind the times with marketing technology and techniques?
Why, yes!
Here’s why.

Marketing Monday – Behind the Times from Paula Anderson Williams

This episode was inspired by Calvin Shoop, who left a review for us on iTunes.

We love it when people leave comments for us on iTunes!

Here’s the comment:

Good, but seems like five years in the past . . .

Nice people who run this, but I feel like I’m reading a marketing textbook from five years ago when I listen to this – – good information, but older principles. With that being said, the aviation world as a whole is about five years in the past.

They say, “no random acts of marketing,” which goes against almost every marketing philosophy I’ve ever been taught. Marketing to me is standing out and testing new things to get attention. This podcast teaches you to act like everyone else in a bland, old style paper-friendly marketing platform. Just isn’t where the market is going. Millenials are starting to become pilots. They’re going to be buying planes and aviation products. A flyer isn’t going to cut it with us. We like all information at our finger tips digitally. This podcast tailors its information to the older generation of pilots, which is fine, but it’s not going to be working that way in the near future.

I’m also an annoying Millenial that likes the hottest trends. Decent information, but not my cup of tea. Just my opinion. Not aviation related but Gary Vaynerchuk has crazy good advice for today’s marketing standards.

Big ideas:

Industry is behind the times
Our ideal customer (our clients’ ideal customer) is behind the times.
You’re absolutely right, Calvin! We should update a few things!

A note about the “random” comment.

Great marketing campaigns can be creative and surprising. But they are NEVER random.

Every great marketing professional has thoroughly researched and analyzed his list to discover a “profile” of the ideal customer, and creates an offer that is attractive to this person. This takes a lot of research and hard work.

The third item in a marketing campaign is the Presentation. This is where creativity, and sometimes surprise, comes into play. You don’t want your ads to be bland, boring or old-style, unless that’s the most effective way to persuade your ideal customer.

What aviation marketing technology or aviation marketing technique should you use to influence this person to make a decision and write a check?

This is a fiduciary responsibility for us – if we’re working with a customers’ money, we need to ensure we make the best possible use of it.

While we love Gary Vaynerchuk, (we listen religiously to his podcasts!) Gary V’s audience is millennial entrepreneurs, not C-Level execs of Fortune 500 companies for B2B products and services, which is where a vast majority of the money in the aviation industry is spent.

I was talking with a French gent at the recent NBAA Convention in Las Vegas when he looked out over the crowd and said – “Look at all the OLD PEOPLE!”

He was right – there were far more over-60s than under-40s in the crowd.

We talked about how this is going to have to change for the industry to survive. And aviation marketing technology and aviation marketing techniques will need to change as the demographics of the industry, slowly but inevitably, change as well.

John and I have been giving this a lot of thought lately, and are going to be working toward involving more younger folks in our projects and our Insider Circle in the coming months . . . Stay tuned!