Houston … We have a Problem; The Line Between Good Aviation Marketing and Bad
By Robert Mark on January 17th, 2007One of the major reasons small, service and product businesses join trade associations like the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) or the National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA) is to finagle their way in front of potential customers.
For the most part, industry veterans understand that associate members will try to pitch them on goods and services they probably need anyway, so it’s a very synergistic relationship … they pitch and the member company chooses, which is, of course, why companies market … to try and stand out from the crowd.
No one seriously thinks too much about how any of this works or doesn’t until a company crosses that invisible line between creating awareness and becoming a pain in the backside.
One well-known aviation company has not only crossed that line, in my opinion, but regularly taunts customers in the worst way possible … by ignoring them, a singularly bad marketing strategy.
Although some companies can be irritatingly slow remove people from their marketing database, the best ones offer options at the bottom of an e-mail that says – “If you’d like to removed from this list click here.” That’s because Marketing 101 taught them pushing products or services on people who don’t want them will eventually backfire.
Our company – CommAvia – began receiving unsolicited e-mail marketing from Western Aviation well over a year and a half ago. Since we are not in the market for a used airplane, I clicked on the unsubscribe button, filled out some information and went about my day. A month or two later, my Inbox received a few more and I repeated the unsubscribe process thinking we’d fallen through the cracks. This didn’t slow them down at all. They also garbbed our fax number from somewhere and tried that route for awhile.
Since we’re marketing consultants too, I have zero patience with people who don’t listen when the customer says go away. I called Western Aviation in Houston and spoke to the marketing director who apologized profusely for the mistakes and promised to take care of the problem.
You guessed it, he didn’t and the Spam continued to flow.
Finally, I simply blocked the e-mail on our servers and Western Aviation’s spam now goes exactly where it should, directly into the Recycle Bin.
I assumed this problem was a fluke, until today when I noticed a number of people on another listserv complaining that they were constantly spammed by an unresponsive Western Aviation too.
What this tells me is that if I ever DID need an airplane, Western Aviation would be the last place I’d call because they’ve again proven a couple of Marketing 101 concepts. First, you only alienate customers when you don’t to listen to them and second, really irritated customer will go out of their way to tell their friends.
Related Posts:
Aviation Minute Via iTunes
November 6th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Holy crap is Western Aviation David Fisher a dumbass!
Same with me, he spammed me to death, then traced an aircraft I had for sale and then sent me an URGENT email that HE tried to steal the listing from my broker by critiquing MY great broker as idiots and Fisher as the savior of aviation aircraft selling.
I got made and called David names and the jerk STALKED me for days even when I told him to stop emailing me SEVEN times; I had to call the sheriff to get him to stop.
What a load of crap he wears in 51 inch pants.
Western Aviation is a one man loser!
February 16th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
I have had a good experience with Western Aviation. They sold my jet in record time and found me a really good deal on a Pilatus PC12.
I found that they did what they said they were going to do and did it when they said they were going to do it.
We were pleased with their professionalism and their knowledge of the industry.
I have nothing but good to say about Western Aviation and David Fisher in particular.
September 8th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Why does David Fisher at Western Aviation keep sending “others brokers clients” outright bogus spam emails with flat out lies about how many aircraft he has sold to try to steal their listings?
He seems to spend more time bad mouthing other brokers to their own clients to steal away listings instead of focusing on his own abilities or relationships. It’s unethical and this guy is a loser! I would never ever deal with him.