Category: BDN

Do you have what it takes to succeed with the aerospace news media?

Mastering the art of public relations is an essential skill for aerospace marketers. Take this 10-question quiz to test your own PR knowledge and skill.  To brush up on your skills, download the BDN PR Toolkit, here.


11 Things Aerospace Marketers Can Do to Work Smarter, Not Harder

shutterstock_251251270We hear it all the time. Aerospace marketers are overwhelmed and overburdened. Many are at wit’s end trying to deal with a never-ending barrage of requests, requirements and demands on their time.

We get it. Many aerospace companies have cut budgets and raised expectations. At the same time, tried and true marketing tactics keep changing, and learning new techniques and technologies is one more thing to do.

For those who are committed to making a change, there are ways to accomplish more without working more, just by approaching things differently. Here are 10 ideas to get you started.

1. Set Goals

Having goals gives you focus, and by focusing on the desired results you can stop spending time and money on things that won’t get you where you’re going.

Using BDN as an example, we set annual sales and marketing goals that link directly to revenue goals. We use a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), both behavioral and performance based, to monitor progress and identify challenges.

New Breed Marketing outlines a step-by-step goal-setting process here.

2. Have a Strategy and a Plan

There are lots of tools and tactics — many more than you have time or budget to support. Having a strategy linked to goals will keep you from veering off course. It also helps you spend more time working proactively and less time reacting to someone else’s priorities.

We have five strategic drivers and six tactical areas of focus. One of those is emphasizing content-driven inbound and nurturing techniques. This supports a strategic effort to further refine and build our expert aerospace marketing positioning. With the exception of travel, the majority of our marketing budget is now spent on content development and delivery.

It’s time to start planning for 2016 now. This handy template may help you.

3. Start Measuring

Based on goals, establish three to five KPIs and track them at regular intervals. Your tactics are either moving you toward your goals, or they are not. Aim over time to build a measurement program that shows a return on investment for marketing. But don’t let yourself get stuck in the paralysis by analysis trap.

BDN has dashboards that measure the effectiveness of specific tactics with an overall emphasis on engagement and conversion. We also track things like customer turnover, close rates and average value of sale.

Marketo’s Marketing Measurement Cheat Sheet is a good place to start learning more.

4. Take Ownership

The ability to measure and track success, including ROI, puts you in a position of authority with senior leadership and opinionated colleagues. When you own the Marketing function and are recognized as the authority, you’ll be in a strong position to say no to the many requests that just don’t support organizational goals. Don’t let them think of you as the person who does brochures. Be the person who drives revenue.

Our plan is our bible, and while it doesn’t mean we can’t adjust if warranted, there needs to be a well thought out and strategic rationale for changing direction. Just having a good idea isn’t good enough.

Hubspot offers actionable advice here.

5. Re-evaluate

Ignore anyone who tells you “we’ve always done it this way.” Evaluate every expenditure and every opportunity with a critical eye. Why are we going to this trade show or convention? What did we get from it last year? What do we plan to accomplish this time? Ask hard questions and require a return on every investment.

Our marketing starts with a completely clean slate every year. This year, for example, we attended a Schedulers and Dispatchers event for the first time, but that doesn’t mean it will automatically be on the schedule for 2016. We don’t worry about what other firms are doing or what the market expects. We carefully invest in activities that work and that support our specific goals.

For comparison and context, here’s how other B2B marketers are allocating funds.

6. Learn to Love Technology

It will help you with everything from project management to analytics to social media scheduling. For example…

7. Marketing Automation

We use it and we love it — because it works, and it pulls everything together, using data and measurement to assess effectiveness of campaigns. Marketing automation, according to the experts at Hubspot, is software and tactics that allow companies to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers. It’s both automated and personal, a seeming contradiction in terms, while also being highly targeted, making it ideal for aerospace marketers who usually have clearly defined targets. Slice and dice the audience in any way that works for you, whether it’s by the missions they fly, the aircraft in their fleet, or their role in the organization, the sky’s the limit.

Here’s an infographic that may help make automation easier to understand.

8. Lists

Database maintenance is tedious and time-consuming, yet it’s vital to marketing success. Sirius Decisions Research reports that 10-25 percent of B2B marketing database contacts contain critical errors, which translate into a lot of missed opportunities. Someone needs to own, update and be accountable for this data and the painstaking work required to do it right. According to CMO.com, high-performing marketing departments have assigned owners of the data, often part of the marketing operations function, and an ongoing plan for assessing and repairing data quality. Make this part of your long-term core strategy, they advise, and you’ll see positive results over time.

An upcoming edition of the Marketing Flight Manual will feature a BDN case study that clearly illustrates the importance of list building. You won’t believe what we learned and accomplished in just 30 days!

Suggestion: Lists, marketing automation and a robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system go hand-in-hand. Work closely with Sales (see No. 9) to maximize your chances of success.

9. Pay Attention to Your Website

Your website is the gateway to your brand. This is where buyers go first to learn about your company and capabilities, and it literally can make or break a sale. The Content Marketing Institute provides an eye-opening take on how websites can positively or negatively impact trust and credibility with B2B buyers.

If your website fails to make it easy for prospects to contact you and to quickly understand what you do, one-third to one-half of your potential buyers will leave and never return. As buyers ourselves, we should know how annoying it is to search a site for contact information, yet a lot of B2B companies still make it really hard to contact them. For an industry pulse, we checked the websites of a few firms listed on the Aerospace Industries Association website.

SAIC provides one phone number to reach corporate headquarters, but makes you fill out a form (a big no-no, according to the survey) for everything else.

Leidos makes it even harder – you have to fill out a form and select from a list of reasons you want to connect. They actually say, “Please select a reason for contacting us.”

Thales (USA) does not make anything easy to find, but if you dig deeply enough (under About Us and then US locations) you might eventually get what you need.

Embraer Hurray! A largely commercial company will surely be customer-friendly, right? Nope. Just one more form to fill out.

BDN As for BDN, we have a dedicated contact page that is featured in top-level navigation, making it easy to find without an exhaustive search. It does include a form, but we don’t force anyone to use it. Our phone, email and social media links are clearly presented and visible.

We randomly looked at a number of other industry websites and found no examples — not one — that provided contact information in an open, inviting, customer-friendly fashion. Our customers deserve better, and we as an industry should do better.

10. Partnerships

Externally, be open to partnering with complimentary businesses. Partnerships can act as force multipliers to help you extend your reach, budget and bandwidth. Consider the benefits of pooling data (See No. 7), sharing the cost of a mailing or sponsorship, or even raising your international profile.

Internally, make peace with the sales organization. By joining forces, sales and marketing can deliver a better sales experience and drive better results. A McKinsey survey provided insight into complex, multi-touch point sales processes, finding that the “most destructive” failing in sales is when the sales force lacks adequate product knowledge and contacts customers too frequently. The key is to have fewer, more meaningful customer interactions — and marketing can help shape that with the right content delivered at the right time — but it has to be a unified effort.

BDN has a well-defined sales funnel that mirrors how our customers buy, with key touch points, and our business development, sales and marketing teams are in lockstep, working as true partners toward a common goal. Learn more.

11. Get Help

Is it time to hire an outside marketing firm? This in-depth white paper examines the pros and cons of engaging external marketing resources and includes tips for finding the right fit.

Download the white paper here.

10 Unique Ways To Out-Market Your Competition

shutterstock_262482947New technologies and techniques have the potential to revolutionize the way you market and sell your aviation industry products and services.

Here’s a list of 10 fresh ideas to inspire your transformation.

  1. Live Chat: Welcome customers to your website with a Live Chat feature to provide 24-hour support and assistance. It’s time for aerospace to leverage this capability, and customer service is an important differentiator.
  2. Product Reviews and Customer Forums: Inviting customers to publicly rate and discuss your products and services sends a powerful message about confidence and accountability. Worried about a negative review? Don’t be. It’s actually an opportunity to show the market how well you respond to customer issues and concerns.
  3. Flipbook: Our staff is high on Flipbook, a technology that can transform any digital page content into a virtual document where the pages turn on screen. It’s a quick and easy way to impress your prospects and the boss with interactive content that’s a cut above static PDFs. Ditch or minimize printed brochures — imagine how much you can save on printing and shipping: www.flipb.com
  4. CRM: Customer Relationship Management software brings accountability and transparency to the sales process. Used in conjunction with marketing automation, it’s a powerful way to attract, nurture and manage leads.
  5. Measurement: Having the ability to identify the marketing tactics that work best for your business is a really big deal, especially for resource-constrained organizations trying to do more with less. Be disciplined about gathering and analyzing data and stop investing in things that just don’t deliver.
  6. Interactivity: At AirVenture Oshkosh last month, several companies went the extra mile to provide customers with an immersive event experience. The Icon Aircraft exhibit featured a simulator, as well as iPads with special apps that allowed visitors to explore and learn about the product. And the Quest Aircraft website has a feature that allows visitors to design their own aircraft, including paint. See it here.
  7. 3-D: Say goodbye to boring banners and one-dimensional trade show graphics. Imagine how 3D printing could help you convey critical information and stand out from the crowd.
  8. GoPro: Give away a GoPro with every product you deliver, and ask customers to send you mission and operational footage. You’ll have a happy customer and a treasure trove of unique content for use on social media and other marketing channels. Of course, this isn’t right for every aviation company, but consider if it could work for you.
  9. Drones: Drones are being used by everyone from Amazon to dry cleaners, so maybe aviation marketers can use them, too. From capturing high-resolution video to drone-vertising products and services, just about anything is possible. A recent article in Adweek proclaimed that “having your brand associated with something so innovative and unexpected is a new kind of creative,” and “drones are a no-brainer.”
  10. Audio: White papers are used to provide factual information about complex products and services, so they are ideal for the aerospace marketing and sales process. A typical white paper is about 2,500 words, though, making it difficult for your growing audience of mobile viewers to view. Try providing them with a fresh option to access white paper content just as they would an audio book. They’ll be able to choose the format that works best for them while positioning your business as both up-to-date and customer-friendly.

You might also be interested in our other blogs: Military vs. Commercial: What to Know When You Market to Them Both or The Truth About Marketing to OEMs.

 

Military vs. Commercial: What to Know When You Market to Them Both

shutterstock_7908211We all know that aerospace and defense industry is cyclical. Sometimes, defense is booming. Other times, the commercial market reigns.

So diversification is wise, but using the same marketing approach to reach commercial and government customers is not. While it’s true that marketing fundamentals apply to reaching both groups, there are critically important differences that will impact strategy and execution. Here’s an overview of key considerations.

Marketing matters — to both audiences.

We’ve often heard industry veterans argue that marketing to the government is unnecessary, but it’s just not true. Once upon a time, aerospace companies used a “keep it sold” minimalist approach to defense marketing. But in the era of sequestration, when so many companies are competing for dwindling federal dollars, effective marketing and branding offer your best chance to be noticed and drive customer preference. We’re glad to see that government marketing is making great strides in its marketing — just like the government itself — and even the most stodgy defense contractors are starting to incorporate 3D, apps, and content into their expanding marketing toolkits.

Know your audience and your targets.

Because this is an industry of insiders, aerospace marketers run the risk of being overconfident and assuming they know everything about their audience. A Federal Content Marketing Review revealed significant gaps between government and contractor perceptions about the value of digital content, the most effective marketing channels and other relevant topics. For example, while 69% of contractors think marketing collateral is essential for information and education, only 37% of their customers think collateral adds value. Just think of all the money you could be saving on printed product cards and brochures.

The report from Market Connections is a fascinating study and a must-read for anyone marketing to the government.

Choose wisely.

If your tactical execution is on autopilot, it’s time to reassess. For example, with travel restrictions in place, your government customers may not be attending trade shows or other in-person events. At the same time, commercial events continue to grow. As with all marketing, stay closely connected to your customers and adapt to their preferences and behavior. Question and evaluate everything.

Consider the buying process.

While both markets have multiple decision makers, the government procurement process is significantly more complex, involving lobbyists, politics, and strict ethical guidelines – even ITAR regulations must be considered. Make sure you have an informed team and proceed with caution. In the commercial market, identifying your target audiences isn’t always easy, but it is much more straightforward.

Remember what you are selling.

Commercial marketers have largely learned this lesson, but many government marketers are still overly focused on hardware, when they should be communicating benefits, value and relevance. No one is buying a black box — they’re buying what it can do for them.

Parting thoughts.

It’s always easier to transition from selling to the government to selling to the commercial market than it is to shift from commercial to government. In many cases, products and services that have already been embraced by the military have a valuable pedigree and instant credibility with commercial audiences. Smart marketers can use this to their advantage.

What are your insights and experiences in marketing and selling to these diverse audiences? What companies are reaching both markets successfully?

You might also be interested in Best Practices in Aerospace Marketing or The Truth About Marketing to OEMs.

The Truth About Marketing to OEMs

shutterstock_272054030Many aerospace companies tell us they want to sell their products and services to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMS), but have little success and lots of frustration.

The good news is that there are tools and tactics to help you meet your goal.

The bad news is that it will not be fast or easy. In our experience, people want a shortcut or a magic bullet — but the real solution takes us back to Marketing 101.

1. Branding

Start with a firm foundation. Your brand supports and defines every aspect of your marketing, so it has to come first and it has to be right. Someone once told us that, unlike marketing, a brand does not say, “buy me.” A brand is a spoken and unspoken way of telling people who you are and why you exist. It shapes the way your business is perceived and sets the stage for a successful marketing and sales effort. Audiences make judgments and decisions based on brand. Think about your own experience with a particular product, service, or organization. One company may be perceived as being “difficult to work with” or “expensive,” while another is viewed as “reliable” or “easy to work with.”

From the design of your website to the way you answer the phone, make sure your brand is saying the right things to every member of your target audience, including the OEMs. Your tactical choices also impact your brand. Consider the perception created by a small digital ad, crowded on a website with lots of other ads, and a more exclusive and distinctive high-level sponsorship at a flagship convention — which is more likely to catch the eye of an OEM target?

Tip: Hire a professional. This is not a job for your friend who does websites in her spare time or for an engineer who knows Photoshop. To assess the value of your brand, consider engaging a brand valuation professional.

2. Know Your Audience

In order to say and do the right things you need to know your audience. Who, exactly, are you targeting? Document the OEMs and the categories of people within the OEM (engineering, procurement, CEO, etc.) who will influence or make the buying decision. Find out what they care about, what they need, and what they look for in a supplier. Are they primarily driven by cost? Certified performance? Don’t settle for assumptions. Dig deep and find out what makes them tick. Then tailor your marketing messages and tactics accordingly.

Tip: Use surveys and interviews, and learn about personas: www.buyerpersona.com

3. Know your competition

Make sure you know who you are competing with, and what they are saying, doing and offering. Find out their strengths and their weaknesses, and keep them in mind as you determine your own positioning. This can help you stand out from the crowd.

Tip: See what your opposition is saying and doing on social media and mine their website. Find former customers and employees for unique and relevant insights. Consider employing online tools like Compete, Technorati  and Radian6.

4. Distinguish Yourself

If you have multiple competitors it’s essential that you distinguish yourself with a compelling value proposition that is relevant and meaningful to the customer, specifically credible, and uniquely differentiating.

One way to get noticed is by showcasing your expertise and leadership. Iron Paper.com suggests creating content that directly communicates how your products and service offerings can help OEMs reduce costs, streamline operations, and improve efficiencies.

They wisely suggest case studies; product specs and definitions; webinars; FAQ content; white papers; data sheets; and blog content. Build your content around OEM pain points, goals, interests, and needs, which you will have already defined (refer to step 2), and make sure the OEM prospects know the content was specifically designed for them. Using a strong headline like this: “How Outsourcing Saves this OEM “$400M a Year” is important.

Tip: Before going public test your draft value proposition against this checklist.

5. Keep an Open Mind

While building relationships at events and participating in organizations where OEMs have a presence is essential (see No. 6), your website and social media are important, too. The dynamics of B2B sales is changing. According to McKinsey & Company, B2B buyers are starting to act more like consumers, meaning they access more sources of information and touch points as they independently research, evaluate and select providers. A closer look at your sales process and organization may also be important to ensure relevance and effectiveness.

Tip: B2B companies across industries are moving toward journey-based sales strategies. Read this McKinsey article on OEM marketing, “Do You Really Understand How Your Business Customers Buy?” for even more in-depth information.

6. Don’t Forget

Aerospace is an industry of relationships, and the right referral can change the game for your business. Do everything you possibly can to build your network and relationships on a personal (meaning beyond LinkedIn) level. Never underestimate the importance of networking and face-to-face communications. Meet, greet, and repeat!

Are You Ready?

Before you get started, make sure your marketing effort has adequate budget and staff, and set realistic, measurable goals to monitor success.

A dedicated focus on marketing to OEMs will bear fruit if it is based in strategy and supported by appropriate messaging, tactics, and resources. But it’s going to require change. Are you ready?

You may also be interested in: Best Practices in Aerospace Marketing

Best Practices in Aerospace Marketing

shutterstock_121846543Two decades spent in aerospace marketing have provided BDN with a great vantage point to identify trends and to see what works and what doesn’t for our clients and for ourselves. These are the 3 essential best practices necessary for successful aerospace marketing.

1. Be Different

Walk around an industry trade show or event. Look at a few websites. Page through some collateral. You’ll notice that most companies look and sound a lot alike. Blue is the color of choice. Many use complex graphics, too many words, and too much technical jargon. Grainy photos abound. Most are a little conservative and a little behind the times.

The messages are not much different. Everyone talks about passion, commitment, trust, and dedication — and don’t forget value, efficiency, and innovation.

It’s the same thing over and over and over again, so when someone presents a brand in a different way, it’s hard not to notice. Here are 3 ideas to begin standing out from the crowd.

  • Rethink Color Don’t be afraid. Bold color can be a marketer’s best friend. Think about how you might spice up your palette with an unexpected hue. There’s no reason to be afraid. The folks at Leidos Holdings, Inc., have paved the way. We couldn’t help but notice their pink and purple exhibit at this year’s Army Aviation Mission Solutions Summit. Pink and purple is an unlikely choice, yes, but with first quarter revenues of $1.2 billion, Leidos seems to be doing just fine.
  • Simplify Retool your messaging to be simple, bold and powerful. Get the audience’s interest quickly, with crystal clear visual and verbal communications, then drive prospects to your website (where you can track them) for more information and technical detail.
  • Quality Matters When you use photography, use only top quality, high-resolution images. A grainy, out of focus shot of your pride and joy widget is always a bad idea. It says that you don’t care about quality, and makes you look homegrown. No matter how you are presenting yourself, do it right, or don’t do it at all.

2. Don’t Make it About You

The best marketing is customer- and audience-centric. Too many aerospace marketers are writing copy simply to please their bosses. We see it time and time again, and the result is company- and capability-centric messaging that fails to resonate with anyone but senior leadership. Understanding your audience’s needs and pain points, and tailoring messages to show how you can help, is the key to success. Taking a fresh look at all of your marketing from your customer’s perspective could change everything.

The folks at Guidance Aviation are doing a lot of things right. On their website, for example, they clearly state who they are and what they do, and immediately transition to simply presented customer-focused navigation, messages and calls to action. This is how it’s done: www.guidance.aero.

3. Up Your Game & Stay Current

Slowly but surely, aerospace marketers are shifting from doing what has always been done, to doing what works now.

Splashy, classy, and cool, Airbus Helicopters’ H160 Heli-Expo unveiling set a new standard in product launch events.

The most conservative defense contractors, and even the DoD itself, are Tweeting and Facebooking, and their posts are becoming increasingly interesting and relevant. The U.S. Army, for example, is active on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Flickr, and SlideShare, and even has a live blog.

Infographics are a great way to showcase expertise and thought leadership. Kudos to the marketing team at Honeywell — their visual presentations are interesting, informative and audience friendly, and worth a look.

Here are 3 more ideas for creative approaches that may work for you.

  • Presentations PowerPoint is dead. At the very least consider Keynote or Prezi — you’ll make a better first impression. Or, try this. BDN recently created a landing page in lieu of a conventional presentation, and the prospective client couldn’t stop talking about it. After our meeting we simply gave them the link to review at their convenience, then tracked their activity and areas of interest every step of the way.
  • Personalization Someone at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) gets it. The organization recently sent out a personalized eblast message, and their attention to detail did not go unnoticed. Personalizing your marketing is important because it works. Personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates, but 70 percent of brands fail to use them.
  • Live Chat Don’t just talk about your company’s great customer service. Steal a page from the consumer marketing playbook and use a live chat feature for your website. It sends a powerful message about your customer commitment, strengthens relationships as problems are solved, and provides valuable information about your customer’s needs, questions and pain points.

Confronted with unprecedented pressures and changes, aerospace is an industry in transition. Weak and less strategic businesses can’t survive, and those who remain now find themselves competing at a higher level. Those who survive and thrive will distinguish themselves with smart, strategic marketing that is firmly founded in these critical best practices.

Analytics: 3 Easy Tools to Start Using Now

shutterstock_218740615Marketers strive daily to validate the effectiveness of the strategies driving their marketing campaigns. A 2014 study done by the Fournaise Group found that “80% of global marketers struggle with being able to properly demonstrate to their management the business effectiveness of their spending, campaigns and activities.”

Engineers, numbers, and analytics drive this industry. Preparing a case demonstrating the return on investments for marketing dollars can fortify the belief that the course is steady and true – and can help avoid repeated cuts to a marketing budget.

The good news is that there are many analytics and tracking tools available — both paid and unpaid. These platforms provide significant insight to website traffic, paid digital advertising metrics, social media performance and page reach. The key to understanding the return from data presented in all of these platforms is assigning a value to the metrics and determining a set of goals for each marketing platform.

Here are three digital marketing tools that can help you assess return on investment for online and offline channels.

1. Google Anlaytics

This free platform from Google provides information about website traffic, including how many people are coming to your website, where the traffic is originating and what your viewers are doing. Google Analytics metrics such as time-on-site, bounce rate and the average number of pages per session provide insight into how engaging and useful visitors are finding a website to be.

By looking at these metrics within Google Anlaytics, you can pinpoint which sources of traffic are producing the highest quality traffic. For example, if you are running multiple display ads on different publications’ websites, you can easily determine if the audience of one magazine is spending longer on your website than the other audience. This will help to determine which advertising platforms are bringing the most qualified audience to your website, and that information can help you decide where to invest your valuable advertising dollars.

2. Call Tracking

Call tracking is one way to monitor the performance of offline marketing channels such as print advertising, billboards or other collateral. Call tracking platforms provide a specific phone number for each campaign that redirects to your company’s phone number. This allows a database to be formed of the calls that are coming through as a result of specific advertisements and the length of those phone calls. Online pay-per-click platforms like AdWords also use call tracking in online advertisements for customers that would rather speak to a company representative than visit a website.

A call tracking analysis could include a situation where you are running two identical advertisements in two different publications. The ads are the same but have different phone numbers. Both numbers would ultimately reach your sales office, but you would directly be able to compare how many calls were received from each ad placement.

3. Social Media

Social media is a common way to communicate directly to your audience, but it is also easy to spend time on social media while being unable to identify the return of social media efforts.

Try tracking the number of followers on your social media platforms and their engagement or actions to see the return on social media investments. Identify the goals of social media efforts (increased web traffic, more phone calls, video views, etc.) to most accurately measure the return on social media.

Most major social networks offer robust analytics for marketers to analyze the effectiveness of the online social campaigns. Take the time to download the reports and measure metrics over a few months. What type of content is your audience more interested in? Does your social audience prefer to watch videos or to look at photos? What types of posts drive additional traffic to your website? These are all questions that can be answered through social media metrics.

The rise of digital marketing has presented many ways to evaluate the advertising spend of both online and offline channels. Depending on what advertising campaigns your company favors, one or all of the above tactics might be a good fit.

You may also be interested in 8 Best Practices For Email Marketing Success or Growing Opportunities in Digital Marketing.