Aviation Marketing Intelligence

Adam asked me to start entering my thoughts here instead of the emails I send regularly. Since I don’t fly, or work around airplanes often, I had to think of a marketing story that would relate to the challenges of finding, retaining and growing the customer base.

Naturally, futons were the next logical extension to my limited aircraft repertoire. It began with my wife requesting that we replace our lumpy old futon mattress with a new one, preferrably something slick and sexy like the image to the right. (”Look honey.. they come in BLACK now!”) Living in the heart of rural New Hampshire, it is near impossible to find a store that sells futons, never mind one that carries a variety of options.

Lucky for us, we live in the age of on-line shopping. My luck was short however and my problems began as soon as I Googled “futon”. I suddenly found myself faced with pages of potential suppliers and an infinite array of mattress options beyond anything I could ever have conceived. How was I to scour through all this information to find out what I really needed to know? It all came down to the layout of the website.

Too many sites had flashy intros: Mattresses falling from the sky, video clips comparing restless, tossing bodies juxtaposed against peaceful, supine forms. Unfortunately, these sites put all there effort into flash and when it came to actually finding out what there products were and why I should buy them, they had little or nothing to offer.

Other sites offered an infinite variety of choices. The problem was that there was such a clutter of options on the page that I couldn’t focus on every detail and find what I needed. Or they would use a bunch of short hand acronyms that meant nothing to a neophyte like myself and offered up no explanation. Then, after finding what I thought I wanted, there was no clear way of finding the price, or how delivery worked, or even how to place an order. I wanted to utilize their service, but it seemed as though these websites were actively engaged in preventing me from making a purchase…strange given that is the only reason that they exist.

In the end, I found a company whose website was empty of flashing objects and floating catch-phrases. It offered pricing and more detailed information if I clicked on the basic description. Every page had a clear and obvious, though not intrusive, icon for placing an order and, equally important, a contact icon. Each page had only the information that was relevant to the individual product. The ease at which I could navigate this site lead me to making a purchase that I felt informed, and therefore good about.

So my question to you is this: Did you make your website customer friendly? Does your site provide easily accessed and concise information which entices customers to purchase, or do you dazzle and confuse them losing those precious few seconds to hook them before they look elsewhere? Is a visitor to your website expected to sit through a short film of take offs and landings accompanied by roaring engines before they can even begin to see what you have to offer?

The fact is, on-line shopping is competitive and you have seconds to grab on to and hold potential customers who are surfing the web looking for what you have to offer. First impressions are everything, what are you doing to make a good one?

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