Sport Aviation Marketing

BE A PILOT — huge success and big opportunity

Aero-news.net recently published a story about the success of the BE A PILOT program. The story included some very interesting statistics. Specifically, the program’s television campaign resulted in 21,300 new prospects, which exceeded the annual goal of the program. Congratulations to BE A PILOT!

This success was achieved at an acquisition cost of $30.05 each. Now that the Internet is a well-established marketing medium, could the acquisition cost be lowered leveraging online tactics?

Let’s say a Google AdWords campaign drives traffic to the www.beapilot.com website at a cost of $0.10 per click. A $500,000 buy would result in 5 million visitors to the site. If the site were compelling enough to generate just a 2% conversion rate, it would result in 100,000 new prospects. Nearly 5 times more than the television campaign for a lower spend!

Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. The scenario above is using conservative numbers. The Google AdWords keyword phrase “learn to fly” is currently selling for just $0.04 per click - not $0.10. By investing in an optimized website the conversion rate could easily rise above the industry standard to 4% or higher. At these rates, the media cost per acquisition cost would lower to just $1.00. Assuming keyword prices will rise dramatically over the coming months, and factoring in the creation and management of the program, the cost would still be nearly 70% cheaper than a traditional offline campaign. That’s big money!

The last 12 months has witnessed a dramatic shift away from television advertising in favor online marketing programs because of scenarios exactly like this. Television is a mass medium and, as a result, is inherently inefficient. Online advertising programs allow specific niche audiences to be reached much more effectively. The BE A PILOT program, and the sport aviation industry in general, would benefit greatly by adopting some of these new online strategies.

[tags]BE A PILOT, Cost per Acquisition, Online Marketing, Online Lead Generation, Google Adwords, Aviation Marketing, Aero-News[/tags]

2 comments December 14th, 2005

three big stories, three missed opportunities

Continuing the theme from the last post regarding online integration with press releases…

Over the last few weeks there have been several newly certified SLSA aircraft. The field is growing fast and competition continues to grow. Organizations like EAA and authors like Dan Johnson continue to get the news out there. The strange thing is, the manufacturers themselves don’t seem to take an interest in their accomplishments.

The FAA just certified the Parrot by Czech Aircraft Works. However, the most recent press release on their website is from August, 2005.

The FK-9 by FK Lightplanes just received it’s SLSA approval. However, the most recent release on their site is from April, 2005.

The trend even continues with RANS, which is fairly good about keeping their website updated. The RANS website does contain recent news but nothing about the newly certified S-7SL.

Big news such as this will drive traffic to the manufacturers website. There is incredible value in delivering a consistent message through PR efforts as well as other offline and online marketing efforts. Hopefully the manufacturers of these three fine aircraft took the time to celebrate their recent successes. But, they should have first taken the time to add the press release to their website.

[tags]SLSA, Sport Aircraft, Czech Aircraft Works, FK Lightplanes, RANS, EAA, PR, Online Marketing, Aviation Marketing[/tags]

Add comment December 1st, 2005