Promote your glider operation

Glider clubs and commercial operators can contact their local TV
stations and newspapers and give them the following link. Suggest they
are invited to visit your operation where you will give them a free
flight. The media is hungry for human interest stories, so it is very
easy to get outstanding publicity.

In our case, we suggested they make it a first flying lesson. Send
them a copy of Glider Basics From First Flight To Solo (of course) and
tell them to be prepared to take the first written test (Controls and
their functions from The Glider Flight Instructor's Manual.)

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/en...ory?id=9145409

Tom Knauff

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
national organization should be the one doing this top level marketing
essentially using the media to pull people into the club and soaring
FBO system. A solid pull strategy, implemented by a paid marketing
communications professional, in concert with the hard working
volunteers, with a real but achievable budget, implemented over a five
year program would go along way towards progress in our numbers.

A pull strategy puts the SSA in charge of actually marketing the sport
on a national basis. In Tom's wonderful scenario the SSA MarCom person
would be pursuing the GMA sports segment with media kits and
opportunities just like the rest of the world does right now. The link
between building national interest and actually going for that first
local flight is key. People can be enticed to try the sport nationally
but they stay in the sport on the local club and FBO level.

An example? What if the SSA had a linked promotion and flight locator
tie in with the GMA segment so it would be easy to translate interest
into action.

The World Gliding Championships are coming to the USA in a few years.
Now there is a news worthy item to promote the sport around. Been to
the movies lately? You know those incessant ads at the beginning of
the movie? How about a 15-20 second dramatic soaring trailer ending in
a special offer to try soaring? This achievable and targeted media buy
would pull people into the world of soaring at the local Club and FBO
level. In a pull strategy the SSA as the national organization is
working to get em in the door while our FBO and clubs would be working
to keep em in the cockpit locally.

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

On Nov 22, 3:32*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
national organization should be the one doing this top level marketing
essentially using the media to pull people into the club and soaring
FBO system. A solid pull strategy, implemented by a paid *marketing
communications professional, in concert with the hard working
volunteers, with a real but achievable budget, implemented over a five
year program would go along way towards progress in our numbers.

A pull strategy puts the SSA in charge of actually marketing the sport
on a national basis. In Tom's wonderful scenario the SSA MarCom person
would be pursuing the GMA sports segment with media kits and
opportunities just like the rest of the world does right now. The link
between building national interest and actually going for that first
local flight is key. People can be enticed to try the sport nationally
but they stay in the sport on the local club and FBO level.

An example? What if the SSA had a linked promotion and flight locator
tie in with the GMA segment so it would be easy to translate interest
into action.

The World Gliding Championships are coming to the USA in a few years.
Now there is a news worthy item to promote the sport around. Been to
the movies lately? You know those incessant ads at the beginning of
the movie? How about a 15-20 second dramatic soaring trailer ending in
a special offer to try soaring? This achievable and targeted media buy
would pull people into the world of soaring at the local Club and FBO
level. In a pull strategy the SSA as the national organization is
working to get em in the door while our FBO and clubs would be working
to keep em in the cockpit locally.

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

We have a very beautiful and interesting product indeed!
This last weekend the Tucson Soaring Club held its first ever open
house. We offered half price guest rides, had a very nice program of
events, and ended up fully booked with 40 scheduled rides a day on the
Friday before the event. We had news coverage, including front page of
the local newspaper! On Sunday we were able to accommodate 67 guest
rides operating non-stop from 9am to 5pm. Estimates are over 300
attended to watch or take a ride. Plus our good friends from San Diego
brought over the Roman Winch and Super Blanik and gave rides to the
walk up guests.

We aimed this as an education of the public on soaring and also a
membership drive. So far, so good - we had 4 new members join up this
weekend! Our goal is to go from our current 110 to 150+ by the end of
2010.

And so far this is with volunteers - no one is paid, although lately
I'm feeling like it's a full time job....

Tony

On Nov 22, 9:01*pm, TS1 wrote:
On Nov 22, 3:32*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
national organization should be the one doing this top level marketing
essentially using the media to pull people into the club and soaring
FBO system. A solid pull strategy, implemented by a paid *marketing
communications professional, in concert with the hard working
volunteers, with a real but achievable budget, implemented over a five
year program would go along way towards progress in our numbers.

A pull strategy puts the SSA in charge of actually marketing the sport
on a national basis. In Tom's wonderful scenario the SSA MarCom person
would be pursuing the GMA sports segment with media kits and
opportunities just like the rest of the world does right now. The link
between building national interest and actually going for that first
local flight is key. People can be enticed to try the sport nationally
but they stay in the sport on the local club and FBO level.

An example? What if the SSA had a linked promotion and flight locator
tie in with the GMA segment so it would be easy to translate interest
into action.

The World Gliding Championships are coming to the USA in a few years.
Now there is a news worthy item to promote the sport around. Been to
the movies lately? You know those incessant ads at the beginning of
the movie? How about a 15-20 second dramatic soaring trailer ending in
a special offer to try soaring? This achievable and targeted media buy
would pull people into the world of soaring at the local Club and FBO
level. In a pull strategy the SSA as the national organization is
working to get em in the door while our FBO and clubs would be working
to keep em in the cockpit locally.

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

We have a very beautiful and interesting product indeed!
This last weekend the Tucson Soaring Club held its first ever open
house. We offered half price guest rides, had a very nice program of
events, and ended up fully booked with 40 scheduled rides a day on the
Friday before the event. We had news coverage, including front page of
the local newspaper! On Sunday we were able to accommodate 67 guest
rides operating non-stop from 9am to 5pm. Estimates are over 300
attended to watch or take a ride. Plus our good friends from San Diego
brought over the Roman Winch and Super Blanik and gave rides to the
walk up guests.

We aimed this as an education of the public on soaring and also a
membership drive. So far, so good - we had 4 new members join up this
weekend! Our goal is to go from our current 110 to 150+ by the end of
2010.

And so far this is with volunteers - no one is paid, although lately
I'm feeling like it's a full time job....

Tony

Randy share the Intro member program info with you?

Frank Whiteley

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

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

Yeah, conversion is difficult from my experience. At least for short
term conversion, here's a couple of reasons why and how to address
them.

- Misconceptions about safety. I do my best to point out that a glider
is way safer than an airplane and why. I like saying the most
dangerous part of soaring is the drive to the gliderport.
- Misconceptions about price. Everybody who doesn't know anything
about soaring assumes this it's a rich man's sport. I point out that
tow costs are cheap, and with good conditions and well trained pilot
amounts to a whole afternoon's worth of fun. I also point out that my
Libelle is my most prized possession and only cost me around $15,000
and that a 1-26 is considerably cheaper. Oh and that maintenance costs
next to nothing. Soaring if done right, can be cheaper than other
hobbies such as golf or travel.
- Give rides for the customer, not for yourself. Find out about what
your passengers expectations are. Find out if your passenger wants a
smooth ride and if so avoid the thermals, point out local landmarks,
etc... If you passenger is an adrenaline junkie, pull a few loops.
Offer to let the passenger at the controls, and teach them the basics.
Also find out if your passenger has any flight knowledge or experience
(flight simulators count) and adjust accordingly. Thermalling sharply
with a newbie is a sure way to make them sick and ensure they wont
come back.
- Personality counts. Project your passion for the sport, its
contagious. Be friendly and humorous. Be professional enough to
instill confidence in your piloting skills, but not too stiff to suck
the fun out of the experience. Do your best to comfort those who are a
little nervous. Show interest in your passengers.

Happy Soaring,
Omri Kalinsky aka SL

Here is a practical suggestion:

SSA should provide a section on the site for the media. A press kit,
if you will. This would contain:

* Beautiful high resolution photographs of the sport, with permission
to publish (video as well?)
* Short FAQs geared towards the general public, including "myth
busters" like what happens when the wind dies?
* A section of short quotes that can be dropped into a piece, or
"sound bytes"
* Web tools and "Snippets" that can be imbedded in online articles or
web sites, like html logo with link to SSA "where to fly" or an applet
that lets you type in your zip code to find the closest place to fly.
* explanatory material and artwork for FastPass program
* contact information for media support
* links to recently published articles or events
* what else???

SSA has a "Publicity" section now, but it is targeted at it's members,
not the media. News outlets today are overwhelmed, understaffed, and
underfunded. We need to make it as easy as possible for the media to
produce compelling and accurate stories about our sport. It's
actually a very interesting topic! Every competent corporation does
this. We should too.

Matt

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