Defense and Space
Article | June 8, 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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Air Transport
Article | July 26, 2022
DataBridge recently released a new market research analysis on AI in aviation, and the findings are promising. The aviation industry has relied on artificial intelligence (AI) for years. The technology has assisted pilots through machine learning algorithms to collect flight data about altitudes, air traffic management, weather, and route distance. It has enabled them to optimize fuel usage and reduce fuel costs. And now, it is going further.
AI has been cascading into other areas of aviation. Here are some trends to note from the “Global Artificial Intelligence in Aviation Market” study.
Benefitting Ground Operations
AI is extensively used in real-time support systems and air traffic control. From automated baggage check-in to facial recognition, it is powering several ground operations. These functions contribute heavily to maximizing resources, reducing labor costs, and enhancing seamlessness across different processes.
Improving Performance and Processes with Machine Learning (ML)
The emergence of AI in aviation is thanks to a surge of capital investments by key aviation players. Cloud computing is being used by many organizations as a way to consolidate processes and deal with complexity better.
Impacting How Planes will be Piloted
AI will considerably impact the future of piloting as we know it. Building on Airbus’ first ever takeoff, landing and taxi using vision-based AI in 2020, prominent aerospace tech firms continue to work on self-piloting planes or passenger autonomous aerial vehicles (AV) that will employ AI-powered intelligent navigation to fly.
Improving Efficiency and Accuracy for Manual Processes
According to aviation experts, ML digital assistants are able to process massive volumes of historical data in order to support ground staff and pilots alike. With AI’s capabilities of enabling elusive insights into patterns and complexities of data, the technology is considered ideal for aviation, where there is no room for errors.
The Path Ahead
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of new technologies in pushing the envelope and innovating solutions. The evolution of technology will only propel the adoption of AI further into the aviation industry. With multiple use cases and brilliant results from the use of AI, the aviation industry is all set for a digital transformation fuelled by data, machine learning and precision
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Aviation Technology
Article | June 2, 2022
The coronavirus outbreak has put airline customer care teams on the front lines. Airlines that have adopted artificial intelligence are alleviating some of the stress that their customer care teams are under.
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Business Aviation
Article | October 13, 2021
Skift research shows that 90% of airline marketers have dropped their marketing budgets due to the pandemic.The pandemic brought massive changes in marketing. Due to this, CMOs navigated through restricted availability of resources and shifted airline companies’ guidelines for months.
CMOs find increasingly difficult to rely on conventional financial and managerial aspects like typical cost setting—the way profitability was being achieved, fuel consumption, accounting decision making, investments, manufacturing and more. Due to these challenges, airline brands are bound to sternly reevaluate their current and future marketing process to maintain a steady flow of income and increase ROI.
So, it’s quite possible that your marketing tactics also may have suffered due to the pandemic. Right? And now you must think, “How much should your budget be for marketing?”
It’s an important question. It’s because most aviation businesses do not have a considerable aviation marketing budget. The answer to your concern lies here, “spend the least amount that achieves your business objectives.”
A lot has transformed since the outbreak of the pandemic. Yet, there are novel opportunities in aviation marketing activities. So, let's take a closer look at some of the opportunities that might help control your aviation marketing budget.
Opportunity No.1: Invest in Paid Advertisements; they are cheap!
Paid advertisements are becoming cheaper. These are in higher demand when it comes to aviation marketing.
It makes sense because the way digital advertisements are making money is going to benefit marketers. First, the paid ads drive the cost per click (CPC), so investing here can increase the ROI. Second, as the pandemic forced companies to focus on all-digital processes, as it prompts the audience to spend more time online. Resultantly, traffic on the web is up, and there are lots of ads. It means ads are cheaper.
Even conversion rates are increasing now. It’s because the ads online are evolving at the same rate as it was before the pandemic. Therefore, you must take advantage of paid ads to start with controlling your aviation marketing costs.
Opportunity No. 2: Determine your Annual Customer Value
The key to having controlled aviation marketing costs is to have an average customer revenue. If you haven’t calculated yet, then you should begin with it. Begin tracking the effectiveness of your sales and marketing efforts. Once you begin with it, you will calculate how much money is spent on every customer or a new customer.
The other important aspect to consider is how wisely you spend the dollars in a limited budget. And that’s where a marketing plan comes into action.
A well-improvised marketing plan may include proper tactics, tools, and platforms. But to implement all these things effectively requires an adequate budget. However, how to use them requires a thorough analysis and experts’ experience. Usually, marketers make a mistake by spending too much on a single marketing tactic. And this results in a considerable loss.
So, to control your budget, be intelligent to concentrate on a selected marketing tool and platform. And then spend dollars on it. Tapping on this approach, you will create a cost-effective marketing plan, which will give better marketing results.
Besides, your customers might equally feel satisfied by getting worthwhile results. Well, in reality, it will be easy for you to determine the annual value of money spent on each customer.
Opportunity No. 3: Review Investment Plans
When looking at the aviation marketing budget, it’s advisable to review investment plans carefully. The investment plan is crucial when you need to control your aviation marketing. Having an in-depth knowledge of it can lead you to save big. Also, it might bring opportunities further for your airline business.
For example, in December 2019, JetBlue announced a marketing structural cost program. It aimed at producing $250-$300 million by 2020 through cost savings. According to the company’s 2020 annual report, the program emphasizes these points:
Technical marketing operations
Planning, automation, and executing efficient activities online .(Like on a website, social media platforms, online campaigns, and more)
• Decreasing distribution costs
• Tax reformation
All these aspects demonstrate opportunities to propel business growth.
We are extremely excited about the potential for increased business demand with the costs and tax cut.
- Glen Hauenstein, President of Delta Airlines.
So, consider if you can reduce, delay and/or eliminate non-essential marketing tasks or not. Then, find opportunities to help you do a transition from costly, inefficient technological aspects to more cost-efficient technology, thus, driving more valuable results.
The bottom line is that you must understand where it makes sense to cut costs and where to make the proper investments because it's about bolstering your airline business. With the help of this, you can create value for customers, partners, and investors in no time.
Opportunity No. 4: Encourage Innovative Digital Engagement
Some of the top airlines like Delta Airlines and its marketing teams use innovative engagement methods through digitalization. Yes! After being hit by the deadly pandemic, Delta lost $60 million in cash each day. Delta CEO Ed Bastian revealed that Delta airlines reduced 80% of its operation.
“Delta will weather the storm by sticking to our shared values of honesty, persistence, and service to our customers and our communities. We encourage digitalization to the core. And that has helped our customers easy to connect us.”
- Delta CEO Ed Bastian
With this approach, Delta further forecasts its revenue to rise by 90% by the end of 2021.
So, you can see how investing in digital methods can help revenue rise without going out of budget or crossing the budget line.
When you introduce automation, AR, VR in your aviation marketing efforts, it will drive value from existing customers and engage potential customers. For example, you can create innovative videos for social media, visual online campaigns, presentations, and more.
Finally, remember to “Have Patience and Carry On”
It is critical to managing finance, especially in global disasters like coronavirus. However, today's marketing budget may seem exhausting when aviation businesses compete each day. But it is helpful at the end of the day!
Controlling your aviation marketing costs will lead you to increase your ROI. And this way, you will get valuable prospects, which is even more critical in the current scenario. Moving ahead with not-so-hard marketing budget control, you will require powerful leadership, top competency with courage and empathy, and the correct data, of course. So, having all these aspects and proactive measures in place, you will be able to outshine again.
So, which one of the opportunities are you going to implement first?
Frequently Asked Questions
How do airline businesses do marketing?
Marketing is the best practice to build trust among airline customers. The marketers offer rewards to customers so that they become loyal to an airline brand. They also run campaign activities, provide rich informational content, produce videos to educate and motivate customers. This is how engagement increases along with loyal numbers of customers.
What are the leading airline expenses?
The leading airline expenses are as follows:
The employment process expenses. These expenses are the most critical operational cost of an airline (33.5%).
Fuel expenses (19.6%).
Sales and marketing expenses. They are approximately 15.7% on the rise.
How do airlines control the marketing budget?
There are several ways the airline controls its marketing budget. A few of them are:
By conducting fuel-saving strategies
Operation procedure simplification
Introducing automation
Technology implementation
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