Drones have really taken off in recent years and have created a wealth of innovations and opportunities. Everyday there are new drone pilots becoming certified and new drone businesses being created. In the midst of this increasingly competitive market, your biggest goal is to get your name and service in front of as many prospects as possible.
I know it can be frustrating researching this topic, only to find a list of generic tips that leave you without a concrete strategy. I’ve got your back on actually actionable methods to market your drone business.
5 years ago I started my drone business, I learned that marketing a drone service has its unique challenges. Back then, the value of drones were not as apparent as they are today. I invested a lot of my time in educating the market to the hidden potentials of the technology.
Today, clients have a better grasp of the true uses and value in drones and drone services. But the challenge now is, how to reach more clients in such a busy age of short attention spans.
How To Market a Drone Business
Drone services are a recent phenomenon that have risen due to the rapid evolution in aerial unmanned technology. The technology basis of these services often lead people to think that their marketing strategy needs to be new and technology based as well.
Interestingly enough, I think that a return to traditional outreach methods can actually separate you from the herd and make you stand out. There’s no need to be fancy, take a different approach and get creative.
Here is a list of my personal methods that you can actually take action on right away!
Charities & Fundraisers
Helping out with local causes and charities enables you to build your name in the community and associates your brand with positive change and progress.
This is one of the most overlooked marketing tools especially in a technology-based industry such as drones.
Depending on your service type and your available drone fleet, lending your services such as filming and photography puts you in a great position to engage with potential leads.
Often these events are filmed and photographed by amateurs, which can cause safety and liability concerns.
Even if your service is not primarily based on film or photography, as a certified drone business you will have the credentials to conduct this activity legally and safely. You can provide value and reassurance to the organisers.
This is a great means to increase word-of-mouth marketing, and allows an opportunity to network with community members.
Referral Programs
Leveraging your existing customer-base to gain new clients is one of the easiest things to do. If you provide great value to your customers, they can become your greatest asset.
The best way to utilize your client’s connections is to provide a financial incentive in the means of a referral program.
There are many ways to do this, but the simplest and most effective means is to offer a discount to the existing customer for every new customer you gain due to their referral.
You can also add an incentive for the new customer by providing a discount if they have been referred.
If this sounds a bit confusing, here’s an example:
- Client A refers Client B to your services
- Client A receives a 10% discount IF Client B makes a purchase
- Client B gets a 10% discount to encourage use of your service
Of course the numbers can be tweaked to suit your needs.
The system benefits both parties but especially yourself and your business. You can alter the arrangement so that only the referrer or only the new client receives a benefit, but remember that financial incentive is a great motivator.
Although it is not limited to this, I have found that this is the most beneficial when your drone business provides a B2C service. It is harder to run a B2B service using this method, as competitors in the same space do not often interact or provide recommendations.
Online Articles
Never underestimate the power of being helpful. There are over 3 million Google searches every minute, with a lot of potential customers looking for solutions to their problems.
The goal here is to write helpful content that explains how your service can provide valuable solutions to the questions people are asking.
The trap that a lot of drone companies often fall into when writing about their service, is that they get too focused on the drones. Drones are simply a tool, a piece of equipment.
Your readers are not drone pilots, or drone enthusiasts, and generally don’t care if you’re using a drone or a giraffe! They want to know how you’re going to solve their problems. You need to focus your content on addressing and explaining an existing problem, then explaining the solution and how it can be achieved.
Let’s use an example imagining your service is based around Infrared Asset Inspections
- Don’t write: How drones can identify problems in infrastructure
Do write: Why it is critical to invest in asset inspection services - Don’t write: How we use autonomous fixed-wing aircraft to gather more data, faster
- Do write: How to save time and reduce inspection costs
- Don’t write: What are the best multispectral sensors for asset inspection
Do write: What to look for when hiring an inspection company
Don’t speak about yourself so much, focus on the solution from the customers perspective.
Remember that it can take articles several months to rank on google, so this is a long term investment.
If you’re still unconvinced that articles are useful, just have a think about where you’re reading this information currently.
Sponsorships
Another interesting way to engage with your community is to sponsor certain events, competitions, or individuals.
The idea here is to leverage an individual’s or an event’s popularity to build familiarity with your brand. This is beneficial regardless of what industry you are servicing.
Let me break down a few scenarios to make it more clear.
You might sponsor a young drone racing pilot by paying for all his equipment in exchange for him wearing your company’s logos on different clothes and gear.
This gets you further exposure, and provides you with a new audience that is outside of your personal reach. Why do you think Red Bull sponsors so many extreme sports and racing events when they sell energy drinks?
Another example is running an aerial photography competition for a local school, where you donate the prize money. It would help if you could provide the equipment for the competition like a sub-250gram drone.
You could make the school the subject of the photography competition. So that the school benefits with some interesting marketing material.
If you’re in the business of real estate marketing, you can ask a local agency to join in supporting this event. They can also act as a partner to help promote their business as well.
This helps you build your brand with the community, and with the local realtor. It also provides you a genuine way to build a relationship with other local businesses that you can service.
The prize can vary between money, a drone, or even a paid drone certification course. Get creative with your offering to get people excited in participating. You can alter this formula in many ways to achieve your desired outcome.
Industry Newsletters
In this case, we are specifically referring to the newsletters for the industries that you service. There are a lot of companies that get into drone industry newsletters which reach other drone service providers only.
Industry Newsletters provide helpful tips to business owners and professionals. This may be one of the best ways to get in front of them.
Make sure the newsletter is a trusted and reputable source in the industry. Your association with them will mean that your existing and future clients will view you the same.
If we take the previous sponsorship example where aerial photography is the goal. Since you are working alongside real estate agencies and the focus of the competition is relevant to real estate marketing, it would not be too difficult to approach a company to cover the event.
Get in contact with local or regional industry leaders and explain the situation to them.
Final Thoughts
There are still many ways to stand out from the crowd and get your business in front of more people. This list is my favourite 5, but if you’re looking more, I’ll consider sharing all the possible routes in another article.
Drop a message in my contact form to request a list of more ways to market your drone business.
If you’re running a drone business, check out my other article for 7 ways to increase your revenue, Do Drone Pilots Make Good Money?
