15 Tactics to Get More Clients for Your Drone Business

1. Organic Social Media Marketing

Your potential clients are likely active on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, and others. The algorithms of these platforms present content to users based on their interests. Your future clients have seen or will likely soon see social media content that was either created by a drone or contains drones. By developing social media profiles and publishing content with the proper hashtags, descriptions, and images, you will be more likely to get discovered. This is not only a great way to build brand awareness, but also how you can get direct messages from potential clients.

Whenever you’re creating content on the social media platforms mentioned, do your best to create content that’s valuable to your audience. You can create valuable social media content in several ways:

• Educate: create content that educates your audiences on topics related to their interests, your niche, and your industry. Share information such as guides, industry stats, important laws & regulations, and more. For example, you might create a drone industry overview guide that includes key facts and figures about the future of the drone industry and how businesses are leveraging drone technology to accelerate their business.
• Entertain: people are on social media platforms to take breaks and release endorphins by seeing content that excites them. Memes, comedy clips, extreme sports, or sports game highlights – the list goes on of entertainment content on social media channels. Figure out how to create content that meets the entertainment needs of your potential client base and they’ll like, follow, and maybe direct message you if you’re lucky.
• Engage: social media is all about engagement these days. Likes and comments send endorphins to the brain that are in some ways addicting, for better or for worse. If your audience is engaged with the content you publish, be sure to engage back and give them recognition. If users comment or direct message you, respond quickly, or at least in a timely manner, and show them that you care. Similarly, consider visiting other social pages and liking or following their content, commenting on the content they create, or even re-post their content and tagging them for credit.
• Inspire: Inspiration stories, quotes, or life events have the potential to motivate others. By managing a channel that’s a catalyst motivating users to become better versions of themselves, you will build loyalty, and this also reed into your referral program strategy.

Your success will be greatly amplified if you commit to creating content that falls into one of these categories. On top of that, it’s entirely free to build and post content on your social media channels. By posting regularly, you’ll be able to reach clients that you might not have been able to otherwise.

2. Customer Referral Program

Are your current customers happy with the drone services you’ve provided? If so, great! Leverage their positive experience to attract new clients. You’ll be amazed at how willing previous clients are to go on record and create customer testimonials for you, particularly if you make this process incredibly easy for them.

Consider building in touch points and feedback loops through your services where you’re checking in on your customers’ satisfaction and identifying ways you can improve your services. In some cases, you may want to consider offering incentives such as discounts or free services to customers who refer new business to you, if you can afford it.

3. Live Events

Putting a face to the name can help with adding an identity to your brand. If there are events taking place in your local community or where you operate, it would be advantageous to attend those events and meet potential customers. Think about what types of events your target audience is most likely to attend. For example, perhaps your commercial drone niche is real estate photography. If there are real estate communities that meet up to discuss the market, they could benefit from having a drone pilot expert there that can speak to client success stories of other realtors that have used drone photography or videography that’s resulted in a home or property sale.

Use these events as an opportunity to learn about the industry, network with potential clients, and create more brand identity for yourself, all while providing value to others.

4. Virtual Events 

Virtual events such as webinars, YouTube shows or even scheduled live stories on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms are a great way to broaden your network. If you’re hosting virtual events, always consider the old idiom, WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). In other words, why are your clients getting by attending your virtual event? If you were your client, would you attend your event? If you’re unable to answer these questions, virtual events might not be your tactic of choice. But, if you’ve found solid use cases, virtual events can certainly be one of the marketing strategies you deploy to broaden your reach without spending money, depending on which platforms you use to host the events.

5. Stock Photography

Believe it or not, your drone business can get discovered by simply posting content on sites like Pexels, Shutterstock, and Unsplash. These sites allow you to publish unlicensed images and videos that other people can discover by simply browsing or by searching for keywords that are in the descriptions of the images and videos you upload.

Future customers might stumble across your content and then use it on their own sites or social media channels. While you may not always receive credit or income each time someone uses your content, you are steadily building brand recognition. Some drone photographers have used Pexels to get discovered by future clients, and you can too. 

6. Partnerships

If you’re offering real estate drone photography but do not offer construction inspections, you can forge partnerships with other pilots that are willing to cross-collaborate and refer your business while you refer to theirs. By keeping strong relations with your clients and other possible associates in your network, you’re only setting yourself up for success in referrals, partnerships, and future job opportunities.

Partnerships don’t have to be exclusive to the drone industry. For example, you could serve as a lead generator for a real estate agent in which you refer him or her to new prospective house buyers, while they hire you each time they need real estate drone photography. 

7. Website & SEO

If you haven’t created a website to market your drone services, you might want to think about doing so. By creating a dedicated business website promoting your skills and services, you’ll not only have a digital portfolio of your work but also will have the ability to have your website rank in Google searches. If you create a website that has valuable content for users and regularly publish content, you’ll become one of the leading local businesses in your area for the niche you operate in.

Ultimately, your customers need to be able to find and contact you online once they’re ready to do business with you and a website is the perfect channel to capture and convert new customers. By utilizing web tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), which consists of creating keyword-optimized content and videos, you’ll broaden your reach to ideal buyer personas.

8. Email Marketing

Obtaining email addresses isn’t always easy, but if you manage to gain a list of clients that sign up on your website or opt into your email marketing channels, sending newsletters and product promotions is a sure way to stay top-of-mind. Leverage email marketing as a method of education and informing your customers by providing them with value. Over time, this principle of reciprocity will likely lead to them converting into future customers of yours. 

9. Local Search Ads

By using Google Ads, you can effectively geofence certain areas, allowing your business to show up on search results pages for keywords searched by your ideal customers. While search ads can cost money, the keywords you bid on should be buyer-intent keywords that are only searched by your target customers. If they click your ad and like what they see on your website, they will contact you for more information and you have the possibility of winning their business. 

Paid advertising in general is complex and can have serious consequences if you don’t know what you’re doing on the ad platforms. But, you can also yield incredible results if you set up the campaigns correctly and cater specifically to the needs of your customers. By only bidding on buyer-intent keywords that are most likely to drive revenue, your chances of succeeding will certainly increase.

10. Video Marketing

Drone videography is becoming very popular through social media, movies, and industries that rely on aerial photography. By creating high-quality videos that showcase your drone services, you will effectively be creating shareable content that you can repurpose on your website, social media platforms, YouTube, Vimeo, and more. You can also use these channels to show off your capabilities of capturing stunning aerial video footage and aerial photographs. Edit your content to include soundtracks, descriptions, and more.

11. Start a Podcast

If your audience relies on podcasts to be educated, entertained, engaged, or inspired, then this is likely a marketing tactic that will help your business grow. The podcast niche is relatively untapped for drone businesses and could be a way to acquire intended clients. Drone-based businesses typically rely on visual content, rather than audio, which is why it might not be your leading tactic for marketing your drone business, but nonetheless, it’s worth exploring as not too many other companies appear to be offering drone-related podcast material.

12. Engage in Forums

Online forums and discussion groups are often feeders for future customers. Forums are created to allow other users to provide direct feedback regarding their experience with a platform or service. By finding the right forums to engage in, you can become an active member that provides solutions to challenges people are experiencing. Your feedback could be a major influence point that influences someone’s decision-making for the better. In return, they may be willing to give you their business. Not many commercial drone operators will have or want to spend time engaging in professional forums as a part of their drone marketing strategy, thus presenting you with an open opportunity to make a name for yourself and your services.

13. Facebook Ads

Believe it or not, Facebook Ads can be a very cost-effective marketing tactic to acquire new customers, at a cost. Facebook Ads allow you to run targeted ads toward an audience that has interests within your niche. While there’s a bit of a learning curve to setting up Facebook Ad campaigns, you will without a doubt be amazed at how quickly you scale your business validity by getting in front of potential customers. By creating relevant content customers like and engage with, you’ll be able to generate business opportunities that fuel your business’s growth.

14. Review Platform Growth

Consumers that purchase products and review them are typically very happy or disappointed about the products they purchased. As a part of your marketing strategy, you can consider encouraging customers to provide reviews of the drone service you provided them, particularly if you know they’re happy customers. Additionally, you can source new customers from other review sites that provided distasteful reviews. If the review sites allow you to comment and link back to your site, such as Quora or Reddit, you could effectively grow your brand through this backlinking strategy.

15. Drone Business Course

If you’re a subject matter expert, it’s worth considering marketing your drone business through an online course that teaches customers what you know about the industry and the pain points they might be looking to solve. Creating a course is actually easier than most people are aware of, but it does take time and the proper framework. A course may not be absolutely essential for your drone business plan, but it could be a tactic to consider once you’ve gotten past the early stages of promoting your business.

Drone Business & Entrepreneurship 

Turning your drone business into a profit-generating machine takes time, but with the right discipline, you can succeed. Drone entrepreneurship is the process of starting and operating a commercial drone business that serves the needs of clients through drone technology. When set up properly, drone businesses directly benefit customers of many industries, placing a high value on drones and drone operators.

Starting a business in any industry has its challenges, but these challenges can be overcome through proper research and preparation before starting your commercial drone business.

Mastering the fundamentals of being a commercial drone entrepreneur will take time, but in the long run, is worth it. There’s nothing better than reaching the point in which the only direction a business can go is up and the best option is to double down and scale. By leveraging these tactics, success is eminent in the commercial drone industry.