Just Puttering Along

According to estimates, there are about 650,000 active licensed pilots in the United States, including about 100,000 who work for airlines. So, by any measure, the market for catalog companies selling supplies to individual, recreational or hobbyist pilots is not very big. But this market, known as “general aviation,” is potentially lucrative, owing to the upscale demographics of the target group.

How well are general aviation catalogs marketing their wares? How good is their overall strategy and positioning?

We shared a number of general aviation equipment catalogs with renowned direct marketing guru Estin Kiger. We wanted to get his viewpoint on what these catalogers were doing right, or not quite right. Kiger is senior vice president of advertising at Bear Creek Corp. His company turns out the Harry and David, Northwest Express, and Jackson & Perkins catalogs.

Kiger brings a wealth of direct marketing expertise, so we found his approach fresh and exciting. If you have a b-to-b or technical catalog, you may find his analysis quite revealing.

Techy, Macho Men

Of all the narrow-niche markets, this may be one of the narrowest. Ninety-seven percent of general aviation (GA) pilots are male. Aviation industry estimates put the average GA pilot’s household income at $181,000, and his household net worth at $1.03 million. As pilots, their interest in airplanes means they are also interested in science, engineering, electronics and “tinkering.”

Selling in such a confined market space can present special challenges. Although most of the catalogs we examined carry the same or similar products, their presentations and marketing focus varied. Some executions were clearly better than others.

Let’s look first at the overall catalogs, including product selection, then at some specific product presentations.

The Players, the Positions, the Presentations

We concentrated on four catalogs, selected somewhat at random from aviation magazines. Even the catalog names give you some hint of their respective positioning.

Aircraft Spruce & Specialty has a huge (588 pages), automotive parts-style catalog aimed at backyard plane builders. It even sells the spruce lumber used in old-style planes. Most products are presented either in very small black-and-white photos or mechanical drawings. The book has 14 tabbed sections with categories like “Metals & Plastics” and “Instruments.”

Kiger sums up the book’s overall marketing position as, “Somewhere in here you’ll find everything you might need to build, repair, maintain or fly a small plane.” He was impressed by this catalog’s size but not its presentation. Implicit in the layout, he says, is that you probably already know what you need when you open this daunting book.

The Aircraft Spruce catalog carries a mission statement inside its front cover (“larger selection... lower prices...”), but Kiger points out that the catalog fails to follow up on the full mission. The broad selection is apparent, but nowhere else in the catalog is the message about low prices mentioned or reinforced.

The 58-page King Catalog shows its roots as an offshoot of an aviation school founded by John and Martha King. The full-color catalog concentrates heavily on its own line of pilot training videos. According to Kiger, the King Catalog works hard at building the buyer’s confidence. He points out the large number of testimonials sprinkled throughout the layout.

The King Catalog, says Kiger, is “steeped in the old-school, hard-core, hard-sell delivery” with its red-and-yellow headlines and splashy overlapping graphics. Its visual presentation, he says, is too busy visually, making it hard to get through the catalog in a logical way. “It’s like too many voices shouting at you at once,” he explains.

King Catalog may also confuse its customers with mixed messages. Kiger says the King Catalog may talk too much about the risks of flying. And, following an editorial paragraph about the inherent risks of aviation, King Catalog seemingly compounds its error by saying, “Speaking of risk...you can order risk-free!”

“Why talk about risk in that context?” Kiger wonders. “David Ogilvy made studies of negatives in advertising, like saying a food product ‘contains no arsenic.’ Mentioning risk like that is always a mistake.”

The Hart Aviation catalog, says Kiger, “is the antithesis of the King Catalog, graphically.” In its 80 pages, Hart lists most of its products by model number, with virtually every item photographed and laid out in columns. Mostly black and white, Hart does not even put color photos on all of its eight color pages.

Kiger did like Hart Aviation’s pictorial table of contents inside the front cover: “It gave a good idea of their range of products.” But the overall catalog, he says, doesn’t give the buyer a good idea of who the company is. “Are they about service, or selection, or price?” he wonders.

“[On pages two and three,] where you are usually ‘shaking hands’ with the customer, Hart touts its 30-day money back guarantee. First of all, that doesn’t seem very long. But worse, they immediately follow it with ‘Hart Aviation’s Return Policy,’ which is many paragraphs of fine print describing what they will take back and under what circumstances. That doesn’t seem like a very friendly introduction.”

Sporty’s Pilot Shop gets higher grades, both in presentation and positioning. Kiger likes the consistency of Sporty’s positioning throughout the catalog, which he was able to sum up succinctly: “It’s pilots talking and selling to other pilots.” Kiger points out the “buying tips” and similar explanatory material sprinkled throughout the book, which he says help reinforce the catalog’s positioning.

Inside the front cover, Sporty’s apparently does a better job than other catalogers with the “handshake.”

“They list all the friendly ways they do business,” Kiger cheers. “Same day shipping, one-year guarantee, and on and on—all the reasons you should shop with them.”

Kiger also likes the artistic look of the Sporty’s catalog, including a number of full-bleed photographs of small planes flying over hilltops.

Will They Buy It?

We then asked Kiger to examine each catalog’s efforts at presenting a single type of product. We chose headsets, since they are a significant purchase for virtually every GA pilot, usually several times during his flying career.

All four of the catalogs we examined carry similar headset brands; many lines are almost identical. Just as with strategy and positioning, Kiger found a wide range of abilities in pushing the product out the door.

Kiger, not a pilot himself, admits he found the headset pages of all four catalogs confusing. Part of the problem, he thinks, is that each catalog carries too many similar items. Aircraft Spruce & Specialty, for example, has nine full pages of headsets in its catalog. Kiger wonders if more than 100 varieties of headsets are too many for any one catalog. He speculates that some catalogs might sell more headsets by having fewer items and highlighting some of them for certain market segments.

“None of them is very helpful at helping a person make a decision. Suppose, for example, I was looking for a headset with three features: comfort, ANR [automatic noise reduction], and a price around $300. In all of these [catalogs], I wouldn’t have a clue!”

He suggests the catalogs add some decision-making aids for customers. “Maybe they should have a chart, or a sidebar called ‘How to Pick a Headset Right For Your Needs.’” Although most of the catalogs did have feature comparison charts (up to four pages long), Kiger found them “not very kinetic.” All were organized by brand name rather than by price or features.

In Kiger’s opinion, Sporty’s does a slightly better job of positioning some of its headsets for particular uses. He points to one subheading that says, “The Ideal Entry-Level General Aviation Headset.” But for a top-of-the-line headset costing $1,000, he thinks the company should have acknowledged the price tag without reluctance or apology. “They should have come right out and said, ‘You can’t buy a better headset.’” Sporty’s reinforces its overall positioning (of expert pilots on staff) with sidebars in the headset section, such as “Why Use A Headset?” and “A Word About Microphones.”

Another catalog, the King Catalog, comes closer to helping the buyer, in Kiger’s view, but still not enough. He likes headlines such as “affordable quality & comfort,” but then points out virtually identical wording describing several different models.

When selling to the more experienced buyer, Kiger reminds catalogers not to skimp on sales copy or lists of features. He speculates half-jokingly that techno-savvy pilots are probably perusing the headset specifications long into the night while their wives wonder if they’re ever coming to bed.

As a marketer, it’s the browsing customer that Kiger worries about. Give your customer all the information he needs, warns Kiger, plus some vehicles for making a decision. Anything less is a problem.

“Procrastination is an enemy of all direct marketers,” he says. “Your customer [with a catalog] is looking at your product. If they need more information, or if they can’t decide, they’ll put off the purchase. Or worse, they may decide to go to the store in town and make a decision there.”

Some Tips From A Pro

As it turns out, Estin Kiger’s advice for these aviation industry marketers probably wouldn’t be very different for a mass market cataloger. Whether your book is consumer or business oriented, Kiger’s observations and advice would probably apply.

First, create a strong position for your company and use it consistently. Make sure every page of your catalog reflects your positioning.

Second, your catalog art, copy and layout should all enhance the selling process, not detract from it. Avoid cluttering the page with too many items, too small print, or too many colors.

Be ruthless about product selection! Don’t confuse your customer with too many choices.

Use the inside front cover (pages two and three) to allow your customer to really get to know your company. Put yourself in the most favorable light possible.

And finally, make sure you’re closing every sale. If the customer needs “buying hints,” provide them. Convince the customer to make the purchase right now! A rocrastinating customer is a lost opportunity.

Prospecting for Pilots: Aviation Catalogs Use Space Ads to Find Customers

Not surprisingly, the space advertising placed by each catalog company fairly closely mirrors the catalog itself. Ads in AOPA Pilot, the monthly magazine of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, reflected each company’s catalog presentation and positioning.

The entire focus of an overly busy King double page ad is on their video training products, with a line near the bottom that adds, “Plus Cool Pilot Stuff!” Sporty’s well laid out quarter-page ad states, “A Pilot Shop by Pilots for Pilots.” The ad talks about the strengths of Sporty’s, the company and the catalog, but does not specifically sell any products.

Hart Aviation’s ad in the same magazine is a vertical one-third page black-and-white ad crammed with too-small product photos and a “Free Catalog” headline.

All three ads feature both a Web address and a toll-free phone number prominently. —EF