Promote your glider operation

On Nov 23, 2:37*pm, "Matt Herron Jr." wrote:
snip...

If we 'got lucky' with something like the Disney TV shows of the
1960's and .01% of the 300 million US population sought flight
instruction in gliders, 30,000 people would descend on our training
operations. *I expect 29,000 of them would be very unhappy with us.
Before we start "pushing" a mass market response into our 'pipeline',
we'd better clean the pipes.
The quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get 1300 new student starts
per year is for each of the roughly 15,000 US glider pilots to just
talk to a few people about soaring.
Bill Daniels
Chairman, SSA Growth and Development Committee

I agree with most of what you are saying Bill, but I don't understand
why we need to increase our training capacity beyond 2000 pilots/
year. *That would be an increase in total soaring pilots of *over 13%
per year! (less attrition, of course) *I would call that an astounding
success. *As rusty as the pipeline may be, I would contend that lack
of capacity is not our biggest problem.

Matt

Matt, I agree 1300 - 2000 new pilots a year would be a huge success.
A few years from now, I'd like to see that expanded well beyond 2000 a
year. But, those numbers put some scale to the "promotion of soaring"
discussion. It also says that if we want that growth rate, we have to
start thinking about how to deal with it.

If our target is 2000 per year, and I believe that's reasonable, then
mass media isn't the right first line approach. Although, I'll take
all the successes like Tom Knauff's Good Morning America segment we
can get. I think "viral marketing" and social media represent a
better approach.

I hope we can get more grass roots effort. Just tell people about
what we do and send them to web sites with great images and videos.
If they have the "soaring gene" they will become glider pilots no
matter what else happens.

I'd also contend that, in addition to the above good thinking for new
recruits, we emphasize reducing attrition for those who've gone
through training. With greater exposure to cross country soaring,
whether through dual flights, ground school, videos, etc. we can plant
the seed of what really is the allure.

Kemp

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

On Nov 23, 11:45*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
Pull is good, but conversion is harder. The sad fact is that we fail
miserably at converting first rides into long-time pilots. For each
ride, how many get a license? For each license, how many are still
flying 3 years later? Typical numbers I've heard are about one in a
thousand. If that were even one in a hundred, we'd have 10 times more
glider pilots!
John Cochrane

Rough statistics from one club- Valley Soaring Club- Middletown NY
Close estimates for '09
About 1600 tows/Yr
About 160 introductory flights(360 the year the NY Times article came
out).
About 40 four flight intro packages which lets prospect see what it's
really about- then they join or find out it's not for them.
About 15 new members
About 10 new solo pilots
About 8 new certificated pilots
FWIW
UH

I think all of the above posters have the right idea...the concept is
to "grow" the sport,
but nobody has any grasp of what the numbers are of active glider
pilots,
instructor pilots, new rides, FAST offers, Calls to local glider
ports,
rate of activity.

I do believe that statistics, numbers need to be compiled.
We can't figure out if we need pull marketing, viral marketing,
publicity campaigns, and any other types of publicity until we know
what we are pushing for!
One Example of what we need to know:
Do we want to approach pilots with power tickets? Do we have better
success with youth? or better success at converting the power pilot,
or do we have a better success rate with the person that calls for a
"joy ride".

Omri has a a great idea that an individual giving the ride should have
the passion and personality to address the needs of the person
enquiring and taking a test ride.

the bottom line for me, is that we need to compile some data. Regular
surveys of the clubs, or reporting of how many calls/rides/instruction
requests/new members. Can't market what you don't know.
just my 2cents
Micki

On Nov 24, 10:33*am, MickiMinner wrote:
I think all of the above posters have the right idea...the concept is
to "grow" the sport,
but nobody has any grasp of what the numbers are of active glider
pilots,
instructor pilots, new rides, FAST offers, Calls to local glider
ports,
rate of activity.

I do believe that statistics, numbers need to be compiled.
We can't figure out if we need pull marketing, viral marketing,
publicity campaigns, and any other types of publicity until we know
what we are pushing for!
One Example of what we need to know:
Do we want to approach pilots with power tickets? *Do we have better
success with youth? or better success at converting the power pilot,
or do we have a better success rate with the person that calls for a
"joy ride".

Omri has a a great idea that an individual giving the ride should have
the passion and personality to address the needs of the person
enquiring and taking a test ride.

the bottom line for me, is that we need to compile some data. *Regular
surveys of the clubs, or reporting of how many calls/rides/instruction
requests/new members. *Can't market what you don't know.
just my 2cents
Micki

Pulling hen's teeth while herding cats;^)

Actually, part of the digital revolution is that we are at the cusp of
such data retrieval. Most operations are likely using some sort of
accounting software from which reports may be derived. How, I've also
heard from COBM that commercial operators will be unlikely to share
such data. Among chapters, many are non-profit entities and must
provide information upon request (though may charge reasonable re-
production costs). However, past performance is not prediction of the
future. Both commercial operations and clubs can change in appeal and
performance, usually to a knee-jerk reaction to some event or a change
in internal politics, so I'm not sure a study will help market, though
it may help define what works.

Part of the problem has been the difficulty to keeping current contact
information for chapter leadership. The clubs & chapters committee
compiled that information and surveyed for about 110 chapters under
Dave Newill. However, club and chapter leadership changes every year
or two. The committee also used the WTF contact info to try and have
chapters complete some online information updates. We eventually got
about forty inputs out of 140 clubs and chapters, yet it remained time
intensive. This year the SSA office included a request for chapter
leadership functions in the chapter renewal process. Response has
been very good, thank you very much. Doug Easton has recently
provided the committee with a leadership view which will help us
communicate better with chapters.

Statistics and data collection is part of that digital media
experience that I've included within my draft proposal for formation
of an SSA Digital Media Working Group. This group will hopefully
examine, propose, and implement actions to leverage audio, video,
imagery, web techniques, social networking, webinars, mentoring, and
story boarding to place some strategic on-target, on-message links to
our sport and organizations. Internal data collection and
introspection is part of the mix. Annually I submit an input to the
world gliding report, but it's very limited due to the lack of
resources available.

As John Seaborn mentions, this will take some aggressive and committed
volunteers. I agree. We have significant individual talent and
effort out there. If we could get those individual to put ten or
twenty percent of that effort into a focused package of strategies
with a national, regional, and local emphasis, we'd move forward
rapidly. Without that framework, I think hiring national marketing
expertise would not give us the results hoped for. We need the
resources first. Yesterday, while sorting through some Soaring
magazines with a soaring friend, he mentioned that the SSA staffed a
marketing expert in the late 1970's. Before my time as an SSA member
(1980), so perhaps someone else can give us a history lesson on Sunny
Vesgo, "The Sunny Side" column, and the eventual outcomes. I'm told
there was much dis-satisfaction at the end of the day.

As far as what may work, see my committee post on the SSA web site
today on Leveraging the SSA FAST and SSA Introductory Membership for
chapter growth.

Frank Whiteley

So how to we turn these good ideas into tangible action at a national
level? What is the mechanism by which new initiatives are taken up by
the SSA? Who ya gonna call? As a start, I will pledge $100 to any
fund earmarked for gathering some of these statistics and creating an
action plan. I want to save my sport from extinction. Anyone else?

On Nov 24, 10:33*am, MickiMinner wrote:
I think all of the above posters have the right idea...the concept is
to "grow" the sport,
but nobody has any grasp of what the numbers are of active glider
pilots,
instructor pilots, new rides, FAST offers, Calls to local glider
ports,
rate of activity.

I do believe that statistics, numbers need to be compiled.
We can't figure out if we need pull marketing, viral marketing,
publicity campaigns, and any other types of publicity until we know
what we are pushing for!
One Example of what we need to know:
Do we want to approach pilots with power tickets? *Do we have better
success with youth? or better success at converting the power pilot,
or do we have a better success rate with the person that calls for a
"joy ride".

Omri has a a great idea that an individual giving the ride should have
the passion and personality to address the needs of the person
enquiring and taking a test ride.

the bottom line for me, is that we need to compile some data. *Regular
surveys of the clubs, or reporting of how many calls/rides/instruction
requests/new members. *Can't market what you don't know.
just my 2cents
Micki

Miki, I absolutely agree accurate, current statistics are needed. The
first thing I did was to conduct a survey by calling and e-mailing all
the organizations listed with the SSA. That's where the numbers in my
earlier post came from. The responses weren't universal but there was
enough to extrapolate the rest with pretty good accuracy. It would
really help if soaring organizations kept their data on the "Where to
Fly" list up to date.

What jumped out was our aggregate annual training capacity doesn't
exceed 2000/year and may be as low as 1000. At any given time only
about 300 - 400 new students can be accepted - that's with business as
usual.

Commercial operations generally fly any day the weather is flyable
with northern operations putting in about 180 days a year and southern
operators about 300 days a year with limited opportunity increase that
number.

Clubs tend to only operate on fair weather weekends which averages out
to less than 60 days a year. The big opportunity to expand the
training capacity without adding equipment is for clubs to stage
training camps that run 14 days straight. Some clubs do several of
these camps a year.

I could only find 179 tow planes but I'll allow that I might have
missed a few which is why I said 200 tugs. Winches can increase our
"uphill capacity" significantly and are well suited for training.

We actually have plenty of instructors but a lot of them aren't really
active instructors. The SSA might bring some back to active status by
organizing a group instructor liability policy. I think it would also
help if more attractive training gliders were available. (Some of us
old guys are too creaky to fold ourselves into the back seat of a 2-33
or L-13.)

Frank-
Sometimes I think that many SSA members don't know the tools developed
and thus already have in hand!

"Sales" is a hurtle race requiring a sequence of activities to flow
adequately well...Awareness (GMA, Disney, all activities NOT at the
airport), trial Interest (FAST, positve experience via a rides,
convienence, fun website, airshow booths), Qualifiying (safety/
finances/rank against alternatives), Closing ("the ask" to join,
friendly faces, SSA Intro program), and maintaining involvement (SSA
badges, club activities, secondary benefits, clean WC facilities).
Stumble on one of these hurtles or misdiagnois the problem and the
whole process is certainly less efficent. Every organization is
different and thus has different areas to focus on, often fixing one
problem in the waterfall creates a pooling in the next level (aka "The
problem I want to have"). That is why we have so many solutions
because at the field level we who run soaring organizations actually
have many different marketing problems. That's why the solutions can
seem so complicated...it is a complex problem.

Frank W, Dave N, Val P have created many great tools to grow soaring.
The improved SSA Growbook is online...when was the last time you
looked at that? It's all there. It's hard to be "viral" without a
compelling club website, being "social" takes a team of individuals
working in concert..OK make it happen, the whole SSA website is a
media section. Quit wishing and start moving. You have everyones
permission you need. Ask yourself if you could change just one or two
things to grow soaring at your local soaring site, what would they
be? We don't lack solutions, IMHO many lack initiative.

Now ducking behind the soapbox to avoid the tomatoes....

LT

PS- A big congrats to Tucson Soaring for doing something "the first
time"! THAT IS THE BEST THING I HAVE READ IN THIS THREAD. We need
everyone to do something more, different, or "the first time". The
answers are all around us, each local organization just needs to (re)
assemble them. This should be the primary subject for discussion
around the grog bowl at every end of year soaring gathering. Have an
"improved club marketing membership plan" for 2010.

NOTE: OCSA used to have a growing soaring club...now OCSA's problem is
completely different. I'm learning again, see:
http://groups.google.com/group/save-...et-today?hl=en






As far as what may work, see my committee post on the SSA web site
today on Leveraging the SSA FAST and SSA Introductory Membership for
chapter growth.

Frank Whiteley- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I was one of the volunteers at the recent Tucson Soaring Club Open
House and the response from the public was just amazing. We gave over
120 guest rides in two days over the weekend (even managed a couple on
the Friday for folks who showed up early). I have never seen so many
continuous launches - two towplanes on the go intertwined with Roman's
winch. We also did another first - a dual aerotow (two gliders, one
towplane) for a demonstration aerobatics program.

Many people said the same thing - we didn't know that your club was
here or gliding was such a cool sport.

Since then, we have added five new members, two or three more than we
would typically expect. We currently have around 120 members and are
shooting for 150, a goal we expect to meet within the year.

Even better than adding new members, the Open House brought our
existing membership together and we had just a fantastic club weekend.

Pilots are invited to come and experience our wonderful club for
themselves - guest members are always welcome - or just sign up for
Region 9 South, which we are hosting next May.

We also aim to become the number one US cross-country site next year
(at least on OLC score)

Mike