Profound Marketing Strategy of BAE Systems – With company overview & campaigns

Updated on: Nov 4, 2022
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In our previous article, we learned about the Detailed Marketing Strategy of HBO, an American pay television network.

In this article, we are going to elaborate on the marketing strategy of BAE Systems – one of the world’s most advanced, technology-led defence, aerospace and security companies.

The objective is to help you gain insights into BAE Systems and how it works in a vast number of domains by transferring skills, knowledge and technology.

Marketing serves as an important aspect of businesses to diversify their reach and ultimately attain good profits. If you are keen to work in the digital world and apply your digital skills, you must check out our Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing, by the CEO and founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.

We will entirely cover the marketing strategy of BAE Systems in this blog. Before diving into it, let us start by learning the company’s story, target audience and digital presence.

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About BAE Systems – Company Overview

marketing strategy of BAE Systems - logoSource – www.baesystems.com

BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a UK-based multinational arm, security, and aerospace company having origin in London, England It is the largest defence company in Europe and ranked the seventh-largest in the world on the basis of its 2021 revenues.

As of 2017, it is the biggest defence manufacturer in Britain. Its largest operations are in the United Kingdom and the United States, where the BAE Systems Inc. subsidiary is one of the six large-scale suppliers to the US Department of Defense.

Its other major markets include Australia, India, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Oman and Sweden; the third largest source of revenue is Saudi Arabia.

The company was set up on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion purchase of and merger with Marconi Electronic Systems (MES), the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc (GEC), by British Aerospace, an aircraft, munitions and naval systems manufacturer.

BAE Systems provides some of the world’s most advanced, technology-led defence, aerospace and security solutions. BAE Systems employs a highly skilled workforce of 90,500 people in more than 40 nations.

BAE Systems works with clients and local business partners to develop, engineer, manufacture, and support systems and products in order to deliver efficient military capability, strengthen national security, protect people, and secure critical information and infrastructure.

Quick Stats 

CEO Charles Woodburn
CMO John Montpelierh
Area served United Kingdom and United States
Industry Aerospace, Arms Industry, Information, Security
Revenue 1,952 crores GBP, as of 2021
Vision To be the premier international defence, aerospace and security company
Tagline Their Mission. Our Promise.

 

Marketing Strategy of BAE Systems –

Let’s get to know the unique approach of BAE System’s marketing strategy and understand its marketing campaign.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

BAE System determines to segment the consumers in the Aerospace and Defence industry through geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioural factors.

BAE Systems analyzes the consumer segments by reviewing their financial resources, structural attractiveness and regulatory barriers.

The target audience of BAE Systems includes certain nations and their military units.

For instance, BAE Systems Saudi Arabia is a supplier to the Royal Saudi Air Force, the Royal Saudi Navy, the Ministry of Interior, the Royal Saudi Land Forces and the National Guard.

Moreover, it has key markets across the globe – Australia, India, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

It figures out the competition in the target segment, and the organization’s comparative strengths and weaknesses to target better.

BAE System decides to position its brand in such a way that it creates a relevant image, and provides a particular identity.

It takes into account the portfolio, resources and margin of organizations in the aerospace and defence industry.

Marketing Campaigns

marketing strategy of BAE Systems - marketing campaign

BAE Systems launched its first major ad campaign in 2008. The ads were showcased in national and regional newspapers, along with political, business and current affairs magazines.

This campaign was developed by RKGR/Young & Rubicam and the media planning group.

It played a key role to remind the stakeholders of the significant role of BAE Systems in the UK industrial sector.

marketing strategy of BAE Systems - marketing campaign

On the first day of the Farnborough International Air Show, BAE Systems officially opened a new portal for small and medium enterprises to access the defence market.

The portal is free of charge and drafted to make self-registration quick and easy.

marketing strategy of BAE Systems - marketing campaign

BAE Systems launched an ‘Innovation’ advertising campaign, where new executions were designed by Rapiergroup, pre-marketing invitation and microsite 3 stage launch including as part of the delivery.

The key message was to demonstrate a shift over to a service-oriented organization from an engineering-perceived company.

Social Media Marketing

BAE Systems is active on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. It has maximum followers on LinkedIn & Twitter than on Facebook and at last Instagram. 

  • LinkedIn – 660K followers
  • Twitter – 108.3K followers
  • Facebook – 76K followers
  • Instagram – 28.4K followers

The posts contain mostly informational content along with some related to their new products and services.

SEO Strategies

marketing strategy of BAE Systems - ubersuggest seo screenshot

Source – Ubersuggest

As per SEO ranking, it is observed that the number of keywords – below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good, and 10,000+ is amazing.

As we can see that has 172K+ organic keywords. That means BAE Systems has amazing organic keywords.

Also, the traffic per month is around 528K+ which is impressive as above 20,000 are seen as amazing monthly visits. 

Influencer Marketing

Since BAE Systems is a defence and aerospace company, its products and services are not targeted toward all the local people. Therefore, it has not indulged in any kind of influencer marketing.

E-commerce Strategies

In talking about e-commerce strategies, BAE Systems has its website to highlight its news, stories and events. It is also active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where it shares informational content, showcases its product launch and appears in the public sphere.

Mobile Apps

BAE Systems officially released its app on June 27, 2018. It is offered by BAE Systems Plc.

It covers blogs about technological updates in the defence industry, news about the concerned aspects and events organized by the company periodically.

It makes sure you miss out on nothing. The app has more than 10,000 downloads.

Content Marketing Strategies

BAE Systems is very active on social media. The post content is related to new technology, innovation, aerospace capabilities, new product launches and safety measures etc.

They do posts blogs regularly on their website. They also use print media like newspapers and current affairs magazines to press release their products and services.

This ends our detailed marketing strategy of BAE Systems. Let us conclude our blog below.

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Conclusion – What’s unique about the marketing strategy of BAE Systems?

In the marketing strategy of BAE Systems, we saw that BAE Systems stand as the largest defence manufacturer in the UK with a performance-driven and values-led strategy that makes it stand out in the arenas of aerospace, the arms industry, and information and security too.

With the evolution of technology and changing requirements in the defence and aerospace sector, BAE systems keep transforming itself to deliver the finest products and serve the demands of its diversified client base.

However, it has certainly more scope to develop its social media presence and update the app periodically to develop an innovative interface.

Moreover, it has significant scope to improve the SEO strategy for organic traffic. Also, it has a slight scope to improve its digital presence and stand out in the innovation field.

As we all know, digital marketing is a continuously growing field and has taken a boom by 2020 due to the Covid pandemic as people spent the maximum amount of time on the internet.

It forced every business to create an online presence. Marketing campaigns were designed and launched to reach wider audiences.

The proper marketing strategies could make or break a brand’s image and this is exactly where digital marketing comes in.

With the increasing significance of digital marketing in today’s era, learning about the growing field is an important step. If you would like to develop relevant skills, check out IIDE’s 4 Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of BAE Systems has given you good insights into the company’s marketing strategy.

If you like to read such an in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of BAE Systems, check out our IIDE Knowlege Portal for more fascinating content.

Thank you for taking out your valuable time to read this, and do share your thoughts on the blog on the marketing strategy of BAE Systems in the comments section below.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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