Stuart & Kerri FERGUSON wrote:
You make some interesting observations, BUT you have retained the
theme of how do we recruit new members - my point is how we stop loosing
the ones we do recruit?
I believe that part of the reason we don't retain the ones we recruit
is because we recruit badly.
We promote the view that gliding is for everyone, when it clearly isn't.
There are people out there who have always wanted to fly, for whom it
is such a compelling dream that they'll put up with all kinds of bullshit
as long as they can get airborne. I'm one of those. I bet you're one
too. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that virtually everyone who has been a GFA
member for more than five years is one of them.
We love this stuff. We're passionate about it. We eat, sleep, live and
breathe gliding.
By promoting the view that gliding is for everyone, we end up with the
following progression:
* 100 AEFs...
* ... which yield 10 "repeat" customers...
* ... which yield 2 pilots getting to solo standard...
* ... which yields one pilot who sticks with it for more than a year
after solo.
As a success rate, it's pretty dismal.
What we should be doing is honing our message so that it appeals to
the fraction of one percent of the population who really, truly,
desperately want to fly. People who will be as passionate about it
as we are.
Then we'll do 100 AEFs, which will end up with 90 of them being "hooked",
which will end up with 80 of them going solo, and 50 of them sticking
with it afterwards. Much better return on investment.
Now, in all of my writings I've been fairly definite about the fact
that there are things the GFA is good at and other things that it
just isn't set up to do.
What I think the GFA *is* in a position to do is to use some of its
cash reserve to retain a professional marketing company to perform
sufficient market research to work out how to identify the
fraction-of-one-percent of pilots we'll be able to successfully "sell"
ourselves to. Once we know how to get our message out to those people,
growth in the sport will be a lot easier than what we're doing at
the moment.
The only marketing approach we can take at the moment is scattergun,
random, misdirected. Which neatly explains our somewhat variable results.
Given that we don't actually have any clear idea about what we're doing,
the fact that we're not very good at it shouldn't come as any great
surprise.
- mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
