Plane Conversations

We have done a considerable amount of thinking lately about the role mainstream (or traditional) media and advertising plays in our industry of private aircraft travel.  What are they (the media) saying about us? What are we saying about us?  What is the value of advertising in traditional media?  How do we track the effectiveness and measure return on investment for the advertising dollars we spend?

That last question posed is something that has been bugging me for a long time.  After years of running a business and trying to spend dollars wisely to promote our business, I can tell you that, to date, not one single advertising salesperson has really answered that question for me.

Before I was recently introduced to the world of social media and the tools that it brings with it, I had never seen a media form that we could use to bring customers to us and really know how good we are doing at attracting them by its use.  We have always thought ourselves pretty adept at getting our message out through the traditional press – news print and television news, but we have been at the mercy of the mainstream media’s perceived level of interest in our story of the day.  They controlled when they talked about us, what they said about us and whether they decided to say anything about us at all.  And what about readership, shelf life and viewer ratings?  In the old world order, you had to catch it on the evening news or read the Friday business section to see what the media had to said about general aviation.

Not anymore.  Unleash the power of the blog, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other platforms that seem to be growing out of nowhere daily and we now have the opportunity to speak for ourselves.  We must communicate well because, if we don’t, then who can we blame for messing it up?  Furthermore, if we don’t listen to the feedback from the market, and make the communication a two-way street, we might wake up and find ourselves grounded due to lack of interest.

We are in an exciting and dynamic business that can change the way people spend their most valuable commodity – time. People want what he have to offer, but at a better price!  Technological innovation will drive down costs.  Innovation on how we deliver our service will drive down costs. Innovation on how the market finds us and buys from us will drive down price. Less wasteful spending on advertising results in a lower cost model.

Are we in business aviation up to the challenge of changing our way of doing business by communicating to the market with the new media available? The mainstream media forms never did serve us well, and besides, they are in a fight for their own survival.

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