CASE STUDY: Fleet Aviation brand marketing and sales program.

Background
Fleet Aviation's business had grown organically for five years but in 2008 business reached a plateau. Fleet is in the highly competitive air charter category of the New York City area where it flies against many smaller family-run piston aircraft and larger jet services. Fleet prides itself on its personalized level of customer service and professional piloting abilities.

Existing Business
Historically, Fleet had been most active during the summer season when customers flew to hard-to-reach locations like Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Bar Harbor, ME. Although Fleet could continue to survive via this business model, its competitors were basically servicing the same sector. Fleet had more ambitious plans.

Help Wanted
Fleet realized it needed a professional marketing program. It selected MantraMarketing because we were passionate about their business. Thanks to our technical experience, we quickly understood the mechanical and financial benefits of Fleet's aircraft. In air charter, knowledge of aircraft is critical in understanding opportunities and limitations.

Aircraft Knowledge
Fleet relied on a fleet of Cirrus SR-22 single-engine piston aircraft. The state-of-art Cirrus is composite-constructed with the latest avionics and safety features. Unlike less-modern piston competitors, the Cirrus is faster and less expensive to operate. And when compared to jets, the Cirrus costs a mere fraction to charter.

Recommendation
After an in-depth study of their consumers and competitors, MantraMarketing recommended and executed a complete overhaul of Fleet's marketing and developed a year-long three-pronged program.

• Improve the Fleet brand.
• Increase existing business.
• Increase new business.

Brand Positioning
MantraMarketing lead brand development starting with a new website. Here was an immediate way of differentiating Fleet from its competitors, who all suffered from a case of "designed in-house." We created a personality for Fleet that used witty phrasing to appeal to the educated and affluent customer. The site's design was modern (like Fleet's fleet) driven by hero aircraft images (provided by Cirrus). (www.flyfleet.com) The new website was optimized for organic search engine rankings and a regionalized search word buy on Google was also implemented.

Increasing Current Customers
For an immediate increase in revenue, MantraMarketing suggested using a referral program by relying on a "birds of a feather" approach. By reaching out to past and present customers in their database, Fleet was able to get an immediate bump in sales. Maintenance of this program simply required ongoing personalized emails.

Going After New Business
With the recent shareholder and media backlash about corporate jet charter abuse, Fleet had an opportunity to fill void between expensive jet charter and inefficient commercial air travel. Thanks to the low operating rate of the Cirrus SR-22, passengers can fly up to 500 miles at the about the same cost as commercial airlines, but on their own schedule.

MantraMarketing highlighted the fact that being located at the Westchester County Airport, Fleet had an opportunity to gather low-hanging corporate travel fruit from Westchester and Fairfield Counties, a region densely packed with corporations such as PepsiCo, IBM and UBS. We developed a corporate outreach program using highly targeted direct marketing where key decision makers at appropriate companies were isolated. In addition we developed dossiers on the contacts that included locations of regional offices, clients and service ranges. This information allowed us to approach each company with a customized message on why Fleet is a better choice than commercial airlines.

Results
Despite the economy, Fleet?s business increased by 50% compared to last year, including the best June the company has ever experienced: a 60% increase.