The airline industry's yearly earnings are struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels and experts hope to get there by 2023. However, people are flying again and airlines are competing for their business, creating a trend of improving the customer experience and inspiring passenger confidence. There are many ways that an airline can use marketing to augment interest in its brand.

1. Engage in Email Marketing

With almost four billion email accounts in the world, utilizing email as a means of communicating with current or potential clients is a smart play. Email marketing campaigns continue to outperform other types of cyber-marketing techniques. Commercial messages are sent, often in groups, that advertise, submit or request information to a location that people frequently check-in and return to.

To get started, choose an email marketing service provider that can handle the logistics of sending mass emails and provide you with such things as tried and true email templates. After you generate your master list, which is usually made up of existing clients or subscribers, you can craft and send out your welcome email. Be sure to use the same graphics so that people will recognize your brand when they see it.

2. Adopt a Customer Loyalty Program

When people feel valued, they tend to be repeat customers. When you offer points, for instance, based on booking frequency that folks can use on future flights, they will necessarily remain with the airline, assuming that their previous experiences were happy and efficient ones.

As with email campaigns, loyalty programs can be broken down into groupings that offer different things to different people. For those that travel for business, for instance, offer them deals based on the miles that they're going to rack up anyway. It's a kind of customer security. For the family that travels once in a while, offer them a family rate, good for a long period, that they might take advantage of when they are ready to travel again.

3. Be More Than a Good Deal

People respond to brands that stand for important issues. Though the current times are rife with differing opinions that serve to separate people, you can find some causes that most folks will be happy to see you involved in. This could be anything from green initiatives to pledging company resources for charitable causes.

Consider that many customers associate rising ticket prices with rising profits. Showing a willingness to spread the money coming in to vulnerable people or causes will help them to break this association.

4. Show Personality Through Social Media

Social media is as popular as it's ever been, which is pretty darn popular. More than four billion people engage in social media for an average of almost two and a half hours per day. When your airline creates its social media presence, it should present a tone and attitude that remains static and posts should be consistently updated.

Companies often promote a personality in their commercials and social media campaigns that people can relate to. Perhaps it is due to humor or wit or some other endearing characteristic, but when people can identify with a character, they are more willing to listen to what the brand is offering.

5. Engage Influencers

Influencers are public voices that resonate with their fans. It is a kind of ethos that people respond to. By getting celebrities to use and endorse the airline, even doing creative marketing like posting their experiences on social media where they can be authentic and use their own voice, potential clients will see and respond with likes and shares, boosting your airline's visibility.

Marketing is important because it reaches clients that weren't thinking about your airline otherwise. If you can convince them that they can get service they can trust from people they like and a brand that stands for the same things they do, you'll likely pick up their business.