By Christian Riddell
Motorcoach Marketing Council
What do you call something that drives in a bus lane, carries passengers and offers groups the safest, most comfortable means of group transportation on the road today?
Unfortunately, the answer to that question may not be as simple as you might think.
A few months ago, my family was having dinner with a family whose kids play with ours. The mother is an event planner and has worked with some very large companies such as Microsoft.
We were discussing what we have been up to and came upon the Motorcoach Marketing Council. I enthusiastically started telling her about the GoMotorcoach program and our marketing efforts throughout North America.
I noticed that as I did, her eyes kind of glossed over and she seemed kind of checked out.
I figured motorcoaches just weren’t her thing and found myself wrapping up my thought and looking for a way to move on.
I was also thinking how strange it was. I mean, if anyone would appreciate this and be at least somehow connected to our plight, I thought it would be an event coordinator.
As I wrapped up, I searched for something else to say, but there was a brief moment of awkward silence. And then, from across the table, I saw her eyes light up.
“Oh, you mean party buses! We love those things! They are so fun, and the new ones are so luxurious,” she said.
For the next few minutes, she gave what would have been one of the world’s best testimonials from someone who knows our product and has booked our services in the past. She talked about comfort, how they are a great product and service, and how she couldn’t do her job without them.
But, over and over again, she called them party buses.
Buses, coaches, party buses, motorcoaches — even inside our industry we are inconsistent. Read any publication, even our internal trade publications, and you will undoubtedly find references to at least some of these.
On the surface, this seems pretty innocent, but the ramifications with the buying public are real.
Take, for example, what my friend called our equipment (party buses). In our industry, this phrase conjures images of limo-style mini coaches that have been converted to include bars, couches and, well, “firehouse-style poles” in the back.
It also brings up legal issues, regulations, and real industry issues facing this style of transportation.
So, imagine my friend calling your office and saying, “I need to rent a party bus for an event I am working on.”
What would come next from your staff? If you are like many operators, the answer would probably be some version of, “We don’t have those. Call someone else.”
And while your booking people would probably feel justified in their response (and perhaps you as an owner have even consulted them to do so), you would have turned away a customer who was actually shopping for exactly what we have — motorcoaches.
Now, this level of product confusion is not the only issue. This industry-wide discrepancy of what our equipment is called is also very damaging to marketing efforts.
My friend, for example, does not charter buses, coaches or motorcoaches. As far as she is concerned, she is a consumer of party buses. So if we sent her an email or postcard advertising motorcoaches, she would, at first glance, dismiss it completely.
In the branding world, there is an old adage, which goes something like this: “You canchoose your brand or you can let your customers choose. Either way, you will be branded.”
As someone who has worked as a brand developer for over a decade, I can attest that this is true. I can also tell stories of how this has turned against companies that weren’t proactive about establishing their brand, and it ended up costing them a lot of grief and a lot of money to undo the brand their customers gave them instead.
So, what do you call something that drives in a bus lane, carries passengers and offers groups the safest, most comfortable means of group transportation on the road today?
Let me make a case for “motorcoach” by highlighting some of the issues we now face as an industry with the other names.
Bus — This is probably the most common knee-jerk name for our equipment. I catch myself saying it sometimes. I think it is probably because it is such an easy way to get someone on our page with what we are and what we do.
The mental picture associated with “bus” is always one of groups utilizing a mode of transportation. The problem is that along with this mental image of lots of people, there is almost always a level of“comfort and accommodation.”
School bus, public bus: They carry groups, yes, but there are a lot of other things that come with that, most of which are not the image of a modern motorcoach.
Perhaps the bigger issue is the fact that in this environment we, as the premier providers of safe, comfortable, first-class group transportation, are held up right alongside actual bus operators (local public transportation services, school bus transportation services and the like).
Google today is a qualifier for people. I type in a word and what comes up on my screen is the information “I need to know.”
When we use “bus” and come up fifth on a list behind a bunch of actual bus operators, we are being put in a basket that suggests we compete with them. This means that, down the road a few steps, we will be stuck answering the question of whether we can price match the guy down the street who operates a fleet of aging school buses.
Coach — This almost seems like shorthand for our equipment at this point. It’s like the shorter, more familiar way to discuss it.
While that works great at the staff meeting, it can be troublesome to buyers. For example, go to Google and type in your city name and then “coaches.” What comes up? Chances are, you will get a Wikipedia page for some sports coach or a manufactured home company.
This means that, while we talk about this to our customers and use it as a way to describe our equipment, if the customer then translates that into actionable searching, they will get stuck and frustrated quickly.
Party bus– You may be surprised to learn that there are more searches for the term “party bus” in any given market than almost all other searches for our product combined.
First, yes, I understand that a certain percentage of these are indeed looking for the aforementioned style of coaches. However, this doesn’t apply to all of them.
I have discussed with operators from coast to coast the idea of embracing this traffic until they know that the buyers are really looking for something they don’t offer, but I am almost always met with serious resistance. They want to avoid being associated with party buses.
It is also true that there are regulations currently in place (or coming quickly down the on-ramp) for what we in the industry know as“party bus” operators. In most cases, these are regulations that we support and condone.
So, while we don’t want to completely throw in with this brand, we do want to stand on the side and convert those buyers who are not necessarily looking for tinted windows and puffy couches into buyers of our product — motorcoaches.
Motorcoach– This word conjures up very little for those outside our industry and that is an opportunity we can’t miss.
We need to educate our salespeople to use this word more. We need to convert the language on our sites and literature to reflect that motorcoach is our brand.
We need to tie it to the comfort, luxury, safety and experience that we, as an industry, offer our passengers. We need to take control of our brand and begin to create a rallying cry that will be heard north to south and east to west.
Customers need tobe convinced of the fact that they really need to GoMotorcoach, and that going motorcoach means something more than just transportation for groups. We need to go from tissue to Kleenex here and create something that will drive our industry forward.
The GoMotorcoach products, social tags and trainings will help you get there. Take a look at how you can use them to lay claim to your part of the Motorcoach movement. For more information about the Motorcoach Marketing Council and its programs, go towww.motorcoachmarketing.org.
For more information about the Motorcoach Marketing Council and its programs, go to www.motorcoachmarketing.org.
