Sport Aviation Marketing

sport pilot television

If the following characteristics describe your typical customer then this press release from Sport Pilot Television should be received with great interest:

• Male
• College Educated
• High Disposable Household Income
• Travel and Adventure Enthusiast
• Outdoor and Sports Minded
• Homeowner with vacation home and/or large plot of land

Right now it looks like Cirrus is the primary aircraft manufacturer sponsoring the show. With the reach of Sport Pilot TV expanding to 40 million homes it sure seems like a good time for others in the aviation industry to leverage the opportunity.

I haven’t had a chance to see the show but my hope, as a Time Warner customer, is that my house will be included in the expanded coverage.

[tags]Aviation Marketing, Cirrus, General Aviation, Light Sport Aircraft, Marketing Promotions, Sport Pilot[/tags]

Add comment March 18th, 2006

aero-news interview regarding lsa marketing

Last week I had the opportunity to discuss the state of the light sport aircraft market with Aero-News.Net Editor-in-Chief Jim Campbell. He recorded our conversation and published it as a Featured Aero-Cast (Podcast). As Jim summarized,

“Today, Coffey suggests to ANN’s Jim Campbell that Sport Aviation may be a little too introspective, catering to too narrow a field of potential buyers. Maybe, even a little… ingrown. Again, however, Coffey offers several suggestions on what can be done differently.”

Listen to the full Aero-Cast.

Thanks to Jim for giving me the opportunity to express a few opinions to such a large audience. I hope we can do it again sometime!

[tags]Aviation Marketing, Light Sport Aircraft, Marketing Promotions, Online Marketing, SLSA, Sport Pilot[/tags]

Add comment March 17th, 2006

general aviation marketability thesis

Last fall a Florida State University undergrad named Milota K. Srkal published a thesis titled The Marketability of New Rules and Technologies in General Aviation.

The author himself points out that the paper is lacking for several reasons, including a limited sample size. However, he also notes that no one has ever done a similar analysis. With that in mind, it is certainly worth a quick read if you are marketing an airplane.

Here are a couple of highlights:

1. As the respondents got older, they would not be willing to pay a premium for the Whole Airplane Recovery System and the availability of this technology in a new aircraft would not make a difference with their decision making process for a purchase. (page 51)

2. The more knowledge that pilots generally have about [Glass Cockpit] technologies, the more they feel that Glass Cockpits greatly increase the safety of an aircraft, and they would be willing to pay a premium to purchase this technology. (page 52)

So what to do with this information? Whether your plane has a parachute or not, you can leverage it as a benefit with specific age demographics. Also, don’t rely on avionics manufacturers to promote the features of their products. If you’re using them in your plane, educate your potential customers accordingly.

Thanks to Milota for doing the research. If you ever update it, please let us know!

[tags]General Aviation, Aviation Marketing, Online Marketing, Light Sport Aircraft, SLSA, Sport Pilot[/tags]

Add comment February 16th, 2006

general aviation’s blue ocean strategy

One of last year’s hottest business books was Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Leaders in the general aviation industry would be wise to order a copy. According to the authors, “red oceans” are crowded with competitors while “blue oceans” represent untapped market space with the opportunity for highly profitable growth. Among the strategies for leveraging “blue oceans” are the following:

1. DO NOT compete in existing market space. INSTEAD you should create uncontested market space.
2. DO NOT beat the competition. INSTEAD you should make the competition irrelevant.
3. DO NOT exploit existing demand. INSTEAD you should create and capture new demand.

I’ve written about this previously but it is worthwhile enough, in my opinion, to repeat: Women represent a blue ocean for the aviation industry. Only 5.8% of today’s private pilots are female. What’s more shocking is that the percentage hasn’t changed in 15 years. What’s going on here? Does it have to be this way? Are only 5.8% of women really interested in flying? I think not.

Consider the field of medicine. in 1970 only 7.6% of physicians in the United States were female. By 2003 that had steadily climbed to 25.8%. This is still seems low but, unlike the aviation industry, there has been consistent progress. The aviation industry needs to adjust it’s methods for going to market to reach women more effectively.

If the aviation industry could achieve what the medical field has done it could result in over 100,000 new pilots. At first glance that seems to good to be true. However, I think we’ve all become too complacent with the with the glut that the industry has been in since it peaked at 827,000 pilots in 1980.

Broadening the base of female pilots could be the shot in the arm that the industry needs. There have been several instances in the history of aviation where the number of pilots has doubled or even tripled in under 10 years. We need to think big here - let’s make it happen again!

So which company will capture this blue ocean? Cirrus currently leads the industry in sales - can they capture the female demographic? The majority of today’s male pilots learned how to fly in a Cessna - are they capable of training a new segment of women pilots? The sport pilot rule lowers the price for entry - can Flight Design CT, CubCrafters, or one of the other LSA designs gain the market? It just takes a commitment from an industry leader willing to think outside the box.

Sources used for this post:
Women in Aviation, International
AOPA
American Medical Association

[tags]General Aviation, Women in Aviation, Aviation Marketing, Marketing to Women, Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne, AOPA, Cirrus, Cessna, Flight Design[/tags]

Add comment January 14th, 2006

aopa and sport pilot

Over the last few days I’ve heard several people say that 2006 is the make or break year for sport pilot. I was surfing around recently and ended up on the AOPA site dedicated to sport pilot. It hasn’t been updated in nearly seven months. This is significant considering the thoroughness of the AOPA web communications. Does this mean AOPA believes sport pilot will break?

[tags]AOPA, Sport Pilot, Light Sport Aircraft[/tags]

Add comment January 14th, 2006