ABCI eBook

Aviation Marketing Sales!

Aviation Marketing Cost-effective strategies & tools Proven methods and new tools. By Paula Williams, ABCI Sales!

Aviation Marketing

ABCI www.YourMarketingCopilot.com 702-987-1679

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Contents Do You Have a System for Marketing? ..................................................................................................... 3

Blueprint of a Marketing System ............................................................................................................ 5

Making the Most of a Limited Marketing Budget using Online Media ............................................... 6

Comparison of Advertising Media for Aviation .................................................................................. 7

Improving Sales by Mastering The Art of Follow-Up ............................................................................ 8

Anatomy of a Successful Marketing Campaign in Aviation ............................................................... 11

About Your Marketing CoPilot ............................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Getting Started with ABCI ........................................................................................................................ 21

The Infamous ABCI Questionnaire ..................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

The Marketing Master Class .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

About ABCI LLC ........................................................................................................................................ 17

Public Appearances and Publicity ........................................................................................................... 18

What our Clients and Associates Say ...................................................................................................... 19

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Do You Have a System for Marketing?

Are you relying on “random acts of marketing” to attract the customers you need to grow your business?

Most exceptional businesses have systems in place to ensure the product or service they provide is excellent.

These systems are built and refined over time to consistently improve their business. There are systems to ensure the products get produced, checklists to ensure the quality is consistent, systems to ensure new hires are properly trained, and even systems to ensure the bills get paid.

Many of these same businesses don’t apply the same discipline to the most important aspect of their business – locating potential customers and making sales.

These companies sometimes pour a great deal of time and money into marketing – they buy an expensive magazine ad, send an email or direct mailing to a purchased list, try their hands at social networking, or hold a massive telephone blitz. Marketing materials are developed, (sometimes at great cost and great effort) are used once, and are then discarded. These short-term efforts bring some results, but costs are not sustainable and the results are not satisfactory.

We know that systems work. They bring consistent results. They can be refined over time to make those results consistently better. This principle applies in marketing as well.

Investment in a marketing system is the best way to ensure a consistent and increasing flow of sales

from new, current and previous customers.

Sales of aviation-related products and services involve a high degree of trust between the seller and the buyer. The culture of aviation is such that lives will depend on the quality of a product or service.

Marketing experts like Bill Glazer and Dan Kennedy estimate that it takes an average of seven contacts over time to make a single sale.

Our experience indicates it may take eight or nine contacts in the aviation industry,

which requires a higher degree of trust.

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This degree of trust is established over time, using some version of the marketing cycle on the following page. The most cost-effective (and most trusted) method of marketing for people in the aviation industry is through word of mouth. This “social trust” is key in these relationships. Social media is the closest variant to word of mouth that can be impacted by a marketing campaign. The least effective method of marketing to this group is usually a telephone directory listing. Aviation tends to be geographically independent, and generally speaking, the higher risk the industry involves, the less a decision maker wants to “pick a company out of the phone book” to do business with.

Generally speaking, the first contact is the start of a relationship; this is when the customer requests information and the seller provides it. A customer could take hours, days, weeks, months or even years to come to a decision, but an established pipeline of these potential customers or “leads” is one of the most important assets for a business to manage.

Keeping in touch with people that have contacted your company by some combination of email, direct mail, postcards, catalogs, a newsletter, regular updates to your website, or periodic phone calls is key to establishing a relationship that will result in a sale when the customer is ready to buy. Of course, the customer can “opt out” of the pipeline at any time and those wishes must be respected as well.

Your list of current, potential and past customers is a more important asset to your company than any piece of equipment in your shop or the plans of any product you produce. Without those customers, there would be no need for any of the rest of it.

You should grow and manage your list just as carefully as you invest and manage your money.

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Blueprint of a Marketing System Creating and implementing the right system is key to successful marketing. The objective for marketing is to consistently sell your product or services. ABCI believes the items outlined in red will be the most cost-effective places to make an investment. We need to get connected with decision-makers and potential customers as quickly and effectively as possible.

Search Engines

Print Media (Magazines, Newspapers

Word of Mouth

Radio/TVAdvertising

Direct Mail Telephone Directories

Social Media

Website – Lead

Capture

Email Campaign

Phone Call

Direct Mail

Sale

Customer ServiceWeb Site

Phone Email

In Person

UpSell/Renewal

Cycle

Web Site – new content

Most Cost Effective – Least Cost Effective

Pre-Sales Cycle

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Making the Most of a Limited Marketing Budget using Online Media

If you're like most companies in this economy (probably ALL companies!) you're looking to get the biggest impact using the smallest possible budget.

From a customer's perspective, I enjoy gorgeous aviation advertising in plush magazines as much as the next person. I also enjoy attending trade shows to see the latest and greatest developments. From the business perspective, I can't always justify the cost.

The ideal marketing campaign makes the best use of several media to reach potential customers in a way convinces them that your product or service is the best fit for their need. That doesn't always require several pages of full color advertising in the glossiest magazine, or require your presence at six different trade shows during the year.

Online media can be very effective in targeting and engaging with new customers. People search the Internet today like the used to search the yellow pages. It’s vital that your company at least show up when people look for your product or service, and it’s ideal to be one of the first listings in search engine results in your category. This one change can make a huge impact in sales.

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Search engine results page for Aerographs, an ABCI client.

Comparison of Advertising Media for Aviation

Search Engine Optimization

Social Media Direct Mail Print Ads Radio, TV Directory Ad (Phone or organization directory)

Results are measurable? Yes Yes Possibly Possibly Possibly Possibly

Targets people who are looking for what you do?

Yes Yes Yes Maybe No Yes

“Virally” spread from person to person?

No Yes No No No No

Lasts until it’s removed? No Yes No No No Stays 1 year

Targets people ready to make a buying decision?

Yes Maybe Yes No No Yes

Results visible this week? Maybe Yes Yes No Maybe No

Expense? $ $ $$ $$$ $$$$ $$ Effectiveness?

Moderately Effective


Very Effective



Mildly Effective

Of course this matrix is overly simplified, based on our own experience and those of our clients, not scientifically rigorous, and assumes a professionally planned and executed campaign.

There are several reasons to use many channels:

• Stability • Credibility • Leverage strengths • Mitigate weaknesses

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Improving Sales by Mastering The Art of Follow-Up

I don't believe in love at first sight.

In fact, I had known my husband for 10 years before we got married. We were engaged for more than a year. And he's a really phenomenal guy!

Most people who would buy your products or services, especially in this economy, also don't believe in love at first sight. Aside from candy at the checkout counter (although I understand candy sales are down as well!) the "impulse buy" seems to be pretty much extinct.

This doesn't mean that customers are cynical, it just means they consider purchases very carefully before they spend money. They do their homework and consider every purchase very carefully. Unfortunately, they're also very busy and don't have time to spend doing the extensive research that would make them comfortable with a purchase. This is true of most industries, and even more so in aviation. Given the demographics and psychographics of people in this industry, they didn't get where they are (and stay successful in a very competitive, passionate business) without being very smart and discriminating.

Even if you have a product that's neater than sliced bread, or a service that you think your potential customer can't live without, please think again. They've lived without it until now, and they're probably not going to make a different decision overnight.

So, how do you get these smart, discriminating customers to "fall in love" with your product or service? You take your time. You make information available and convenient, and you put together a long-term, sustained marketing plan that brings you to the front of their mind on a regular basis without making a pest of yourself.

Most people that contract with me for marketing services take a minimum of three weeks from the time I meet them to the time we get started on a project. And more often, it takes a couple of months. Some customers have known me for years before they hire me. (Which is not to say that I don't make a pest of myself, you'd have to ask them about that.)

A person finds out about your company through your website, a social media connection, a trade show, or some other means. Then there's some amount of time during which the customer is not yet ready to buy, for any number of reasons - he could be waiting for a decision from superiors, or looking for more information, or wanting to shop around before making a decision. Or they're just too busy with other things.

In any case, during this timeframe (whether it lasts days, weeks or months) there is a danger that your prospective customer will forget about your brilliant website or the scintillating

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conversation they had with you at a trade show. Other priorities will encroach on their time, their attention, and their budget. And they'll forget all about you and your product or service.

.

Secrets of Great Follow Up

Use Different Media.

Since I specialize in online marketing, I would love to say that you can run a complete marketing campaign online and never have to do anything else. Sometimes, for some projects, that may be true. But ANY marketing plan will benefit from some off-line contact. Mix it up.

• Email - This can include a well-written sales letter, a newsletter, or video explaining more about your product. Using an effective programmed series of emails can deliver information in digestible chunks and ensure that you're at the front of the list when your prospective customer is in the market for your product or service. The key to successful email marketing (and what separates your emails from run-of the mill SPAM) is that your messages need to be thoughtfully targeted and full of valuable information that your potential customers will find useful whether or not they buy your product or service.

• Web Site Content – Add new stories, information, case studies and other information to your blog on a regular basis.

• Postcards - There are still a lot of people who subconsciously (or consciously!) think that a company isn't real unless they have contact with that company somewhere other than

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cyberspace. It makes your company seem much more "real" if you send a tangible piece of mail. I like postcards because a well-designed postcard can be a very efficient and effective reminder without being expensive.

Make it Regular but Not Intrusive

We've all had the pleasure of dodging phone calls from an overzealous salesperson who calls three times a week. That's irritating, and it doesn't work. I suppose there are things to be said for phone calls, but since they interrupt your prospective client's day and demand his immediate attention, I think they should be used very, very sparingly, especially in the pre-sales follow up stage.

Here's a sample timeline that includes quarterly postcards, a product-related informational email (perhaps a tutorial or new feature announcement) and a monthly emailed newsletter.

Your plan will be different, depending on the product or service that you're selling and the schedule that matches your style.

Make It Easy

You don't have time to write a newsletter, or supervise a print run of postcards once a month, or even fetch stamps and keep track of all these lists.

If it's not easy, it doesn't get done.

We recommend automating everything that can be automated.

• Email systems like Constant Contact , MailChimp and InfusionSoft allow you to set up an autoresponder , which is a system that sends scheduled emails by a predefined schedule. After you've added a contact to your list, (or your contact has signed up on your website) the system takes care of sending your emails on a predefined schedule.

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• Postcard systems like SendOutCards will allow you to design postcards from any computer. You can import your contacts and schedule postcards to be sent out on a schedule you determine. I generally send a postcard right after meeting a prospective client for the first time, (it might be waiting in their mailbox when they get home from a trade show or conference) and then on a predefined schedule. A postcard also doesn't have to be opened to be effective, and many people don't open mail unless they're expecting it. (Or unless the envelope is remarkable in some way, which is usually much harder and more expensive to do.)

Follow up processes one of the most powerful marketing tools, and is often the most neglected. Why? Because it's time and labor-intensive to set up. An automated process that follows up with your customers automatically is a great investment for your company’s ongoing sales success.

Anatomy of a Successful Marketing Campaign in Aviation

Note- this article first appeared on the Forbes Business Aviation Blog Wheels Up in January 2011.

In our previous article, How Private Aviation Can Stop Wasting Millions On Advertising, we talked about four things that don’t work.

So, what DOES work?

A well-designed, systematic campaign.

Most marketing campaigns are ill-conceived and either don’t work, work very badly, or can’t be evaluated at all because they weren’t designed to be quantifiable.

We see a campaign as successful if it is accurately measured, repeatable, cost-effective, and profitable. The example used in this article is all of those things, and since it was an in-house campaign for ABCI we’re free to share the numbers and “show our work,” as they say in math class.

The two largest factors that made it a success – great content, and good metrics.

Great Content

“I just read your article and I was wondering if you have a few minutes to talk about my problem.” This is the way a conversation often starts with someone we’re meeting for the first time.

http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=d6rqjpdab.0.0.f9czyycab.0&ts=Z0002&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sendoutcards.com%2Fabci&id=preview

http://blogs.forbes.com/wheelsup/2011/01/02/how-private-aviation-can-stop-wasting-millions-on-advertising/

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When we started offering aviation marketing services a couple of years ago, it was difficult to get the attention of decision-makers. Now our biggest challenge is to spend time efficiently to maintain high quality service for our clients and future clients.

The marketing solution is simple:

Notice that I said “simple,” not necessarily “easy.”

Producing great content has huge advantages.

• It respects the intelligence of your prospective buyers. • It changes the nature of the conversation from “sales” to “solving problems.” • It changes the relationship because prospective buyers call you instead of you calling them.

The “down side,” if there is one, is that you must continue to produce great content and publish it to the right people at the right time, cost-effectively.

There is a myth that social media is “free.” That’s not strictly true. While it’s free to create an account, publish content, and interact with people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media channels. It is certainly NOT free, or accidental, to produce great content. Great content requires excellent research, excellent writing, sometimes good photographs and video.

Content should be on a topic that’s important to your prospective buyers; it must be useful and somewhat objective information, rather than simply a sales pitch. And it should be focused in a way that provides reasons for the prospective buyer make the decision to take the next step in the sales process if it’s a good fit.

Content should support your sales process.

Your content should support potential buyers during their entire stay in your “sales funnel.” That is, from the time they first become aware of your company until they make the purchase decision.

There should be several steps in this funnel, and your prospective buyer should be allowed to proceed at his own pace – requesting (and receiving) more information in ways that are convenient and useful.

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In this example, our sales funnel consists of several small steps.

• The prospective buyer downloads an ebook (“opting in” to our sales process, and giving us permission to send him more information.)

• We begin sending the prospective buyer a weekly tip by email and a monthly newsletter about our company.

• The prospective buyer requests a “New Client Questionnaire.” • We send the New Client Questionnaire. • The prospective buyer completes the New Client Questionnaire. • We provide a recommendations packet and collaborate on an appropriate course of action. • A purchase decision is (or is not) made, and the prospective buyer remains on our

“mailing list.”

Of course, at any time, the prospective buyer can “opt out” of our sales process and we will immediately remove him from our email and postal mail lists.

A System of Metrics

A good system of metrics will tell you many things:

• How did people found you? • How many of them participated in each step of the marketing process?

“How Did You Find Us?”

Asking people how they found you may be the “oldest trick in the book” in marketing. This is a question customers are often asked on the phone or in person, and you certainly should be asking it online as well.

A system with metrics provides several advantages. You can see what’s working and what’s not, you can pinpoint areas that need attention, and make changes to the process.

In our example campaign, the metrics aren’t perfect but they are enlightening. This chart, from Google Analytics, tells us how people found the website from which the ebook was downloaded:

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On the form where we invite readers to sign up for our ebook, we ask them where they found us. This was (by design) a simple text box, not a drop down box or list of possible selections. Most people who requested the book left the space blank, but of the ones that indicated how they found us, the majority were from LinkedIn.

We can make other assumptions and conjectures based on the data. However, it is quite clear that we should continue investing time in LinkedIn, and improving our results from Google and other search engines, since a significant number of prospective buyers are finding us “on the web.”

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Back to the Funnel

Metrics also show us where our sales funnel is the most efficient. The following graphic outlines the actions taken by prospective buyers. In this example, of the people who requested our ebook, 16% of them went on to request the questionnaire. Of those that requested the questionnaire, 71% completed and returned it. Of those that completed the questionnaire, 50% became new clients.

To summarize the graphic, 5.68% of the people who requested the ebook became new clients during our example snapshot of time. This could be expressed as our Total Conversion Rate.

We’re pretty happy with this – historically, a properly-designed direct mail campaign would be expected to provide a 1% total conversion rate; 2 to 3% would be considered phenomenal.

Making Improvements

So, given all this data, how would we improve this campaign?

We could (and will!) enlarge the total size of the funnel, by advertising the free ebook. We would then monitor how many new requests the ebook advertisement produces, and how the conversion rate changes.

We can reinforce the “weakest point” of the funnel, which is between the ebook request and the new client questionnaire request. (Only 16%) So we would brainstorm possible objections (or use a customer survey or conversations to discover them) to find out why more ebook readers aren’t

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requesting the New Client Questionnaire. We could write an article or produce a video addressing those objections, or provide more guarantees to reduce the perceived risk or effort required.

We would calculate the cost of each step of this campaign, determining our “cost per lead” and “cost per sale,” which we would then improve by accomplishing that step more cost-effectively. Many times this happens through enlarging the scale and reach of the campaign – once an article or video is published, the cost is the same whether 1000 or 1,000,000 people see it, depending on what we need to do to attract the additional viewers or readers.

A Marketing Success Story?

Although we’re never entirely satisfied with a campaign (there are always things we learn that we can improve) we know that this one is accurately measured, proven, repeatable, cost-effective and profitable.

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About ABCI LLC

Aviation Business Consultants International has been in business since 2006. We specialize in cost-effective marketing plans, including online and social media, for the aviation industry. Our most-requested products and services include:

• Online Marketing Consulting & Evaluation • Complete marketing plans (including print, direct mail, trade shows and online) • Web sites/Search Engine Optimization • Email marketing campaigns and auto responders • Writing articles, white papers, books and eBooks

John Williams, MBA

John has been in the consulting business for twenty years. He has managed startup companies and started major divisions of large international corporations. He has spent forty-five years in the aviation industry, several as a Part 135 pilot. He recently retired as a Senior Aviator from the United States military, where he served as a helicopter pilot in the Air Force and the U.S. Army. John has an Executive MBA from the University of Utah with an emphasis in International Business and Finance, and a degree in Business Administration from Golden Gate University in Business Administration with additional studies in Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.

Contact John – call 801-815-8483 or email [email protected]

Paula Williams, MAED, PMP

Paula writes great web content and is an expert at getting web traffic and turning web site visitors into loyal buyers. She has worked as a marketing consultant, product manager, staff writer, ad designer, marketing manager, process engineer, and trainer. She has recently received her Private Pilot Rating and plans to move on to Instrument training soon. Her education includes a Masters in Adult Education and BA in Mass Communication. She holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) credential from the Project Management Institute (PMI.) She enjoys facilitation, teaching, and writing, and is happiest when she is flying, writing or constructing a fabulous online marketing funnel.

Contact Paula – call 702-987-1679 or email [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



http://www.aopa.org/


http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/222/72

http://www.nbaa.com/


http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulawilliams

http://twitter.com/paula_abci

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1174791754&ref=profile

http://www.nbaa.com/


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Public Appearances and Publicity

Paula Williams explains blogs during the Social Media Panel

discussion at NBAA 2010 in Atlanta

What Can Social Media do for you, presented by Paula Williams, ABCI at the Aviation Industry Expo 2010

Articles on ABCI and our clients have appeared in Business Aviation Now,

Aviation Week

Paula Williams is a regular contributor to the Forbes Magazine Business Aviation

Blog Wheels Up

Paula is the host of Your Marketing CoPilot,

a regular podcast with aviation and marketing thought leaders on BlogTalkRadio and iTunes.

http://www.airportbusiness.com/video/

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/business_aviation/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=2f16318d-d960-4e49-bc9f-86f1805f2c7f&plckPostId=Blog:2f16318d-d960-4e49-bc9f-86f1805f2c7fPost:7429705d-d83d-46cf-8079-a48c8c8d53c9&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

http://www.aviationbusinessconsultants.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/forbes.png

Aviation Marketing Sales!

What our Clients and Associates Say “In November of 2009 I hired Paula as a business consultant for my aviation photography. She has a wealth of knowledge that I feel is unmatched in her field. I have seen my business grow into something that my thoughts couldn’t even conceive a year ago. The credibility that her work has given my business is wonderful and I couldn’t be happier. Once a month we get together over the phone and brainstorm about what we’ll do with the upcoming months and see what kind of ideas and great things we can bring to the website and blog. I’m truly grateful for everything she has done for my business and her continuous hard work.”

Taylor Greenwood, Owner, Taylor Greenwood Aviation Photography

“Paula is an effective and organized consultant. Her success is due to her impeccable communication and organization skills. I very much look forward to working with her again”

Jerome Abregana, Technology Manager, Wells Fargo Bank

“Paula brought intelligence, commitment, insight, and common sense to her projects at Franklin. Clients and team members respected her and enjoyed working with her. She exceeds the requirements of her current projects, while also building long-term professional and personal relationships, and is one of those rare individuals who can approach projects strategically, tactically, and technically.”

Shauna Bona, Manager of Online Development, Franklin Quest Consulting Group

Aviation Marketing

ABCI www.AviationBusinessConsultants.com 702-987-1679

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“Paula is an incisive speaker who demonstrates proficient knowledge in both aviation business and electronic marketing. She is engaging, articulate, and most importantly, she is genuine. I look forward to working with Paula in the future and continuing to learn from her how to best utilize the time and effort I put into my social media initiatives.”

Brad McAllister , Editor: Airport Business Magazine , Cygnus Business Media

“Paula has acted in the capacity as a manager and has twice provided a beginning-level business plan and writing for two start-up companies on which I was beginning Due Diligence, the most recent Global Writers Group or GWG. In a management capacity, she is one of very few managers to whom I’ve reported over the last 12 years that can truly empower and lead on a daily basis .It seems she has attained a wonderful balance of wisdom and self-confidence. As to her skill and quality of writing, she has a powerful ability to combine imagination and technology to form a style that is in increasing demand as companies attempt to expand their domestic base to a more powerful and profitable global one. Would I retain Paula in the future for further writing projects? Absolutely, yes!”

Julie Jacobs, Owner, Jacobs & Associates

“Paula is not only a terrific writer and marketing thinker, she’s the real deal when it comes to knowing the aviation market! Her experience as a pilot makes her the perfect guide for aviation companies looking to boost their marketing efforts online and offline. I highly recommend Paula for any aviation marketing consulting and writing work if you’re looking for results.

Pam Foster, Sr Copywriter, Web-SEO Writer and Consultant, ContentClear Marketing

Aviation Marketing

ABCI www.AviationBusinessConsultants.com 702-987-1679

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Next Steps:

Choose the option that’s right for you:

I want to control costs and manage marketing tasks myself.

The Aviation Marketing Master Class – By and for aviation professionals. We cover one

marketing topic a month in depth with a video and printed workbook. You have opportunities to get

feedback on your marketing efforts, can earn professional development units (PEUs or CEUs) and earn great prizes for doing your homework!

(How come that never happened in college?)

Sign up here:

www.AviationMarketingClass.com

I’m busy running my business and want someone to handle marketing tasks for me.

Your Marketing CoPilot Consulting Services – Get started by calling Paula Williams at 702-987-

1679 or writing [email protected] Ask for

the New Client Questionniare!

www.AviationSalesConsulting.com

http://www.aviationbusinessconsultants.com/masterclass

http://www.aviationmarketingclass.com/

http://www.aviationbusinessconsultants.com/workingwithabci/



http://www.aviationsalesconsulting.com/


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