Air Transport
Article | July 26, 2022
The airline industry has been an extremely tough marketplace. It takes a lot of effort to stand out from the competitors and to run business amidst everyday challenges to become top airlines in the country or worldwide. Yet, out of all this, the airline industry has maintained its dignity and has been successfully driven through market challenges.
Aside from the unique dynamics of the current COVID-19 crisis, marketers before used aviation marketing tactics in a standard way. But, the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic made aviation marketing exceptionally challenging for airlines worldwide to forecast demand and kickstart airline businesses in the future.
But, as of now (after a year and half months from the pandemic outbreak), there is a lot of excitement about airline branding, airline marketing strategies, airline advertisements, and more. As a result, businesses are becoming confident that revitalizing their strategies would now take off effortlessly. Yet some challenges and many other uncertainties need to be addressed regarding the fast-changing business models, travel demand, revenue generation, sales, stability, and a lot more in the restart period.
Let’s put some light on those uncertainties in the airline industry.
The Uncertainties
As per IATA (2020), the change in the airline business model creates additional uncertainty. It has been observed that the present state of the economy is the ultimate game of risk to airline revenue management and planning. This includes airline marketing strategies, airline advertising campaigns, and prospects of branding as well.
The recent shift in business patterns have been caused and triggered by various events such as:
A sharp decline in demand stimulation techniques applied by airlines
Signs of disruption entering the market in the wake of the COVID-19 situation prevailing in countries
Disruption of profitable plans for future
Changing consumer behavior
Missing data connections and collection
As a result, these uncertain events demand a call for action across the entire airline sector value chain. The call must be initiated based on creative marketing strategy, prioritizing personalization, sustainability, and profitability.
Now, the question ascends, why does your marketing team need to think out-of-the-box altogether to re-create airline marketing strategies.
Read about it next!
Why Airline Marketing Strategies Need to be Out-of-the-Box
With the changes occurring in airline market dynamics, airline businesses have to reshuffle their marketing strategies. They have to be quick as novel opportunities are continuously pouring in. Despite the current situation that has put the airline market under stress, it has provided the foundations for a range of new blue ocean opportunities. This is where you can hop on those opportunities to re-scale your business.
Therefore, the internal and external variables have to be considered in any forecasting activities of airlines, including revenue management, pricing, network, and marketing planning. In other words, game-changing strategies are born of thinking out-of-the-box—a leap into the unexpected.
Here, creating effective aviation marketing strategies will fulfill the need to pursue a new product differentiation and revenue management angle. Doing so will also instill confidence back into the base of your airline business, including stakeholders. This is how your business can become successful again.
By now, you must have understood that this is where the power of marketing in aviation can play a vital role in diminishing all the challenges. But before your marketing head towards creating robust aviation marketing strategies, you should first know about the approach of 3 Cs to make a successful marketing venture.
3 Cs to Consider While Marketing Your Aviation Business
Marketing, as per the current scenario, will require rock-hard strategic preparation. Similarly, in aviation marketing also, your team needs to ensure consistent preparation. This continuous process will help the business build progressively in a constantly changing aviation business environment and fluctuating demands.
Following this approach will help better in building innovative strategies and simultaneously exploring a wide range of possibilities.
Contrast
Before your marketing team heads to the stage of the plan, consider the assumptions bracing up in the current airline industry’s status. Then, your strategists should get hands-on to identify the possibilities to come ahead along with its results.
Constrain
Keep a look at the limitations stirring in the current airline market scenario. Then consider how the prevailing weaknesses can be converted into strengths to become successful among your competitors.
Context
To create out-of-the-box airline marketing strategies, which include airline advertisements, airline advertising campaigns, and more, you should plan to have a different context to stand out terrifically among other airline companies. In addition, marketing this way will give you surprising insights and help you emerge afterward through challenges that occurred due to the pandemic.
Now that you are aware of the critical things to consider in creating airline marketing strategies. It is time to go ahead with creating strategically planned strategies.
Here are some effective strategies discussed that would help to revitalize your airline business.
6 Airline Marketing Strategies
Introduce Loyalty Programs
The airline business is known for its range of offers of loyalty programs according to the target audience. Nearly all airline businesses create their ways to cater programs to a particular audience group or in general. However, loyalty programs work the same at the core, but to encourage audiences in the current time, you can offer different perks to them. So, be creative in creating campaigns, and you will find that your loyalty programs are capitalizing on your revenue and benefiting customers together.
Distinguish your Brand and Position Yourself
Branding and positioning have become essential for businesses operating in this pandemic time, where the market is now hugely competitive. So you have got to be quick to get your company identified by your customer base as well as the target ones.
While proceeding in this manner, your best strength will distinguish you from your competitors serving in the same area. To make your brand image outstanding, you need to study customer demographics related to airline services.
On the other hand, depending on the brand image you want to cultivate, you may need to create airline advertisements accordingly. It is because your brand will communicate a message to the worldwide population. And it’s important to consider how you want your target audience to think of you before you brand and position yourself through advertisements, social media platforms, and more. This is how you will be able to position yourself in every day changing aviation market dynamics.
Be Creative with an Airline Advertising Strategy
Out-of-the-box airline advertising strategies can help your business outshine amidst insane competition arising. It is because now you have to adjust according to the modern world scenario. Here, creative content plays an important role. Moreover, as you must be working remotely, the idea of using content marketing will massively support your advertising strategy. It would engage and inspire customers to leverage your services, and, ultimately, your revenue will take off once again.
Introduce Paid Ads
Now that you have a planned airline advertising strategy, you can also consider introducing paid ads in it. Yes! With the help of paid ads, you can target a location-wise audience more precisely.
Paid ads also help in revenue generation and collaborations. These aspects are directly proportional to the profit earned out of implementing strategies. For example, paid ads may involve videos creation on YouTube to create brand awareness on your website, landing pages, or content (articles, blogs, etc.) page. By doing this, your brand value is going to skyrocket than what was it before.
Set a Strategic Social Media Campaign
Social media campaigns are the best ways to reach your customers and target audiences under airline marketing strategies. Spreading your brand voice through different social media platforms will help you humanize your brand and deepen relationships with a larger population. In addition, other airlines use social media to reward customer loyalty, so you can also indulge in activities for the same.
For this, your marketing team should study which platforms your customer base visit frequently. Then, based on your research, you can do promotions, provide updates, make announcements, expand services or give some behind-the-scenes look of your company to customers as well as targeted audiences. It is because they appreciate participating in such events and get satisfied by relying on your company.
During an interview with Media 7, Didi Horn, Chief Executive Officer at SkyX, made a statement. He told,
“We have found that Linkedin has contributed the most to brand awareness over the years. In our business, there’s a very specific and niche target customer that we want to reach, so we don’t hesitate to invest in doing what it takes to build strong, lasting relationships.”
Marketing leaders like Didi Horn and more are becoming successful with their marketing activities on LinkedIn. Similarly, you also use LinkedIn—as one of the most influential social media platforms to spread the word about your business activities and reach out target audience easily.
Practice Influencer Marketing
Yes, you heard it right! Influencer marketing is booming in the current pandemic scenario. This is the best way of earning better ROI. Implementing influencer airline marketing strategies would help realize your business goals.
So, what goes under this marketing strategy?
The formula of storytelling through content is considered beneficial to increase airline business. Adding transparency in the strategies can also be one formula while practicing influencer marketing. Implementing this strategy will attract more audiences because they get influenced by interesting content, storytelling, company behind the scenes. This humanizes the brand altogether, giving audiences a factor of trust and loyalty.
As you have entered a completely different business scenario in the airline industry, your company needs robust marketing strategies.
It’s important to understand that change may be predictable, but growth isn’t. Business growth highly depends on all the little things you do consistently to make it happen. Since you’re competing with many other airline companies, developing a strategic aviation marketing plan can boost sustainable business growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an airline marketing strategy?
An airline marketing strategy is a well-planned method in action that businesses create to fulfill goals such as boost revenue, surge engagement with customers, create brand visibility, positioning, target potential audience, and a lot more. Companies invest time and money to create a robust plan so that businesses can run effortlessly.
Why is airline marketing strategy important?
Airline marketing strategies are important for airlines to stand out firmly among the competitors, position their brand, create awareness among the existing customer base and attract more and more potential audiences through various online platforms.
What are the top 3 marketing strategies for the airline?
Although the marketing strategies involved in a business are critical, the top ones can be the following.
Email marketing
Social media
Paid media advertising
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Aviation Technology
Article | July 26, 2022
Failure is beneficial for many reasons. But important is to manage and survive the onslaught of errors. With respect to bold attempts like adopting a new strategy, making judgments about the market, bad publicity, launching new products or services, and more like these often make airline marketers discourage due to a little or huge foul.
The list also includes branding. Airline branding mistakes are often seen when businesses try either to aim to re-position in the market or create awareness among customers. If you are making branding mistakes, then remember that a combination of poor communication and ineffective brand planning causes one of the worst branding disasters!
Aviation Branding Mistakes of All-Time
Branding any airline company is challenging. When bad decisions about branding strategies happen, it costs huge to businesses. And most of the aviation businesses do it habitually. On this note, mistakes could happen in various ways. But some aviation branding mistakes shouldn’t be ignored at all. Mistakes can hurt your business hard. So, let’s highlight the common mistakes that can happen while branding for aviation and how you should avoid them.
Implementation of Rigid Strategies
Implementation of rigid branding strategies for aviation results in economic slumps
Airlines need flexible marketing strategies to control the cost of labor and acquisition in order to balance the brand image.
-Lauda, Marketing-In-Chief, Southwest Airlines
While any significant shift in airline business strategy, like the pandemic forced, usually takes two to three years to implement. Therefore, you should design branding strategies that could afford the room for adjustments. In addition, those strategies will revive your older market position. Failing to do so could lead your airline company’s image to suffer a massive loss.
So, what can you do ahead?
Implement unique branding strategies for aviation to strengthen the value of your company. For this, you need to work and pay attention constantly to existing and potential customers you deal with. By understanding their perspective, marketers will be able to bring uniqueness to strategies. Following this process will ease you to adjust and cope up with the current economic condition.
Overlooking SEO
The entire aviation industry is going digitalized, especially after the pandemic fall. SEO is one of the most significant areas of digital marketing. So, if you do not master SEO, you are lagging behind competitors in branding for aviation. Your target audience/existing audience should never find difficulty in discovering your brand. This is the only rule of conducting tested SEO practices. It is because overlooking SEO means your customers are gone.
So, here’s what to do instead.
Try to find out what keywords are becoming relevant every day. Keep a watch at what keywords your competitors include to rank their brand name. Check relevant keywords for your brand message. Also, make sure about the trending keywords and how they are being searched. After you have mastered this metric, create branding strategies that are fit for your company.
A Disconnect with Audience
Failing to connect with an audience is the most significant mistake. Conducting inappropriate research on target audiences makes it hard to know how to connect with them. To understand it, you will have to think creatively and strategically simultaneously. For that, your team should create the best marketing design materials to attract a wide net of customers.
What can you do more?
While you connect with customers, an innovative perspective on your upcoming plans should be out of the box. Thinking in this way will help to reveal the gaps, problems, and undiscovered opportunities to make your brand better. Also, you will get deep insights about customers by directly reaching out through social media. You can use forums, email campaigns, loyalty programs, and other ways to connect.
If you overcome this mistake, you will be able to connect with your potential customers. To have your criteria is essential. And then, you would be surprised to know how enthused some customers will be about a glimpse into the potential future of a product or service they will gain from your company.
Becoming too Generic
Coming across too generic ideas of branding for aviation will give a bad impression on your airline company. So, what constitutes this aviation branding mistake? Let’s know here
• Depending on stock imagery
• Forgetting on your core branding elements—for example, using a generic logo
• Having a similar brand name as competitors’
• Offering a similar product/service similar as competitors’
• Usage of non-specific/non-industrial terms in marketing materials
These points mean that the more generic your brand will showcase, the less unique you appear to the audience. A generic brand reflects being unprofessional, slapdash, or uninteresting. It’s clear—who would want to buy products or services from.
What should you do instead?
If you can offer a better or different picture of your airline brand, do it, even if you have to raise your budget. Connect a great designer and take full advantage of their experience.
Your designer can help with much more than the standards of the branding work. Do some market research for brand promotion/positioning strategies to understand deeper. By doing so, you can leverage the complete value expertise and implement it in your branding techniques.
Branding is One-time Action
The action of branding in one time only is an old-school industry policy of aviation. Today is the era of digitalization, where still many existing aviation companies are practicing this approach. If your company falls in this category, then hold on and restrict it now. This is the time when your airline company needs a tangible branding suite, humanization approach. It should also include the defined message, value, logo, and other elements. However, the work doesn’t stop with these elements. The fact is, branding is an endless process.
So, what do you need to do?
You need to work diligently by keeping a very sharp razor focus on every effort associated with the branding process. So that you can continue to carve your company’s position in the market and stand out. Also, this will help your company stand out in customers’ minds. And hence, this will automatically strengthen your brand.
Putting Branding Responsibilities on One Department
Branding efforts are not only reserved for the marketing department. Instead, it should involve efforts along across departmental actions as well.
There could be multi-departmental knowledge that could save you from poor branding. Might your marketing team’s efforts like the design or PR do not necessarily work perfectly. It's also possible that they ideate a similar design repeatedly. And you may be unknowingly making significant aviation branding mistakes. Those mistakes must have damaged the credibility of the strategies and the motive. A lot of companies work for branding only with the marketing team. That is why they lack in many other parts of branding. If you have a similar working process in your company, you need to think again!
So, how to go ahead?
To create an effective aviation branding, involve the sales, customer service, IT, networking, data analyst department on board. By collaborating with them, you can initiate many efforts to create purposeful solutions for audiences. Even the representatives of each department can involve and create target-proof branding strategies for aviation.
Devaluing the importance of social media
Devaluing the power of social media has been one of the most common and costly aviation branding mistakes businesses are making. From being active on it to acting on the audience’s activities has a lot of differences in-between. Many companies listen, but they don’t hear. The problem is they don’t show to their audiences. And thus, results in disconnection among audiences.
So, what can you do instead?
In the current time, the travel market is now more fragmented with the continuous shifting behavior of travelers. In this case, social media’s role is becoming significant. It’s one platform where you can obtain feedback by creating polls, communicating, and engaging with marketing tricks. It's a free and paid platform. You have every reason to take advantage of it to showcase your company and brand message to a wide net of audiences. Doing it regularly—keeping your content relevant and updated- will make your brand image evergreen.
Save your Airline Company with Branding Bloopers
Now you must have gained some insights on how to avoid branding mistakes. So, it's time to bid farewell to branding mistakes. Remember that consumers, context, and quality design should be at the forefront of your mind when you begin with branding planning. It’s crucial to hone on the right branding strategy because it’s an important way to position your aviation company in the market.
The airline business is the biggest team sport in the world. When you are all consumed with fighting among yourselves, your opponents can run over you every day.
– By Gordon Bethune Former CEO of Continental Airlines
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the other airline branding mistakes businesses usually make?
Mistakes happen every day in airline businesses. But some common mistakes can cost a huge to a business. Here are some more airline mistakes:
• Aviation businesses tend to implement competitors’ tactics that become entirely different from their original business structure or current and future plans of action.
• Businesses do not think of investing in an aviation advertising agency.
• Usually forgets the purpose behind the brand creation.
• Create fake brand values
What should airline businesses avoid in brand planning?
While creating a brand, the airline businesses should avoid the following things:
• Underestimating your customers
• Untracking your marketing efforts
• Unwilling to invest
• Broad targeting
• Lack of USP
• Lack of research
What do airline customers want from airline businesses?
Airline customers are broad. They look for a wide array of services and products. So, your customer will always want some basic yet valuable things like committed customer service and satisfaction, easy approachability, content to understand solutions, and easy ways to invest.
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Usually forgets the purpose behind the brand creation.
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Business Aviation
Article | January 7, 2022
When operating aircraft above the Arctic Circle (66.5° N latitude) there are certain hazards to be aware of. We decided to take a look at what aircraft are best suited for Arctic flight.A huge problem with flying in the Arctic is not just icing, but the visual restrictions that are placed on pilots. During the spring and fall, whiteout or flat light can distort what a pilot sees. The horizon can suddenly disappear making objects appear as if they are floating in the air. This can make things like mountain ranges extremely difficult to judge.
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Air Transport
Article | July 26, 2022
A New System That Aims to Create Carbon-Neutral Aviation
Scientists have achieved an amazing breakthrough in the development of carbon-neutral fuel for the aviation industry. An aviation fuel production system that uses water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide has been put into action. Its design was published on July 20th, 2022, in the journal Joule. The dream of achieving carbon-free aviation could become a reality with this development.
“We are the first to demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain from water and CO2 to kerosene in a fully-integrated solar tower system.” - Aldo Steinfeld, Professor, Study Corresponding Author, ETH Zurich
The aviation industry accounts for approximately 5% of the global anthropogenic emissions that contribute to global climate change. The industry heavily relies on kerosene, commonly known as jet fuel, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel derived from crude oil. There are no clean options to power commercial flights on a global scale at the moment.
Production of Synthetic Kerosene
This breakthrough, with the help of solar energy, makes it possible to produce synthetic kerosene from water and carbon dioxide instead of crude oil. The amount of CO2 emitted during kerosene combustion in a jet engine equals what is consumed during its production in the solar plant. It is what makes the fuel carbon neutral, especially if the CO2 in the air is captured and directly used as an ingredient, which could be possible in the near future.
As part of the European Union's SUN-to-LIQUID project, Steinfeld and his colleagues put forward a system that uses solar power to generate drop-in fuels—synthetic alternatives to fossil-derived fuels like kerosene and diesel. Solar-produced kerosene is consistent with the current aviation infrastructure for allocation, fuel storage, and use in jet engines. It can also combine with fossil-derived kerosene, according to Steinfeld.
High Hopes for the Future
Steinfeld and his team began scaling the construction of a solar fuel manufacturing plant at the IMDEA Energy Institute in Spain half a decade ago. The plant has 169 sun-tracking reflective panels that redirect and concentrate solar radiation into a tower-mounted solar reactor. This concentrated solar energy then powers redox reaction cycles in the reactor’s porous ceria structure, which is not absorbed but can be reused. It transforms the water and carbon dioxide into syngas, a customized mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This syngas is then injected into a gas-to-liquid converter and is finally converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels such as kerosene and diesel. Steinfeld and his team are working on amping up the reactor’s efficiency from the current 4% to more than 15%.
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