I like the idea of grass roots, and that is certainly where the
enthusiasm lies. But I don't think we have viral marketing potential
here. Viral marketing means I tell ten people and each one of those
people tells ten people, and those hundred tell ten each, etc. so the
numbers grow on their own exponentially. A good example would be a
funny email, easily forwarded to friends. The sport of soaring is
appealing when first seen, but complex, and I am not sure someone
exposed to flying gliders for the first time would muster the
"infectious" enthusiasm needed to evangelize the sport to ten of their
friends. It is probably closer to a more traditional direct marketing
model. That being said, lets say 25% of all US glider pilots really
reached out and personally talked to whopping 50 people each, every
year. That's 187,500 new folks exposed to soaring. And lets say a
person who learns of soaring from a real pilot is ten times more
likely to explore it than someone who sees it on TV. At 1%, that's
1,875 folks that actually try it-- about the numbers we were looking
for. Now contrast that to good morning America whose viewership in
2008 was 4.4 million people. at 1/10th the hit rate of our
evangelical pilots, 0.1% of viewers would actually try it, and that's
4,400 people! All created with the effort of just a few enthusiastic
pilots .

Of course these are all just fabricated numbers until we have some
measurable metrics that tell us what folks really do, but I really
think soaring is invisible to most folks. We need some serious "brand
awareness" to go along with our grass roots efforts. I think John S.
hit the nail on the head.

Matt