airplane seat pockets of over 25 airlines. If you’ve been on a flight, you’ve probably
browsed through this catalog and glimpsed the unique products it offers.
SkyMall catalog is distributed to every major domestic airline in the United States, with
exposure to over 1.8 million passengers every single day (that’s more than 658 million air
travelers yearly). About 88% of all domestic US air passengers pick up the magazine and
browse through it.
While something with a reach that wide might feel too big to participate in, the cost per
view is extremely low, especially when adding in the views on www.skymall.com, making
this a tactic that mid to large sized companies can see dramatic results with. Guerrilla marketers are known for low cost or no cost marketing, and since this strategy is the
lowest cost per exposure in the industry, they are willing to exchange the investment for
the direct sales and brand exposure they will receive on a massive scale.
The question is: would your product fit in with the products offered in SkyMall? The best-
selling products are unique and are often solution-based and/or multi-functional. They
tend to be priced between $50-$300.
How SkyMall Works
SkyMall is simply a third party company that takes the orders and processes payments. You
can think of SkyMall as the mall, and your company as a store renting space from the mall
in the form of full or partial pages in their quarterly publication and online. The merchants
of the products fulfill all the orders.
As a merchant, you can rent space in their publication and online for a minimum of three
months. Over 75% of SkyMall’s vendors stay with them for at least a year because they
circulate so many catalogs, providing incredible exposure.
Passengers can order products toll-free via an air phone onboard their flight (or from the
ground or online). This is a great way to cash in on the boredom of airplane passengers.
Can you see your product next to products from Gadget Universe, Hammacher Schlemmer,
Footsmart, Plow and Hearth, Casio and more?
SkyMall has two flexible advertising programs:
1. SkyMall Merchandising Program – Here, SkyMall retains the control of the product
placement, copywriting and creative input. The vendor shares the retail margin to
offset a portion of the advertising rate (less administration fees). For this program,
you can expect to pay $500 to $17,000 per month.
2. SkyMall Advertising Program – This program is run in the Travelers Selections
catalog. The vendor receives logo placement, guaranteed product placement,
copywriting privileges and creative control, as well as the full retail profit (less administration fees). For this program, you can expect to pay $13,000 to $43,000
per month.
Why SkyMall?
One of the best things about SkyMall’s structure is that once they supply the order
information to you as the vendor, the customer’s contact information is yours to use for
your marketing initiatives. You maintain your own brand identity, as if you had a store in
an actual mall, so your database will grow considerably and you can continue to market to
your new customers using other guerrilla marketing weapons.
SkyMall strives to drive business to all of your major sales channels, including your
website, store, etc. This is a benefit most other third party brokers don’t offer. Kelton
Research, an award winning Research Company was hired by SkyMall to determine the
effectiveness of their programs for their merchants. Here are some of their findings:
. 49% of the people who purchase from SkyMall also shop directly through the
SkyMall merchants’ stores and websites.
. 31% of those who did not purchase from SkyMall ended up shopping for items they
saw in SkyMall at the merchant’s store or website.
. About 35% of consumers would be more likely to purchase a brand after having
seen it in a SkyMall catalog.
The Benefits of www.skymall.com
As a vendor, you get the added bonus of being showcased on the online version of the
SkyMall publication as well. This is a way for people who saw your product in the catalog
on a flight to easily pull up your product for purchase later. They may not remember your
product enough to find it specifically on its own, but they can easily recall the name SkyMall
and go to www.skymall.com to search for your product.
In addition, with the on-board WiFi connectivity that is becoming available on most airlines
nowadays, SkyMall.com is now accessed in-flight. For those who prefer to browse online
instead of call in from a catalog, the option is now there for them right then and there.
SkyMall and Baby Boomers
So how does all of this relate to marketing to baby boomers? Put blankly, SkyMall is
probably one of the best marketing moves you could make to attract baby boomers. Study
after study have shown that baby boomers travel more than any other generation, and not
only that, but to them, travel is not considered a luxury; it is a necessity. Combine that with
the fact that baby boomers are responsible for 47-55% of all spending and that they want
instant gratification, and what you get is a huge amount of bored baby boomers on a flight
with nothing to do but shop.
Studies show that over 55% of the products sold through SkyMall are purchased by baby
boomers. If you want to get in front of the baby boomer market, advertising in an in-flight
publication is certainly the way to go.
Baby boomers love to have fun, and there is nothing more fun to do on a plane than go
shopping for unique products you won’t find in most other places. If you’ve got a unique
product, SkyMall is a way for you to grow quickly, especially in the boomer marketplace.
Are you ready?
