This is as close to a “marketing emergency” as it gets.

Frantically calling your “economy” web hosting services might get you some sympathy.

“Your site was hacked?  Let me check. Oh yeah. Ha ha! Definitely hacked! Bummer, dude!  Once you get that fixed you should change your passwords on everything.”

But most hosting services offer no real help, beyond a suggestion that you be more careful with your security practices in the future.

So, you’re left to piece together what happened, what’s still there, what’s been destroyed, what can be TRUSTED, and what to do next. Meanwhile, your marketing efforts are, literally, sabotaged until you can get your website back into its usual presentable, engaging and powerful self.

One of our clients’ sites was hacked over the holidays.  We’ll probably never find out who did it or why, but our IT folks started working on the problem immediately, and got the site restored with no data loss, together with enhaced security measures to deal with this type of threat.

Another website of a  client has a form which receives contact information in exchange for a white paper.  The form was apparently being filled out by a robot that was populating the form with random characters, so our client’s inbox was flooded with poor quality leads.    Within hours, we added a “captcha” code widget that prevents spam while allowing human beings to easily complete and submit the form.

These types of problems are NOT what we like to think about when we’re putting marketing programs together, but if you rely on the least expensive web host and technical staff you can find, you’re on your own when problems occur.

ABCI has very experienced technical people on staff, we ensure they stay up to speed on the latest security practices, and we use a variety of software that we constantly keep updated.

This month, we added “Updraft,” a WordPress plugin to all of our clients’ sites.  This plugin makes daily, offsite backups to our cloud-based backup space hosted by Amazon.  This is in addition to the regular backups made to the hosting server. We can’t be too careful.

We also make it a practice to have a human being check each site and make updates as needed on a regular basis.

Of course, you can always build a site for less – there are services where you can “build your own site” and host it for $9.99 per month or less.

No site is immune from hackers and spammers.  While working for an unnamed bank, I discovered that the bank actually employed a few “reformed” hackers on probation for computer crime convictions.   Google and Facebook have extensive staff that do nothing BUT prevent, investigate and respond to hacking and spamming attempts.  Your best bet as a business owner is to find the right balance between security and cost.

Some things to ask your webmaster or site host:

• Who is responsible for updating security software?
• What precautions are taken against hacking?
• Are backups made automatically? How often?
• Will you restore the site after a hacking incident?
• Will you enhance the security to prevent this type of attack in the future?
• What action do you take if I’m getting a lot of spam on forms?

When you get that sinking feeling, do you want to have a trusted partner you can rely on, or spend hours trying to get in touch with a teenager in the Philippines, or Romania?

Premium web hosting, including security measures, hacking and spamming response is included with all of ABCI’s marketing packages.  (Light Aircraft, Turbo Prop, and Business Jet level.)  It’s our philosophy that your marketing system is only as good as the security of your website.

He’s done a lot for me and he asked members of his group to help promote a video series and a new product he was promoting. It looked like a valuable program for our readers, so of course I jumped in.

That said, there comes a parting of opinion with even the best of teachers.

I sent an email about the program last week, using some of the suggested wording.    A long-time subscriber subsequently sent me a dreaded one liner -

“It’s not free, its $199!”

Hmmm.

Since I know that for every person that takes the time to write to me, there are probably at least five that think the same thing but merely grumble in the privacy of their own mind. This was the wrong way to sell to this particular group of people.

Here’s how I responded.

Thanks for the feedback -

The video series  “7 Gold Keys of GameChanger Marketing”  is free and does have some great information in it.

Typical of complimentary marketing material (most folks don’t give stuff away without some kind of motive!) Dan Kennedy is promoting another of his products in the series.

I have decided not to run the remainder of the campaign he offered to his affiliates because of a difference of style.

This example is a pretty good illustration of two things about our specialty – Long Cycle Marketing.

1. If you’ve spent the time to create a relationship with someone, they are more likely to communicate their objections and give you a chance to respond, rather than just walk away.  If one out of twenty emails was “pushy” or “deceptive” or “objectionable,” it’s much better than if it was your one and only contact with this person.
2. The type of marketing used for Long Cycle Marketing emphasizes credibility over closure. If a message could be seen as deceptive, even if it’s factual, it could harm the process more than it helps.

Granted, advertising is all about getting attention and showing the product or service in a attractive way.  But there’s more to marketing than advertising.

Thus,  I’ve come to a difference of opinion with a valued mentor.  He thinks some methods to “close” a sale are legitimate, and they might be appropriate with his clientele.   He would never be outright dishonest, but I feel that if a client feels like he’s been “tricked” in any way it does more harm than good, especially since I hope to be doing business with people for many years. I’d rather lose a sale today than make one to someone who regrets making the purchase.

Granted, aviation is different. Unlike sales to consumers, where the products are often impulse-sales or a choice between two nearly identical products (like Coke vs. Pepsi) we sell large-ticket items and long-term contracts.   Trust is a big factor.  The people who are my best clients and strongest advocates knew about us for months  before finally contracting with us.  (The average is three months, the record is fifteen months!)  They sometimes say they wish they had started sooner, but there’s no way I could have convinced them  at the time.

Time and consistency is one of the most powerful credibility-builders.

Your business and your reputation is something that you’ve worked hard for.  It’s absolutely correct to consider advice carefully, and acquire partners slowly.

And it’s also very correct for your marketing system to take that into account.  Here are some ways to make long cycle marketing work for you:

• Keep a conservative financial position that allows you to accept or walk away from deals as you see fit.  Strangely enough, customers can sense desperation and it is really a sales-repellent!
• Create a long-term marketing system that starts with a “first date” mentality.   After an initial contact, there is a “getting to know you” period during which you provide more information about your product or service, and get to know more about your potential customers’ needs.
• Keep your marketing funnel full of potential customers. People you make a first contact with today will be your customers weeks or months from now.  If you’d been practicing long-cycle marketing for weeks or months, you have customers calling you “out of the blue” today based on your communications with them over time.
• Use multiple  low-cost, low-key marketing channels, rather than a short-term, expensive “media blitz.”
• Engage with customers and potential customers in person, by phone and on the social media. Answer questions, ask questions, conduct surveys, and get to know your clients better.

Above all,   – don’t do anything that compromises your credibility. Be VERY clear about what’s being offered at what price.   And ensure that every customer receives full value for what they’ve invested.

Text version:

Email marketing can be an important component of a marketing campaign. Sending emails to your clients and prospective clients is a great way to stay in touch frequently and at a low cost. Two caveats:

1. Email messages often has a low perceived value and low credibility, so don’t rely on it exclusively as your only advertising.
2. Email to purchased lists has a very low open rate and return rate to go along with that low cost. The best use of email is to people who have “opted in” or requested to receive regular messages from you. Make sure the information you deliver is high-quality, valuable information and education on a relevant topic, not just “buy my stuff” sales messages.

People ask us often about email software.

There are many good packages on the market, the important thing is that you use one of them.  Today we’ll be talking about a few of the features you’ll want to use most, including:

• Web forms
• Tracking
• Ability to schedule emails
• Autoresponders (automated series of emails)
• Templates
• Photo Storage
• Ability to personalize emails
• “SPAM Trigger” detectors
• Contact Management

Don’t Use Outlook for Broadcast Emails!

Seriously, there are small businesses who try to use Outlook or other personal email programs to send broadcast emails to a list.  This has several problems:

1)      They lack functionality for tracking how many people are opening your emails or tracking statistics across campaigns. This is vital information to see how a particular email is received by your prospective customers.

2)      They seldom include an “unsubscribe” link or a physical address, both requirements of the CAN-SPAM regulations.   This can get you into legal trouble or at least get you in trouble with your internet provider for violation of terms of service.

3)      They are not scaled to manage a list of the size required to run a marketing campaign.

Web Forms

We recommend that you include a form on your website to capture information from visitors.  In most cases, you’ll need to offer something of value in exchange for “registering” or providing contact information.  This is an excellent way to grow your list of prospective customers.

Offer a downloadable product such as a high-value, well-written ebook, white paper or special report on a topic that your prospective customers may be having is one of the best ways to do this. You can set up your email software to display a “thank you” page after people have provided their contact information, and you can provide a link to your downloadable ebook or report from the Thank You page.

This saves time and money.

An alternative idea, and one that differentiates you from competitors that offer a downloadable product (or nothing!) is to offer to send a physical product (such as a book, brochure or sample) to people who sign up on your website.  If you’re going to send them something in the mail, you are more likely to get a good postal address, which will help in future marketing efforts as well.

Tracking

You’ll want to know how many emails were actually delivered,  and how many “bounced.”  You will want to know how many people opened a particular email.  You may even want to know exactly who opened a particular email.

Templates

Some email packages come with rather elaborate templates so that you can format your email message like a newsletter with several columns. We don’t usually recommend these, since many of your readers will be using devices like tablets or phones that don’t have a huge screen size.

Simple is usually best.

However, it is excellent to be able to include a header image, logos, fonts, and colors to be consistent with your company’s branding.   Again, the simpler the better, since we don’t know what type of device people will use to read your message. We recommend a screen size of not wider than 800 pixels.

 Photo Storage

Some packages include a certain amount of space on the email server so that you can store images that you use in emails. We recommend using not more than one or two images per email, not counting things like small social media icons.

Storing them on the email server ensures that they will be delivered to your reader, and are less likely to show up as broken images or little blank squares with a red x in them.

 Ability to Schedule Future Emails

It is best to deliver emails to your list on a regular schedule.  This communicates  that you are consistent, methodical company that is interested in a long-term relationship with a prospective customer and that you’re interested in educating them about a subject, not just selling them a product.

Having a newsletter that is delivered on a particular day of the week or the month is great for your readers, but can be inconvenient for you to write and send on a particular schedule.  With most email packages, you can compose an email today and set it up to have it delivered on Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m.   Better yet, you can compose four emails and have them delivered every Wednesday next month at 9:00 a.m.

This is a huge time-saver and consistency-builder in your marketing system.

AutoResponders

Autoresponders are emails that you write once and set up to run on a predetermined schedule.

If someone requests information on one of your products, as an example, you can deliver a series of emails on that topic via “autoresponder.”

These can be designed as a series of “tip of the week” emails, or as a “short course on inventory management” where you deliver information in manageable doses to educate and inform potential customers about an issue and about your product.

Setting up a set of three, five, seven or ten emails, often triggered by a visitor filling out a form on your website, is an autoresponder.

Not sure what to write?   ABCI can write an autoresponder series for you! Call or write us for details.

Personalize Emails

Getting an email to “Dear Friend” instantly marks a message as SPAM.   We expect to be called by name, even in automated communications these days.

Inserting customized information such  a person’s first name, last name, salutation, or even other details (such as the make of aircraft they own or the date of their next service) can make a broadcast email feel a lot more personal.

Analyzes email drafts for “SPAM triggers”

If an email contains the word “home mortgage” or “Viagra,” it is very likely that many subscribers won’t receive it.  Their email provider will intercept it and route it to their Junk Folder before they ever see it.  Some of these “SPAM triggers” are common sense, others may not be.   Good email software often includes a feature that evaluates the draft of an email message and makes suggestions to make your message more likely to be delivered.

Contact Management

A contact management system keeps track of each interaction (letter, phone call, email, or personal interaction) with a contact or prospective customer.

n addition to tracking contact information, these systems allow you to take extensive notes about a contact’s concerns, questions, desires, and so on. It also allows you to schedule a follow up on a particular date, and assign prospective customers to particular groups – like contacts that plan to purchase in the next week, month or year.  Based on those groups, you may choose to apply a different time line of interactions as appropriate.

Here’s a sample timeline you might use for a specific set of contacts:

A contact management system is vital to a successful marketing system. The question is simply whether to use a system that is integrated with an email broadcasting system, or to use a contact management system that is separate (such as ACT or HighRise.)

ABCI prefers an  integrated system because it saves me work. It costs more, but it costs  the same or less than buying both a contact management system and an email broadcasting system.

Constant Contact (easier & cheaper), InfusionSoft (industrial-strength!)

There are other programs on the market, of course, such as SalesForce, Emma, AWeber and so on.   We haven’t used them enough recently to evaluate or recommend them.

Putting it All Together

Now that you’re “armed and dangerous” with a great email software program, join us in the Aviation Marketing Master Class  – we will show you how to compose a newsletter to keep your company top of mind with a prospective client until they are ready to buy, how to build an autoresponder that educates your customers about your products and services in helpful manner,  and how and when to close the sale with a powerful sales message.

Our topic for October:

Keeping Prospects Interested – Advanced Pre-Sale and Closing Activities

• Newsletters – formats, options, and how to get it done
• “Drip Campaigns” – via email or direct mail
• When to upsell, downsell or change the offering

The last thing anyone needs is a super-polite flight instructor.

“That was . . . not too bad. . .”

My flight instructor was euphemizing, again.

We were both painfully aware that this short-field landing stunk. I was upholding my record of  embarrassingly inconsistent short field landings – I tended to either overshoot the mark or bounce a little.  And I was scheduled to take the practical exam for my private pilot’s license that very weekend.

The cockpit is no place for nice people. My flight instructor was a great guy. Perhaps it was because he was younger than me and came from the  super-wholesome, respect-your-elders-or-else culture of Salt Lake City. Perhaps he felt uncomfortable being blunt with a woman. He chatted pleasantly while we were waiting in line for takeoff or spending the half hour flying out of KSLC’s Bravo airspace to get to our practice runway.  He was an entertaining passenger. I’d be happy to introduce him to my single friends. But I was also shelling out fifty five bucks an hour for his time, plus gas for the 172 at four-something per gallon and I was making no progress. And I sure as heck wasn’t going to pass this practical exam unless I found somebody who could be a little more direct. I needed critical information and I needed it fast.

I failed the practical on the first try.

After some asking around I drove to another flight school in Ogden and spent an hour and a half with a flight instructor who was older. He had been, of all things, a construction foreman in an earlier life.

“Keep your hand on the throttle. Get the last notch of flaps in sooner. A little more right rudder. Control the $(%$( thing- don’t just let it do what it wants!”

After a strangely refreshing afternoon of getting yelled at, I was landing on the start of the second stripe of the runway every time. And the landings were “sticking” without the slightest bounce.  This was fantastic! I passed the practical,  the examiner was impressed, and I was done with spending hundreds of dollars a week trying to solve the mystery of the short field landing practically singlehandedly.

Sometimes being kind to someone is doing them a disservice.  Especially if that person is depending on the unvarnished truth.

Whenever we do a set of recommendations or a focused consultation on a campaign, sometimes we need to tell a client: “We need to go back to the drawing board. This product or this offer just isn’t good enough to succeed.”

Not my favorite moments, and not the ones that make us popular with clients.

We know that real money (and our reputation!) is riding on every campaign. Our clients are depending on making  sales to pay the bills to pay and keep their people employed.  If we’ve accepted a client and agreed to assist with their marketing, we’re on the team and we’re committed to deliver.  That sometimes means what my husband calls “straight talk” that the client may not want to hear.

The strange thing is – one client who we “fired” because his product simply wasn’t marketable has turned out to be one of our biggest supporters – he’s referred several clients to us, although we’ve never worked with him directly.

How could this happen?

He told us other marketing firms he’s worked with are happy to smile at him and take his money to create a brochure or a website for a product that ultimately failed and had to be reworked.

When we do a consultation for a prospective client, we make them fill out an extensive  ten page questionnaire.  And then we do an analysis and spend an hour on the phone with them before either of us makes a decision.We intend to be just as frank, blunt and clear-thinking as that flight instructor who finally straightened out my short-field landings. (I still hear his voice in my head whenever I land an airplane!)

And just like those short-field landings, a little “straight talk” at the right time might be all that’s needed to change a failing product or offer into a successful one.

Most of the people we send the blank questionnaire to never complete it.  We know we’re being difficult, and we know we’re turning away a lot of business. Some of the people who do complete it realize they have other issues to resolve besides marketing, and some simply aren’t a good fit for ABCI’s business model.  In any case,  we don’t start a marketing campaign that we don’t believe would be successful.

We love it when a plan comes together and a great campaign succeeds. Even if it’s not all pleasantness along the way.

September 13, 2011 – AeroStar Training Services LLC today announced new services for students with aspirations to be an airline captain or first officer.

“The career path for aviation students has changed,” indicated Deidra Toye, the Admissions Director at Aerostar.  “Aspiring airline captains used to work for years as flight instructors or charter services to build up time. Airlines worldwide are looking for qualified pilots with type ratings. With this new approach, you might as well get paid while you build time in type.”

“We know our students are better positioned than anybody to weather the recession and to have great careers for many years to come, doing something that many of them have been passionate about since they were small children.”  Said Scott Patton, AeroStar Director of Sales.

To assist students with their career decisions, AeroStar is offering a free ebook – Five Tough Questions You Should Ask Before Investing in Flight Training. The book is available for download from their website, www.AeroStarTypeRatings.com/FreeBook.  Their newly renovated website includes a blog and social media presences. Visitors are welcome to ask questions about flight training, careers and related topics.

AeroStar Training Services is an FAA approved Part 142 Training Center specializing in pilot and flight attendant training while using the latest advances in aviation training technology.
Interviews and high-resolution photos are available on request.

The IDentiFLY product is a boon to small airlines that need to keep lines moving, keep customers happy, as well as comply with a bewildering array of regulations.

There is a always a temptation to focus on the product and its features, rather than the customer and the benefits that are most meaningful to them.

We’ve worked with a lot of programmers and engineers, who know their products very well and are experts on the features.  It’s particularly hard when you are very close to a product to forget everything you know, take a step back and look at it as a customer does. 

Which is why getting a marketing consultant or copywriter involved can be very effective.

The “Before” sell sheet includes great product information and specifications. Like ninety percent of the advertising on the planet, it focuses on the product and its features.

For the “After” version, we stepped back and looked at the product as if we were the customer. What would be our motivation to buy this product, as opposed to the others on the market? What are we the most concerned about as a representative of a small airline? We focused on the customer’s priorities and needs.

Both sheets have pretty much the same information, but the “after” version focuses on benefits (as perceived by the customer) rather than features (as perceived by a product expert.)

When you’re selling something, the customer is always the focus. Eclipsing even the product.

It’s all about the customer!

Before – Click to enlarge

After – Click to enlarge