Know-How Exchange : Branding

Start off with asking yourself what makes your airline so special? Why you? You need to set yourself apart beacuase by finding a unique quality... You have to find your niche.

In other words, what does your airline do best? Hospitality? Flying to a specific region? Are you partnered with a popuar or prestigious vacation or business corporation? . Creating a solid brand is one of the best ways to compete in any market.

Please let me assure you, I KNOW it can be done, but I think you need a detailed plan from a professional marketer. I'm afraid you will not get the proper do-it-yourself "crash-course" here in the forum.

Regardless of what you decide to do, I recommend you read this article by Michael Fischler, founder and principal consultant of Markitek (markitek.com):

https://www.marketingprofs.com/2/fischler1.asp

...and check out https://brandchannel.com for alot of helpful advice as well.

Another good tool to find information on marketing, branding and advertising:

https://searchengineformarketers.com

Good Luck! Remember...set yourself apart from the rest by something other than pricing. Find your Niche, Focus on it, target the proper demographic, and give it eveything you got! Word-of-mouth and clientele referrals will help you build your reputation. There is not a quick fix for this situation! Persistance and quality performance will eventually alter the perception of your potential clientele.

Loyalty will come as a you continue support your brand through your business practice. You may offer some kind of promotional give-away or discount to get kick-started again, but this will need to be done only after defiving a solid plan on keeping people around after the promo is over!

If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to send me an email.

Good Luck!

- Jett Enterprises

Originally devised to generate better data on the most popular routes, the airlines broke what was a "one price fits all standard" and introduced a "some people are more special than others" program that has changed the American, and global, marketplace forever.

Now, the most successful companies measure this through retention rates and profit per customer numbers that are higher than their industry average.

These most successful companies have learned that the big differentiator is that "satisfied" does not mean "loyal".

What to measure: Any key data that allows you to slice and dice it fine enough to distinguish between customers who would recommend a particular business to friends and those who would not. This information means lots of additional dollars in revenue for companies that do this.

It has been discussed here many times how vitally important it is to have your loyal customers bring in new customers (referrals or "Forward to a Friend") because this happens at no charge to your company and the easiest sale is almost always from a referral.

So, I think one of your core strategy goals could be to increase revenue by $X dollars by looking at your data and identifying your best, loyal (but not just satisfied) customers and implementing a program that allows them easily refer you to their friends in ways that allows you to track and measure this increase in revenue.

What data? What to track? - Those are internal questions for you and your team. Even if somebody told you what they thought it was it still needs to be specific to your company and what differentiates you from your competitors, i.e. why do people fly on your airline in the first place?

Therein lies the beginning of a strategy session.

Brief, but I hope that gets some ideas going for you.

The first question I would ask is why are you measuring brand loyalty? How is this measure relevant to your corporate objectives?

Cut price providers are basically premising their business model on the fact that other businessess 'loyal' customers will change to them for a better price. Questions about differentiation lead you down the 'stuck in the middle ' route described by Porter. If you want to compete on price concentrate on this aspect - if attraction is based on being the low cost provider, then retention must be based on a similar promise. Match airfares of competitors for frequent flyers - make the never knowingly undersold promise.

The paradox of loyal customers is that we want them because they are supposedly cheaper to service e.g. take less marketing cost in order to purchase, but then supplement our systems making them more expensive to service. If your loyal customers are cheaper to service (less administrative effort) pass the savings on to them, remembering you attracted them through a price appeal. If your reason for wnating them to remain loyal is that you wish to change the value equation in your favour ( by charging them the same price despite their marginal cost advantage), you need to think how you can make your offering more valuable to them, otherwise why wouldn't they change contingent on the price offered to them by your competitor?

So are you looking for loyal customers or profitable customers (and are they the same thing!)... now there's a question And the answer to that will determine what / how you measure it.

A few final points, measurement isn't free so calculate the 'value' having this information will give your firm; if you measure it make sure you manage it, there is no point getting your organisation to collect data that just sits around on some exec's desk and powerpoint file, what is the consequence of a particular result?