I’ve observed that many aerospace companies, particularly tier 2 and tier 3 supplychain companies, are more likely to have business development departments than marketing departments. Some have both, but if only one exists in most cases it will be business development.

These business development teams are tasked with building relationships, building awareness of their companies, networking and attending events and ultimately making sales for the business.

Marketing often becomes part of their role in terms of providing website content, attending events and providing input into marketing collateral. However, marketing tends to be more of a secondary ad hoc task with limited strategic focus.

This is theapproach taken by many companies in the aerospace industry and it does have some benefits:

• It’sfocused on building relationships with key clients and prospects which iseffective because most aerospace companies only need a handful of key clientsto be very successful
• It’scommon practice across the industry, everyone in aerospace understands thisapproach
• Yousave money by eliminating marketing expenses
• It’s focused on revenue generating activities, which positively impacts the bottomline

However, the disadvantages of only having business development and not having dedicated marketing resource in aerospace companies, are equally clear.

•  It’s not scalable: it’s over reliant on human effort and personal relationships, the benefit of a robust marketing strategy and systems, is that it can generate business and brand awareness beyond personal relationships. Thie business development only approah ultimately limits revenue potential.
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• It’s based on the past and not the present or future: This approach may have been effective in the past when everyone knew each other, digital communication and marketing was less advanced and supply chains were simpler. However, much is changing.
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• The visibility of the industry has suffered: Most people outside the sector and even many in it, don’t know most aerospace companies exist, which has contributed to the skills shortage, diversity issues and stifled progression in the industry across a number of areas.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage is the missed opportunities that marketing provides.

Only focusing on business development means that aerospace companies fail to capitalise on the benefits of marketing

Marketing provides the following benefits and more

• It increases your reach, exposing you to more potential clients
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• It builds company reputation, visibility and awareness of your business
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• It improves communication at all stages of the buying process
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•  It’s cost-effective, it can significantly reduce your customer acquisition costs andincrease your customer lifetime value
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• It’s easy to track and monitor, if you have the right systems and processes in place
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• Marketing helps you understand your customers better, as it increases communication and customerengagement across a range of touch points
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• It causes customers to come to you, consistently creating valuable content foryour audience acts as a magnet for your business
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• Digital marketing increases your revenue, it allows you to reach more people, which makes you more money

We understand that it’s not always viable to invest heavily in marketing so it’s useful to know where in the business journey aerospace companies should seek to increase their investment in marketing.

At what point in the business roadmap should anaerospace company hire for marketing?

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When starting a business, it makes sense to focus just on getting that first client or few, at the lowest cost possible. Therefore, having the Founder focus on sales and perhaps a business development person makes sense.

However, there is absolute value in marketing the business pre-revenue to attract investment and get clients coming to you as quickly as possible. As opposed to just focusing solely on outbound marketing efforts.

In fact, we started working with a number of our clients pre-revenue and our marketing efforts helped them secure funding and their first clients.

Our philosophy is in line with Peter Drucker’s, the father of business consulting, who said;
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"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the businessenterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation.Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing isthe distinguishing, unique function of the business."

So, in short, we believe aerospace businesses should invest in marketing at all stagesin the business journey. Marketing activities can be tailored to suit any budget, including no budget at all given that many social media and email marketing platforms are free to use.

At the very least, aerospace companies should develop a marketing strategy and start investing in marketing once they secure their first clients. We also advise hiring a marketing expert among your first 5 employees.

Any business that turns over £100k per annum and has more than 10 employees should have a dedicated marketing team, which means practically all aerospace companies should have a dedicated marketing function.

At what stage of the business roadmap do you think aviation and aerospace companiesshould start investing in marketing?

Hear what myLinkedIn connections had to say in a recent post and feel free to add your comments there.

View the LinkedIn poll here

Also feel free to connect with me while you’re there 😊

KatrinaDouglas,
Founder

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