Does Your Aerospace Business Have a Branding Problem?

We hear from lots of aerospace and defense professionals who think they have a branding problem or who tell us they want to “take their brand to the next level.”

Quite often they are thinking about their brand in visual terms, and it’s true that design is a critical element of any great brand. But there’s so much more to consider when evaluating the strength of your brand.

Now, as we continue our month-long series about aerospace industry branding, it’s time to take stock.

Before we launch into detailed recommendations about repairing or rebuilding your brand, let’s consider if you do in fact have a brand problem.

Start by taking this quick 10-question assessment as a first step in the process. Each “yes” answer is a red flag; and multiple yeses are a strong indication that your brand is in trouble and further action is required.

10 Red Flags

Weak brands share many or all of these characteristics.

Do you consistently compete on price?
Does your business lack a clear focus and do you try to be everything to everyone?
Are you unable to articulate a true value proposition — something customers care about that distinguishes you from everyone else?
Does your brand architecture create confusion? Confusing brands have too many individual product names or sub-brands, and multiple logos, taglines and messages.
Does your CEO fail to actively support or champion branding?
No single person owns the brand internally, standards don’t exist or are not followed.
Is your market, your business or your business strategy undergoing significant change?
Does your company suffer from the “me too” syndrome, where nothing looks or sounds unique? And does your leadership wants you to fit in and fall in line with what others are doing and saying?
Are you in a crowded market space and not growing?
Is your messaging company-centric and not customer-centric?

If you’d like to dig deeper and start seriously assessing your brand, this Lippincott resource is a great place to start.

Want to see a ranking of the 25 most valuable brands in aerospace? A few of them just might surprise you.

Up Next: Find out how to build or rebuild your aerospace industry brand. We’ll walk you through the process one step at a time.

5 Branding Myths that are Hurting Your Aerospace Business

Branding Facts vs Myths — It’s time for aerospace to stop perpetuating these 5 harmful myths about the relevance and value of branding in our industry.

Branding is an ongoing source of discussion and disagreement in aerospace marketing, according to our recent industry surveys.

While some say they spend a lot of time and effort building their brand, far too many say that investing in branding is a waste of time and money.

As we enter into a month-long examination of aerospace industry branding, we start by tackling these 5 myths that are holding us back from better branding, better marketing and better results.

Myth No. 1: Branding is a waste of money.

Really? Consider this.

Valued at $121.8 billion, Microsoft’s B2B brand is the most valuable in the world. Siemens, a company with strong interests in aerospace, ranks at No. 20 with a value of $12.4 billion. Read more here.

But there’s more. A McKinsey study of B2B brands shows that companies with brands that are perceived as strong generate a higher EBIT margin than others.

In fact, strong brands outperform weak brands by 20 percent. A Forbes article, “Why B-To-B Branding Matters More than You Think,” cited the example of pump manufacturer Gardner Denver, reporting that the company attributes 43 percent of its value to be goodwill and other intangible assets.

This is consistent with our experience and our research. In one engagement, our client research showed that although two direct competitors had virtually identical ratings for factors like product quality and reliability, respondents were twice as likely to buy from the one with a large, well established brand name. When all other factors were equal, the best brand won.

Myth No. 2: Branding is only for consumer companies and has no bearing on a customer’s decision-making process. People will buy from us if we provide good products and competitive prices.

We hear this a lot. But the Forbes article reports that B2B brands are actually more important than B2C brands because B2B purchases matter more. “Buy the wrong toothpaste, and you can always change brands when the tube runs out. Buy the wrong turbine and you could hurt your company’s earnings for years – and find yourself looking for another job.”

Trust is paramount in our industry, and is a critical factor in any B2B buying decision. But you can’t sell trust by telling people you are trustworthy in an ad or a brochure. They have to feel it — and that happens through a clear and consistent brand experience.

Myth No. 3: My brand is my logo and tagline.

Your logo (and tagline if you have one) is an incredibly important part of your brand, but it’s only one element. Logos serve as a kind of visual shorthand for your business to help customers immediately identify and recall who you are and what you do.

Branding is also not synonymous with marketing. Marketing certainly contributes to a brand, but like the logo example, it is one small part of a much larger whole.

Writing for the Tronvig Group, James Heaton defines branding as “the expression of the essential truth or value of an organization, product, or service. It is communication of characteristics, values, and attributes that clarify what this particular brand is and is not.”

Heaton nails it, especially when he says this. “A brand will help encourage someone to buy a product, and it directly supports whatever sales or marketing activities are in play, but the brand does not explicitly say, “buy me.” Instead, it says, “This is what I am. This is why I exist. If you agree, if you like me, you can buy me, support me, and recommend me to your friends.”

As we tell our clients, a solid brand and strategic marketing program won’t make the sale, but they will create an environment conducive to making the sale.

Myth No. 4: Branding is for big companies with big budgets.

Once upon a time this may have been true. Building an aerospace brand has traditionally relied largely, but not exclusively, on advertising.

But advertising is expensive and it can be challenging to show a return on the investment made. For those who aren’t in a position to advertise, social media is a great and affordable tool for defining and building your brand, all while interacting with your audience and giving them a feel for who you are.

At a time when many aerospace businesses look and sound alike, small companies, especially, can leverage branding to set themselves apart from competitors, get noticed and be remembered!

For more ideas and inspiration, see how several B2B businesses, including GE and Maersk Line, are successfully using social media to build their brands.

Myth No. 5: Brands appeal to emotional buyers. B2B buyers make rational decisions.

B2B buyers are people. And people have emotions. Marketo makes the case that because B2B buyers are overwhelmed by information they use heuristics (a simple and efficient emotional shorthand used in decision-making). In fact, “whether or not the buyer realizes it, the decision is often made long before the buying process is completed. When this happens, even subconsciously, much of the buying process ends up being an effort to justify the initial emotional decision. B2B marketers can and should tap into this by appealing to the emotional side of their prospects, as well as their rational side. This is where branding comes in.”

Does your business believe in branding? Do they invest in it? Why or why not?

If you like this article, you may also be interested in:

Branding: It’s in the Bag

Who is Representing Your Brand?

Trends and Challenges in Aerospace Marketing: ‘We Need More Support’

Last week we brought you research data and insight about trends impacting aerospace and defense marketers.

This week we continue that theme with verbatim comments from more than 30 survey respondents who wrote about their experiences in aerospace marketing. Here are the challenges, opportunities and trends they shared.

Market Conditions and Budgets

“Our biggest challenge is volatility within the industries where we work, specifically petroleum exploration.”

“The downturn in defense and aerospace has management looking to decrease marketing expenditures.”

“A decline in sales is dramatically impacting marketing resources. I am hopeful that the industry will rebound over the next few years.”

“Larger companies have more influence and are moving the market away from our solutions.”

“We are challenged by collapsing markets due to the global economy.”

“It seems our business is very much influenced by politics and whatever the current budget constraints that are in play.”

“We have too much ground to cover and not enough people or time to adequately address.”

“Our primary challenge as a small aviation electronics manufacturer is developing marketing programs around a changing product line that is undergoing constant timeline and feature revisions due to limited staff. Deadlines keep getting pushed back and budgets reduced due to delays in getting product to market.”

“Lack of funding limits our team and our messaging approach.”

“Marketing requires a sizeable investment of cash.”

“Due to tough economic times, budgeting for all required needs of a company can be tough. We use as many free social media and website resources as possible to help reduce costs associated with marketing.”

“Too much spending is required for trade shows and events that never go away. There are more every year.”

Insights: Budgets and resources are clearly a concern for our industry. Last week’s survey results revealed widespread under-spending, and the verbatim comments are in line with that assessment. Respondents also voiced concerns about the state of the industry, citing declining market opportunities as a prime challenge. With downturns in the business aviation, rotorcraft and defense segments, this is a very real challenge that must be addressed. But why are so many companies cutting marketing when sales are down? It defies logic. Because just as food is the fuel that helps us remain healthy and thrive, marketing is the fuel that is essential for business success. Without it, our businesses will weaken, wither and die. If marketing is the engine that powers your business, is it really the area to cut corners or to settle for a makeshift solution?

Resource: This white paper has more information about how much companies should budget for marketing, with benchmarks and industry data you need now.

Targeted Marketing to Reach Decision Makers

“Getting in front of decision makers is a challenge. Everyone understands our business and how it may be used to leverage their efforts, but the decision makers are buried in white noise from everything else.”

“In my business, marketing means selling ideas to customers and obtaining funding for those ideas. They are not for public dissemination, so marketing is very selective and done on a one-on-one basis vs. broadcasting. As we gain ground in funded projects and create products for sale, marketing will become somewhat more traditional, but still very selective, and the objective targets will be contacted via personal measures.”

“It’s tough to break through the clutter of email and offers.”

“I see a lot of money being spent on non-productive initiatives. As a small niche consulting firm, we would only be served by targeted marketing to a few potential prospects.”

“It’s extremely difficult to get a foot in the door with the right people. Sending emails offering support and adding value with our quality products and services to try to get new customers is completely ineffective. We’ve hit a wall as far as generating new leads.”

Insights: Aerospace industry marketers are generally fortunate to have a clearly defined audience of potential customers and influencers. Being highly targeted in this way should make our jobs easier, right? Yet time and time again we hear from marketers who are frustrated with their inability to reach decision makers. If this is a challenge you face, we suggest that you start by questioning your diagnosis. Are you sure that you are not reaching the right people? Or is there a problem with the messaging? Is the delivery method wrong? What do your analytics tell you? An abundance of aerospace marketing is company-centric, focusing too much on what the company does, and too little on how it will make the customer’s life better. Get to the root cause of the problem and you’ll be one step closer to a real solution.

Resources: If your goal is to do business with OEMs, this blog, “The Truth About Marketing to Aerospace OEMs,” details six specific steps to connect with your target audience. Or, download this related infographic, “How to Gain Visibility with OEMs.” Are you working to generate more leads? Check out “Four Keys to Lead-Generation Success.”

Need for Measurement

“We are unable to measure return on investment effectively or directly.”

“On the general aviation side, finding ways to cost-effectively measure ROI and leads remains a challenge. The industry is specialized enough to warrant a more customized approach (software, etc.) but too small to really afford it, so a patchwork of systems is created.”

“Creating meaningful content, with enough depth and technical information to satisfy the customer, is a challenge. We also lack marketing team resources and the ability to justify ROI to the CFO.”

Insights: Measuring the impact of marketing is possible – it’s just not easy. Take advantage of the many resources and tools available to help you establish and build a process that will work for you and your company. And remember, calculating ROI is simply the cost of a sale subtracted from the profits on that sale, divided by the profit number (and expressed as a percentage).

Resources: While we do not endorse any single program or provider, explore these resources to learn more about how to measure your marketing effectiveness: Marketingprofs, Lenskold, Marketingmo, or Marketo.

Embracing New Approaches & Fresh Ideas

“Keeping up with social media is a challenge since it morphs easily into other avenues that may or may not be readily addressed.”

“Personal relationships and prior customers form the basis of our support. It’s tough to break the 30-year mold of “what we have done in the past” to get senior management buy-in on newer marketing trends and strategies. We also don’t have anyone with a formal marketing background to help us stay current and continually engage our market sector. We also don’t have a large budget for marketing. We are in the black hole of business development.”

“Most marketing efforts are run of the mill, with everyone using the same idea or concept.”

“People don’t think outside the box enough. A great deal of advertising and publication content is flat and lifeless.”

Insights: We often hear from aerospace marketers who feel their work — or that of their outside provider — has become stale. Many others say that they are overworked, overwhelmed and simply unable to keep up with the new tools and technologies that are revolutionizing our profession.

Resources: Get your marketing program back on track with inspiration from this fact-filled infographic, “12 Secrets to Marketing Success.” Do something different! From live chat to drones, here are 10 fresh ideas to breathe new life into a marketing program that has grown stale. Some businesses find that external support is a good fit for their needs; other times it’s not the best option. This white paper, “Is it Time to Hire an Outside Marketing Firm?” can help you find the approach that’s right for you.

Other Comments & Concerns

“Online tactics and properties are key to our marketing strategy, but using an old-fashioned direct approach (postcards) is also successful. We were staff-challenged last year, but have since staffed up. This allows us to focus on our biggest asset, our website, while also pursuing direct marketing. Supplying good content and imagery is always an issue with a smaller budget. Managing an integrated marketing program with many moving parts and deadlines is a challenge, and it’s hard to know whether a marketing management application will really help, or end up becoming the work. We have also been challenged measuring ROI for activities, but have determined that a contributory methodology is likely the best. We look at what activity contributed to a sale versus pegging a sale to one activity — something that is very difficult to do in B to B marketing.”

“Social media does not reach 59-65 year-old C-level executives.”

“Our major challenge is getting corporate approval for website redesign. The current site is ancient, has insufficient content, and is hard to navigate.”

“I see many smaller niche print and digital publications refusing to cover a newsworthy product launch just because the company is not an advertiser. We are finding that editorial is being driven a lot more by advertising sales input — at least for smaller market media.”

“Our real issue is how to be more efficient.”

“It’s hard to convince anyone that I’ve spoken to in aerospace that image, and how they present themselves, matters.”

“Building brand awareness for new or merged brands is always a challenge.”

What are your marketing challenges, issues and concerns? We’d love to hear from you and welcome all questions and comments!

7 Discouraging, Surprising, Yet Hopeful Truths About Modern Aerospace Marketing

BDN routinely uses research to understand, benchmark and report the trends and realities impacting the work we do as aerospace marketers.

In our most recent survey we asked aerospace marketers questions about their approach to budgeting and planning, goal-setting, goal accomplishment, their most effective tools and techniques, and levels of satisfaction with their company’s marketing performance.

We wondered, “Is there a correlation between those who plan and those who get results?” “Are some tactics consistently much more effective than others?” And, “Do budgets equate to higher perceived performance?”

It turns out that the answer is yes to all these questions, yet there is still much to be learned. Today we are providing a high-level summary of our findings with key takeaways and insights that shine a light (not always a flattering one) on our industry and our profession. This is ideal for those who want a quick read.

Anyone who would like more in-depth charts and findings may request the complete survey results here.

And remember, these results are suggestive, not scientific.

Key Insights & Takeaways

Finding: Regardless of their annual revenue, aerospace companies are still under-spending on marketing, with many high-revenue businesses spending just as little as their lower-revenue counterparts.

Insight: Shame on us. It’s hard to believe, but 20% of the $100,000,000 businesses have marketing budgets under $100,000. That’s an embarrassingly small .001%, and far below recommended spending and benchmarks for both B2B and our industry.

Takeaway: The budgeting process in larger companies sometimes defies logic, with decision-makers removed from the realities of individual functions. Verbatim comments tell us that more than a few companies are actually cutting marketing because industry conditions are bad. Huh? Marketers who work for an organization like this can either use data and measurement to become agents of change from within, remain ineffective, or run.

Finding: Most marketing budgets have stayed the same since 2015; a good number have increased; and very few have been cut.

Insight: Yes, this is positive news, but remember, budgets are still below accepted standards. Harvard Business Review generally suggests investing 3% of revenue in marketing, with adjustments made for specific scenarios.

Takeaway: Management probably believes marketing has everything it needs to be successful. After all, they have added or maintained existing budgets. But we can and must do better. If you are working with a limited budget, stop defaulting to old school tactics that can’t be measured — and when management wants you to do the same old, same old, explain that you can’t afford anything that fails to deliver ROI. Position yourself as the expert and start showing results to upper management that will justify the higher budget you know you need.

Finding: The majority of respondents say they do have and follow a marketing strategy and plan, yet there are striking differences here based on company revenue. More than 90% of the largest companies have a plan; less than 50% of the smallest do.

Insight: The survey shows that those with a strategy and plan are more satisfied with their company’s marketing performance than those without. It also shows that, as spending levels rise, so do levels of satisfaction with overall marketing performance.

Takeaway: A strategy, plan, adequate budget and measurement are the keys to your marketing success, regardless of company size. But if you are working with a smaller budget, strategy and planning become even more critical to ensure that every dollar spent is associated with an expected, measurable outcome.

Finding: Most respondents reported success in accomplishing key objectives. Improved brand awareness, improved customer engagement/relationships and increased sales were most frequently cited. Interestingly, 12% of those spending less than $100,000 report that they accomplished none of their objectives last year – no one spending $1 million or more said they accomplished nothing.

Insight: Regardless of budget, brand awareness and leads were cited as top successes. Because brand awareness is more difficult to measure it may be a more comfortable “metric” for some marketers. Challenge yourself to achieve more measurable objectives moving forward.

Takeaway: People are reporting success, and that’s good. Let’s just make sure those claims of success are based on data you can defend.

Finding: The most effective digital marketing efforts were websites (83%) and email marketing (79%). The highest marks for ineffective tactics were social media, blogs and online display ads, yet plenty of marketers also found them effective.

Insight: One, people are divided about what works in the digital realm. Also, while websites are recognized as effective, less than 50% say their SEO is effective.

Takeaway: We think the sheer volume of new and changing tools and options overwhelms many marketers. The first step to using the right digital tactics is understanding them – make time to get smart and use data to determine what is and is not working.

Finding: The most effective traditional marketing efforts were events and print advertising, yet print advertising also was most frequently called out as ineffective.

Insight: We continue to rely on old school tactics, perhaps to appease older, old school management, that are less likely to be measured.

Takeaway: If you are using events and print advertising (often the most expensive tactics) make sure you are tracking results. There are tools and techniques that make it possible to know if these approaches are working.

Finding: In 2016, marketers overwhelmingly say their No. 1 objective is increasing sales, followed by improved customer engagement, increased leads and improved brand awareness. Also, their No. 1 challenge is acquiring new customers, followed by lead generation and measuring ROI.

Insight: Hurray! Marketing exists to drive sales, and we are heartened to see folks acknowledging this connection.

Takeaway: Take a look at the relationship between marketing and sales in your organization. Are you using a CRM and marketing automation system to facilitate tracking, measurement and accountability? Are you working harmoniously toward a common goal? Or is there friction and finger pointing? Make mending and strengthening these relationships — adding in accountability for everyone — a priority for the good of the business.

Next up:

Keep reading next week for verbatim comments from more than 30 respondents who wrote to us about the challenges, opportunities and trends they are experiencing in their aerospace marketing work.

Don’t forget:

If you liked this blog post, you may also be interested in these free BDN resources:

10 insider secrets to getting your aerospace news published

This week we are pleased to bring you a guest blog written by Jeremy Parkin, publisher of HeliHub.com. Jeremy has generously provided us with highly specific, actionable advice about what journalists do and not want from aerospace marketers in their PR outreach efforts, and his guidance is spot on. Read and follow these 10 tips and your media profile will improve — guaranteed.

Editors are busy people, but you want your news item to get read and used. The more your stories, images and videos can be seen, the more your organisational profile will rise and be recognized compared to your competitors. Journalists could be out of their office, so these tips will help you reach people who may work for extended periods of time off a smart phone or tablet.

A key part of the process is to present the information in the most accessible way, and from my experience launching and building the world’s first helicopter industry news website, I hope these tips will guide you to better success in promoting your news. I also have a significant background in the IT industry, particularly social media, and I hope these insights assist in that arena, too.

Document formats The text of your press release needs to be easily accessible by an editor. You want them to cut and paste quotes from your key people. We are much less likely to use a PDF press release and will prioritize a Word document. Better still, put the text of your press release in the body of an email like Airbus Helicopters does. Avoid sending press releases as attachments, and don’t send multiple languages of the same text in the same email – our automatic translation software gets very confused when Turbomeca (now Safran) send English and French in the body of the same email message. These rules apply irrespective of whether you send emails direct, or use an email marketing system such as MailChimp.
Multiple stories If you are sending two stories, send them as separate emails, ideally a week or more apart, and ensure they are distinctly different. A few years back, Bell Helicopter took to issuing a new press release for every single country that approved a higher MTOW for the 429 model, in some cases countries where they needed lots of optimism to even sell an aircraft. That soon became a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” situation and we exercised the [Del] button.
How many images? Every press release needs an image – the saying, “A picture is worth 1,000 words” still holds true. Some say multiple images mean bigger (and slower) emails which could be quarantined by an email server, so consider supplying images via a link to a public-access folder on Dropbox.com like MD Helicopters do.
Image File Format As HeliHub.com is entirely online, we prefer JPG. Media outlets that encumber themselves with hard copy issues may prefer PNG but will still be able to handle JPG. Images embedded into a PDF are ignored as too difficult to extract, even if it is technically possible.
Image Size To present your image at a quality level which can be used, the minimum dimension should be 2000 pixels. With many smartphones capable of taking images or 3-4000 pixels, there is no excuse. Over half the images we receive are 1000 pixels across or less, and we ignore them. Be careful using a wire service. as some of them restrict image size and force the reader to sign up to something to get full-size images — the chances they will sign up are low.
Presenting the subject in an Image Flying means wings or rotor blades, and these make for landscape images (wider than height). But the editor may have a portrait (taller than width) gap to fill. Leave “editing space” around the subject. At HeliHub.com we post two news-related images to Instagram every weekday, and that usually means square images. We also change our Twitter header image weekly – and that needs an image three times wider than its height.
Lighting and weather We ignore dreary photos unless the subject is really important. Improve your images using free software such as GIMP. Very recently the image of the third AW609 tiltrotor prototype needed editing time as it looked like it was taken in a rainstorm.
Corporate image bank Sometimes an editor will prefer to use your corporate logo, and you should have these available on (or from) your website, along with head shots of key people in your organisation. Consider using a free service like OpenBrand.com to host these, like Helipaddy does.
Video format/location Press release video is still rare, but the click-through to a video online is remarkably high, so the cost may be worth the effort, even if the video is less than 60 seconds long. Minimum format is HD these days, and some in 4K. Only a few aviation organisations are using 360-degree videos, but this will be the way ahead for aircraft interiors or to show details of an equipment installation. Do not save videos on your own website, but instead on YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia so they can then be embedded easily into a story online. The vicarious benefit is the extra views from the search traffic of those sites – remember, YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine.
Compressed file formats Do not submit ZIP files; they are too much hassle. People who ZIP a JPG file are demonstrating that they don’t know that JPG format is already a compressed file format.

Interested in more information about working with the aerospace and defense news media? BDN has compiled a complete PR toolkit full of tools and tips to improve your skills and your results. Tons of other free aerospace marketing resources are also available for download. View the entire library here.