Month: June 2015
Don’t Work Your Website, Make it Work for You
If your website isn’t working for you as a lead generation tool, then you’re leaving money on the table. Ignoring opportunities is inexcusable. Your sales expert wouldn’t do it, so your website shouldn’t either.
One of the best ways to invest in your website is to start creating and publishing unique and helpful resources. They need to be different enough that prospects have to come to your site in order to get this information, and helpful enough that they need to seek out the information in the first place.
BDN achieved this with a comprehensive trade show directory. A database of all of the industry trade shows was hard to find. We developed our own and it is now the most downloaded resource on our site.
You can do the same. It’s very simple, really. Invest in your website by generating some great content, and watch as the leads begin to pour in.
Curious to learn more about aerospace marketing?
Aerospace Marketing: What Not to Do
While it’s helpful to be inspired by great work, sometimes the fear of doing something really, really bad can be even more powerful.
The Bad Pitch Blog pulls no punches in outing terrible PR people and their cringe-worthy work, including news releases with headlines like “Black Author’s Book Teaser Will Make Your Kids a Slave to Reading.”
We can’t make this stuff up, you guys. See for yourself at badpitchblog.com.
Then refresh your skills by downloading the BDN PR Toolkit: http://bit.ly/1ALKXdj. It will help you work more effectively with the aerospace and defense news media – and, hopefully, keep you off the badpitchblog.
Up next? Bad advertising.
This is the purview of adrants.com. In fairness, Adrants covers everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. And while there are plenty of businesses exercising poor judgment, when it comes to aviation, more than a few airlines are getting it wrong. Air New Zealand promoted low prices by saying, “Fares lower than your grandma’s boobs,’ with an unfortunate graphic to help make the point. Sadly, many of the airline examples are not just bad, they are misogynistic, too. But let’s not pick on the airlines – the aerospace industry as a whole has plenty of “what not to do” examples, including these from AgustaWestland and UTC Aerospace Systems.
Finally, let’s close on a positive note.
While marketers may find it interesting to look at bad ad work, perhaps our time would be better spent learning about tools and techniques that can actually enable sales. That means trading our sledgehammers for magnets, and enticing customers with content marketing. It also means listening to advice from people like Jay Baer at convinceandconvert.com, and getting inspired exploring information-rich websites like hubspot.com and marketo.com. These are some of our team’s go-to resources, and we hope they help you, too. Don’t forget — the BDN Marketing Tool Kit has tons of useful resources, too. It’s definitely worth a look, and everything is available free of charge.
How to Use Content Marketing to Your Advantage
Have you been considering hiring an outside agency? Is it out of your budget or not the right time? Don’t worry, but do start leveraging the vast amount of content marketing now available. Just because you may be unable to tap into the expertise of an outside agency does not mean that you have to miss out on all of their helpful resources. Use them to your advantage.
According to Gartner Research by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human. This is where content marketing comes in. By creating and then sharing helpful resources to both clients and prospective clients, content marketing engages customers before they have ever even picked up the phone.
Some BDN favorites include Hubspot, Marketing Sherpa and the Content Marketing Institute.
BDN also has some very helpful resources available at no cost, including the PR Tool Kit, a truly excellent resource.
Curious to learn more about aerospace marketing? Check out these popular BDN resources. They are free and easily available for immediate download.
7 Keys to Breakthrough Messaging for Aerospace and Defense Marketers
Memorable, iconic messaging looks effortless, but it’s anything but. Drafting the right three words (like “Here Comes Hope”) may take three minutes – or three hours – but is essential to effective marketing.
But how do you do it? Well, the truth is, most people aren’t wired to write goose bump-inducing copy. It can’t be done by committee, and it is less likely to come from someone within the company. I’m not sure it can be taught – but do know that understanding how to recognize it is important for all aerospace marketers.
7 Keys to Effective Messaging
- Tells a story, succinctly
- Makes you feel something
- Is audience-centric
- Feels authentic
- Does not require an explanation
- Transcends the expected and the ordinary
- Has something extra – a spark of creative genius – that elevates everything and makes the message sing. We call it the X factor. And you can’t have effective marketing without it.
The United States Armed Forces consistently delivers exceptionally strong marketing campaigns anchored by some of the best messaging in our space.
We’ve featured a few examples here, but you can easily find more with a couple of quick searches. They more than meet our criteria for inspired messaging. Do you agree?
You’ll find even more information about messaging in our Value Proposition Guide. It’s an in-depth resource that includes actionable insights, a checklist to evaluate your own value proposition, industry examples, and more. Or, take a look at our Portfolio, to see work examples and inspiration, all specific to aerospace and defense.