Another YouTube video

Bill Daniels wrote:
If I read modern demographics right, something like 30% never marry and
raise children. A few of those should make good candidates. It's very
important to keep in mind that we are talking about less than 1% of the
general population. In that light, generalizations always fail. We recruit
one-by-one. In our sport, mass marketing is an oxymoron.
Now there is the truth and challenge of it Bill.
Mass marketing to such a bunch of misanthropic mavericks is indeed a
contradictory process.

Half the attraction for me is the solitude and self reliance and challenges
involved in taking a single seat glass slipper (OK mine is a little woolly from
age) and doing incredible things. All alone, no excuses, nobody else to blame.
Incredibly selfish.

Conversely,the other half of the attraction for me is the shared experience and
social part of a club operation. Making it work requires a strong sense of
community with the bunch of reprobates at the club.

One problem here is the increasingly commercial mindset. People simultaneously
complain of the cost of things, and insist on paying for instant gratification
rather than investing time and effort to obtain the same result without the
cost. It is the difference in mindset between enjoying the journey, and the
"are we there yet?" approach. If you can get people to see the value of and
pleasure to be had in the "journey" part of the sport they will stay. Even if
the day is not flyable, a day spent tinkering with the toys with like minded
people is more fun for me than most alternatives. But if you have the mindset
that the only purpose of this is the time spent in the air you are going to feel
he return is inadequate. Interestingly this appears to be learned behaviour - we
take 14/15 year olds and give them responsibilities and value the contribution
they make, and they develop a sense of pride and achievement. They start getting
a reward from contributing - which is noticeably absent from most of the 20
somethings we attract to intro flights.

It is not just age related, although age and gender magnify the differences. Any
time you get such a high concentration of individualists as opposed to the bland
masses who can't see the point, there are going to be some challenges.

So - to (eventually ) get to the point. It is not about mass marketing, it is
about finding the reward for the individual when he/she presents at the field.




However, I do agree that there is a 'critical mass' for attracting women and
youth. I'm sure being the only one present is uncomfortable

Bill Daniels


"Dan G" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, Papa3 wrote:
Anyone who spends any time on "marketing" will tell you that step 1 is
to carefully segment your market. Having done that, you then figure
out what appeals to each of your segments and market appropriately.
In our case, it's pretty clear that we can/should have many target
markets. What works for the under 25 set may not and probably will
not appeal to the 50 and over set.
You can "target" some products, but only if you can tailor the product
to the market. If you can't you start selling a perception, rather
than a reality, which leads to rapid turn-over in members (to keep the
discussion to gliding).

I'm 26, and I fly in a club that happens to have a lot of younger
members, and several women too, so have a good idea of what I'm
talking about, because I'm talking about my friends and myself. There
is a high turnover in the young members in the club - only a *very*
few young people will stick with gliding through their career
advancement and starting a family. Older members have no such
limitations, and typically stacks of cash they're having trouble
spending now their children have flown the nest.

The few young people who stick with gliding for any length of time
almost always receive a lot of money from their parents, one of whom
is usually already a glider pilot. There are not many people in that
category, so it's not worth "targetting" that "market".

(Rock climbing, which is "another extreme outdoor sport" and one that
has a "young" image, is something I used to to, and I reckon that cost
me about 10% of what gliding has for the same period of time. I've
managed to stick with gliding because our club is very cheap, but as a
result has poor facilities, and it's only through drive and
stubborness that I've managed to progress at all. Many of my peers
give up and leave.)

Marketing is almost a side-show; most clubs get plenty of trial flight
customers. Turning them into pilots who stay in the sport for years is
the challenge.

If gliding clubs are interested in expansion there are lots of things
they can do. If you want to know what, the GFA have literally written
the book:

http://www.gfa.org.au/development/guide.php

Download the draft guide from the third box on the right. (There's
also the SSA Growbook, of course, which has lots of good stuff in it
too.)

Clubs have two options: follow the advice of the GFA and SSA and grow,
ignore it and shrink. As the IGC president said earlier this year,
glider pilots will place all the obstacles in the world before
themselves before they'll actually do anything, so I don't expect to
see any clubs following that guide (someone prove me wrong).


Dan