Promote your glider operation

On Nov 23, 9:29*am, HoUdino wrote:
On Nov 22, 2:32*pm, John Seaborn wrote:

Great Public Relations and well done! Have a Coke...

Why Coke? Because they are masters at the pull type of marketing
strategy that should be employed to promote our lovely sport.
The path we are on is not working, the problem is not insolvable, the
resources are not beyond reach. Encourage your SSA Director to start
down the path of a paid Marketing Communications professional who can
help craft a viable pull strategy using the people, resources and
assets we already have. We already have a very beautiful and
interesting product.

John Seaborn

John-
I note that Tom encourages clubs and FBOs to attempt this sort of
marketing. *His example does not recommend anything from the SSA.

While I am in favor of the SSA spending more resources on marketing, I
would caution against your "pull strategy" via another cost center in
Hobbs. * The Coke "pull strategy" involves mass marketing with
millions of dollars employed vs ours is an underfunded niche sport in
competion with every other niche sport. *While a national "clearing
house" and more defined "marketing strategy" would be beneficial, the
effort will have to be on leveraging local resources...the GMA spot
shows what a small determined group (with some self-interest) can do
to promote the uniqueness of our sport for all. One needs to avoid
building up an expectation that the Hobbs cavalry will someday arrive
in the nick of time to fix the marketing of soaring...that is the
stategy that has not worked. *The concept of building a "tool box" for
local promoters to access is a strategy more along the lines of what
our marketplace positioning and resources can handle...the tool box is
almost complete, it only needs more awareness. Tom's sharing of the
story via RAS is part of that "tool box".

If one could make one "national" recommendation at this time, the cost
of a marketing person should rather be used to fund advertising of a
"third gen" FAST program...that is the missing "next step" in your
pull strategy...and one that would support local efforts across the
entire USA. This limited goal could be accomplished by a volunteer
effort with minor Hobbs staff support. A second recommendation is we
should formally recognize those who successfully market soaring with a
much higher priority and positioning within our soaring culture than
we do today...that could help activate the talent that we have
already...a recognition process that the COBM committee should take
on. Third, if we are so gung ho on hiring another body, would be to
contract (not hire) an outside sports marketing consultant to write a
formal national marketing plan after surveying past efforts/plans,
successful clubs and FBOs, and our competitor niche sports...the
results of that effort would then define who we need to hire/next
steps.

Just 2 cents,

LT

BTW, 'LT' is one of the best local promoters of soaring in the country
as the Orange County Soaring Association will attest.

I've been studying growth options for a year now. There are many
good ideas but few actions. I think step one is to get a good handle
on just what we can and want to accomplish. Here are a few results of
surveys.

Without changes, we have the capacity of training about 1300 new
glider pilots a year. By operating weekdays and bringing instructors
out of retirement, we might push that to 2000. There are less than
200 tow planes in the US and only about 400 training gliders - most of
them old 2-33's and L-13's. There are about 600 glider instructors
who consider themselves somewhat "active" but of those, 15 -20% do 80%
of the actual instruction. Many clubs only operate 55 days a year.
It takes a while to develop good instructors and new training gliders
come from Europe with big price tags and long waits.

I know many will say "bring it on - we'll find a way". However, there
is no obvious, short term way to increase our 'new-start' training
capacity beyond 2000/year.

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.

Meanwhile, from just observing, I'd guess we collectively chase 1300
potential new soaring pilots away every year by just not talking to
them when they visit our soaring sites.

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. Make sure there is an easy way
for them to learn about soaring and an attractive route for them to
become glider pilots. "Easy and attractive" means easy access to
information about soaring, better ride conversion rates as well as a
better, more hospitable training environment.

What could the SSA (meaning SSA volunteers like you and me) do? I'd
also like to see a much stronger presence on 'social media'. See:
(http://nonprofit.about.com/od/online...erstwitter.htm) I'd like
to see more bloggers writing about soaring. See: http://blog.aopa.org/letsgoflying/

I'd like to see more interactive on-line training, and on-line FAA
written tests on the SSA web site. I'd like to see every soaring
operation have a formal program to greet visitors and make sure all
their questions are answered.

It's a small thing but there will shortly be inexpensive sheets of SSA
business cards available for members to buy. You'll have to print
your own contact information on them with a ink jet or laser printer
and cut them from the sheet. They'll have the SSA logo and web site
URL plus room for us to add our personal and club contact
information. Just hand these to people you talk to about soaring - it
should lead them to find out more about us.

Bill Daniels
Chairman, SSA Growth and Development Committee

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

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.