Operator | Airport | FBO | MRO | OEM | Charter | Interiors | Avionics | Training | Inflight

Livestream highlights aviation’s digital marketing usage

Ever wonder if you’re getting the most out of digital marketing, or how your usage compares to others in the aviation industry? We’ve been asking ourselves similar questions, so as we reported in the June 7 issue of BlueSky, we conducted an aviation-specific survey.

We presented the results during our first livestream event on July 12. Digital Director Jordan Walker and Digital Strategist Shae Blevins shared results and also offered insights from their analysis. They especially focused on creative, content marketing and measurement. Here are some highlights.

Creative Use

In general, static banner ads make up most of creative and available online placements. However, the survey revealed the industry is branching out to more creative types, including rich-media banners and video. Video adoption probably won’t surprise you. Just think about the impact show reels make at industry tradeshows, such as NBAA’s Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition. Companies use these reels to introduce new products, feature full product lineups and demonstrate services. These attention-grabbing, often-supersized visuals also draw people into their booths.

Aviation marketers want to add more video to their marketing mix in the future. This falls in line with the content people are consuming online.

Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital advertising lets aviation marketers get in front of their target audiences no matter where they are online. Targeting tactics, such as demographic, geographic and device, allow companies to match marketing messages to their audiences, maximizing budgets and delivering better results. The survey revealed that the industry understands the benefits of digital targeting tactics, but might not be dedicating enough spend to each audience.

“Each target persona has a very different online behavior and different challenges,” Blevins said. “For example, if you’re an aircraft broker, you know that the chief pilot and the aircraft owner spend their day very differently. To target both effectively, you need two campaigns and two budgets.”

The survey also revealed the industry uses social media for brand building, which is good. However, it is missing out on an opportunity to generate leads, convert prospects and recruit - likely due to the misconception that social media cannot reach decision-makers in the C-suite. Again, spend is key. Social media is a pay-to-play space for businesses.

Content Marketing

The survey revealed that nearly 60 percent of aviation marketers have a content-marketing strategy in place, but that leaves 40 percent without a plan. Hurdles marketers face when talking about content marketing include how it can’t be connected to lead generation and how time-consuming it is.

“When we look at the latest marketing statistics from B2B buyers, we see that – on average – they are performing about 20 hours of research for luxury items or business tools,” Walker said. “Furthermore, they’re reading about three to five pieces of content.”

As for how time-consuming content marketing is, Walker said: “Quite frankly, yes, it is. If you want to create a really good article that has infographics and great visuals - and maybe even a video - you have to have a strategy. But it’s worth it.”

Search Engine Optimization

A 40,000-foot overview of SEO breaks it into three parts: keyword research, content availability and distribution. Keyword research drives the content you create. Your content must also be available, both to the user (think mobility and speed) and to search engines. The most important insight from the livestream presentation was the need for distribution. Content marketing fuels SEO, which is imperative to content marketing.

According to the results, aviation marketers believe they’re activating the power of search and that SEO impacts lead generation. However, they also reported that they’re unsure what SEO is doing for them and how many leads are driven by search, highlighting a disconnect between marketing strategy and implementation.

Analytics and Measurement

Nearly every survey respondent said they wanted to improve analytics and measurement going into 2019. Walker recommended starting with developing key performance indicators (KPIs), revealed in the survey to be a missing link from marketing strategy. Follow the same process you would when building a campaign: awareness, consideration and purchase. For example, awareness KPIs could correlate with website traffic, time spent on site, how many and which pages were visited. Consideration KPIs are more active, such as whitepaper downloads and email subscriptions.

“The key takeaway here is that if you set up your campaign and your landing page for measurement success in the very beginning, you’ll gain insights to help you optimize campaigns correctly,” Walker said.

“These insights will better help you create content, target your advertising, optimize your website’s user experience and improve ongoing results,” Blevins said.

Watch Greteman Group’s aviation digital marketing livestream discussion here

As you prepare your digital marketing strategies and campaigns, keep these steps in mind.