Okay, admit it: You didn't know what the word "heuristics" meant when you read it in the title. It's okay, I didn't know, either. Andrew Collins, president and CEO of Sentient Jet, is the man who used in the word during my interview with him. Clearly Collins is a heckuva lot smarter than I, which is not really saying all that much.
In case you haven't Googled the word yet, here's a definition of "heuristics" via vocabulary.com: "Derived from a Greek word that means 'to discover,' heuristic describes a rule or a method that comes from experience and helps you think through things, like the process of elimination, or the process of trial and error. You can think of a heuristic as a shortcut."
I met Collins at this year's Kentucky Derby. Sentient Jet is the preferred private aviation partner of the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Oaks and Churchill Downs. We only spoke for a brief time but I could tell Collins is someone who "gets it" when it comes to marketing, engaging with customers, etc.
Sentient Jet is a brand with its own unique set of challenges as you'll see.
Before we get to my Q&A with Collins, here's an interview he did late last year with Fox Business Network on the brand:
Steve Olenski: How has the brand been marketed to date and what's the plan going forward?
Andrew Collins: We have positioned our brand around the concept of a “A More Thoughtful Way to Fly.” This is as close to describing both our company and product as possible. Every detail in our program has required significant thought and personal investment by our team members.
Based on our business model we need to constantly invest thought into every trip and detail: what’s the purpose of our cardholder’s trip, what would be the appropriate aircraft, are there any weather concerns, how was their last flight with us, are there any personal milestones occurring (e.g. birthday, anniversary, retirement), is the flight being done in conjunction with an event or client-based affinity (e.g. the Kentucky Derby, an auto auction, or a trip to Napa Valley for wine collecting and tastings).
We also try emote and convey how much technology plays a role to emphasize just how important the customer journey is. We cull from millions of data points to provide insights into the crew of the aircraft, the aircraft itself, the operator, and other areas through our “Sentient Certification” standard.
From an outreach and brand-building or vlient acquisition standpoint, we seek to meet prospective clients or current clients in as organic a fashion as possible. We do 60 events per year within such areas as horse racing, Aspen skiing, art shows, various food and resort-oriented gatherings, as well as with groups such as YPO, the Young Presidents Organization.
We are the official provider for Aspen Snowmass, Sotheby’s North America, the Breeder’s Cup, The Kentucky Derby, and a host of other world-class groups and brands (Eden Residence Club, Timbers Resorts, Boston Celtics, to name a few). In the case of the Kentucky Derby we were the very first official private aviation partner in the history of this organization.
To bolster our acquisition and branding efforts we use a sophisticated programmatic approach to digital media – we invest significantly in search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and run various destination and content-oriented Web sites and micro-sites. We also leverage social media to speak to the various segments/profiles found on four primary platforms: Facebook skews towards our client demo and find many of our clients within this platform, Twitter tends to attract media and partners, Instagram tends to lean towards more aspirational folks, while LinkedIn covers off on employee recruitment and speaking to the industry.
Lastly, you will find that Sentient seeks to promote and enhance its brand through various strategic media outlets when we have newsworthy items and/or relevant trends/themes that can help create or bolster a news article, online story, or broadcast piece.
Olenski: In your world, you have a very clearly defined target market. How do you ensure your marketing stays "on point" to speak to only that highly defined AND refined market?
Collins: Timely, succinct, and in an appropriate context. We have 6,000-plus cardholders and we have learned quite a bit about them over time and how they wish to hear from us. This includes language, cadence, communication, and vehicle. We seek to foster dialogues with our clients in unique ways through our in-market events and exclusive, one-of-a-kind experiences (e.g. stand in the winner’s circle at the Breeder’s Cup, have a catered VIP experience at the Women’s World Cup in Aspen, access a weekend at Richard Branson’s Necker Island, attend the invitation-only breakfast with Bobby Flay prior to the Kentucky Derby, etc).
We also believe in working with prospects and clients in the communication and vehicle of their choosing. Are they more comfortable hearing from us via email, the phone, or a mobile app?
Olenski: What do you think other brands — brands who have a much wider target audience than yours — can learn from what Sentient Jet does when it comes to delivering highly contextual and relevant content to their audience?
Collins: Know your data, set your KPIs correctly, and listen to our front-line sales and service personnel. This is our lifeblood. Additionally, make sure your senior management understands the day-to-day needs of your clients and your service personnel. I track service reports late into the evening, for example.
Also, develop smart heuristics. For example, we know many of our clients can have anything they really want. We need to leverage the hospitality theme of “Surprise-and-Delight” and offer up an experience, a relationship, or a benefit that perhaps they may not have thought of themselves. We actually found working within the culinary world was important to our clients based on some work we did with Bobby Flay. Because of the basic feedback and measurement from this we asked Bobby to be our primary brand ambassador.
We have also developed an expertise in bringing like-mind organizations and partners into the mix. Each of our clients (Cardholders) receive an Exclusive Benefit’s Guide that provides a number of world-class perks from over 25 partners including a Sotheby’s, the Peninsula Hotel, The Little Nell in Aspen, Frette, with a value of over $100,000 in combined benefits. This is a subtle way to drive loyalty, encourage the use of our product, and based on the extensive and selective nature of our partners, help truly differentiate us in a crowded space.
Olenski: Customer Experience is at or near the top of the list of importance for every brand across every industry. How does Sentient Jet deliver on CX that separates it from your competition?
Collins: Living up to your brand promise(s) is critical in our space. We have a 24 x 7, 365 day client services organization that lives and breathes around our client needs. We have, in some cases, 20 years of data on our clients, and seek to improve with each transaction.
Our model is actually a complex and difficult one to execute given our size and scale and so we have built various components to make sure our service levels are as exceptional as they can be. In addition to rigorous training, technology, and organizational design we also have a client historian to make sure we mark important client data and life events, we run service reports 24x7 that everyone in senior management receives (and responds to in different cases).
Senior management has a grouping of their own clients to engage with as well. I have a small list of about 45 clients that I interact with and measure sentiment from on a regular basis. This helps me understand, to an extent, where our current supply and services levels are performing at an optimal level and where they may need more focus.
Finally, we seek to speak to our clients in whatever form is the most comfortable and reduce as much friction in the customer journey as possible. We work with phones, email, fax, various digital methodologies, as well as a real-time mobile booking app. The latter actually lets our clients rate each and every flight on several parameters once they have completed an itinerary, yet another avenue for us to seek improvement and calibration with our base.
Olenski: One of the things we talked about during our call was brand ambassadors and influencers. Many brands can capitalize and utilize folks like this. However a brand such as yours more than likely cannot (utilize ambassadors and influencers) due to the fact that your customers are of a very specific income level and are not likely to send out a Tweet or post to Instagram raving about your brand. Moreover you can't exactly go to one of these folks and ask them to do this for this it would cheapen the brand in my opinion. So, are you just out of luck? Do you hope that someone will in fact Tweet or post and mention the brand organically?
Collins: We actually have a number of clients and partners that highlight us on Instagram and on Twitter. We tend to also generate relevant-content that gets shared on Facebook and Twitter. We’re definitely more “in-luck” in this area and have someone who focuses exclusively on our social media channels.
We tend to engage and or see mentions from athletes (e.g. Rob Gronkowski flying to the Belmont Stakes to see his horse race in the Triple Crown, Bobby Flay posting to his millions of followers about hosting a dinner with Sentient clients, or lesser known, but equally as important, Sentient clients who feel attached to the brand and are willing to share their particular “moments” or experiences.
Lastly, we see content as the through-line to our contextual success with our clients and prospective clients and partners. Our article on how to optimize a trip into Aspen or Charleston will likely work its way through multiple channels that we harness and in a format and form that is conducive to that particular channel (e.g. image-rich in Instagram, more in-depth on our destination blog “Atmosphere”, or short and concise and more of a tease on Twitter, etc).
