Where to advertise a flying club?

[Dan]

All,

We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?
(already tried flyers at the airport) Does anyone know where I can
purchase a mailing list of all pilots with a current medical in a
certain geographic area? Maybe sending postcards would get us
somewhere.

If anyone's interested, we are based at Chandler and Deer Valley - 2
Archers, 1 Commanche, and we will soon replace our Arrow with a 1998 or
newer 182. All planes have GNS 430s. All members are equity owners -
basically a large non-profit partnership, 54 slots. We've actually had
declining membership because many members are buying their own
aircraft.

www.phoenixflyers.org

--Dan

[Paul Tomblin]

In a previous article, "Dan" > said:
>We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
>and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?
>(already tried flyers at the airport) Does anyone know where I can
>purchase a mailing list of all pilots with a current medical in a
>certain geographic area? Maybe sending postcards would get us
>somewhere.

Our flying club does that. We buy the list from the FAA.

But don't just send postcards, have an "open house" where people can come
and see the planes, and advertise that on the post cards. That and having
a web site that is well indexed and appears pretty prominently when people
search for flying related keywords in your geographic area are probably
our top recruiting tools.

http://www.rochesterflyingclub.com/

And by the way, we don't get high search rankings by putting in keywords
fields or using one of those spammy "increase your search rankings"
companies. I did it by two things:
- I made sure the first page has a clear and succinct discription of who
we are and where we're located.
- I got us listed on the list of flying clubs on the Yahoo web directory
and landings.com, (and quickly found that there are dozens of other web
sites with listings of flying clubs, but they all seem to plagarize from
one of those two).

--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
It's possible there had been armed autonomous droids at some point in
the past, and one can almost imagine past issues of that galaxy's Risks
Digest. -- Anthony DeBoer, on SW: TPM

[Ron Wanttaja]

On 24 Jun 2006 22:18:16 -0700, "Dan" > wrote:

> All,
>
> We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
> and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?
> (already tried flyers at the airport) Does anyone know where I can
> purchase a mailing list of all pilots with a current medical in a
> certain geographic area? Maybe sending postcards would get us
> somewhere.

You can download the FAA pilot registration database for free:

http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certification/releasable_airmen_download/

You can then sort by zip code or state to narrow down to the area you want.

Ron Wanttaja

[Steve Foley]

"Paul Tomblin" > wrote in message
...

>and quickly found that there are dozens of other web sites with listings of
flying clubs, but they all seem to plagarize

Just remember to always call it 'research'

[Dave Butler]

Dan wrote:

> We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
> and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?

Clasified ads in your local newspaper, under "aircraft for sale" or similar
classification.

[john smith]

> > We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
> > and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?

> Clasified ads in your local newspaper, under "aircraft for sale" or similar
> classification.

Do you realize how few people subscribe, let alone read, a local
newspaper?

[Dave Butler]

john smith wrote:
>>>We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
>>>and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?
>
>
>>Clasified ads in your local newspaper, under "aircraft for sale" or similar
>>classification.
>
>
> Do you realize how few people subscribe, let alone read, a local
> newspaper?

No. How few?

[john smith]

In article <1151341047.200100@sj-nntpcache-5>, Dave Butler >
wrote:

> john smith wrote:
> >>>We are trying to increase membership in our Phoenix-area flying club
> >>>and was wondering if anyone had ideas of where we should advetise?
> >
> >
> >>Clasified ads in your local newspaper, under "aircraft for sale" or similar
> >>classification.
> >
> >
> > Do you realize how few people subscribe, let alone read, a local
> > newspaper?
>
> No. How few?

Call your local newspaper and ask them about circulation numbers for the
last ten years. Then ask them what they were 30 and 40 years ago.

[Dave Butler]

> Call your local newspaper and ask them about circulation numbers for the
> last ten years. Then ask them what they were 30 and 40 years ago.

Thanks for the advice, but I have better uses for my time. I didn't see what
advertising medium you recommended to Dan(?).

[Frank Stutzman]

Dave Butler > wrote:
>> Call your local newspaper and ask them about circulation numbers for the
>> last ten years. Then ask them what they were 30 and 40 years ago.
>
> Thanks for the advice, but I have better uses for my time. I didn't see what
> advertising medium you recommended to Dan(?).

For what its worth, my tiny local hometown paper claims a circulation of
2,700. Pretty good for a town that in the 2000 census only had a
population of about 2,200.

However, were I in this situation I wouldn't avertise in my local paper.
I already KNOW everyone who might be interested.


--
Frank Stutzman
Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
Hood River, OR

[john smith]

In article >,
Frank Stutzman > wrote:

> Dave Butler > wrote:
> >> Call your local newspaper and ask them about circulation numbers for the
> >> last ten years. Then ask them what they were 30 and 40 years ago.
> >
> > Thanks for the advice, but I have better uses for my time. I didn't see
> > what
> > advertising medium you recommended to Dan(?).
>
> For what its worth, my tiny local hometown paper claims a circulation of
> 2,700. Pretty good for a town that in the 2000 census only had a
> population of about 2,200.
>
> However, were I in this situation I wouldn't avertise in my local paper.
> I already KNOW everyone who might be interested.

Frank, your situation may be a little different.
You are in a largely rural area. The local paper is probably the
cheapest and best distribution source.
How well is your area wired for broadband, btw?

[Frank Stutzman]

john smith > wrote:

>> For what its worth, my tiny local hometown paper claims a circulation of
>> 2,700. Pretty good for a town that in the 2000 census only had a
>> population of about 2,200.

> Frank, your situation may be a little different.

Oh, it probably is. And I like it that way ;-)

> You are in a largely rural area. The local paper is probably the
> cheapest and best distribution source.

Dunno about that. We are quite rural, but with a large population center
(Portland) less than an hour away.

> How well is your area wired for broadband, btw?

Fair. I've got wired DSL at home. There's cable internet available in
many areas. The local ISP has done a good job with providing wireless
broadband. I daresay high speed internet of some form or another is
available to anyone who wants to pay for it. The fact of the matter is
that it is not generally a high tech area and people just like to get
their news the old fashion way.



--
Frank Stutzman
Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
Hood River, OR

[Dan]

I was considering listing us in Airnav.com at the fields we operate
from.

How many of you use that site?

--Dan


Frank Stutzman wrote:
> john smith > wrote:
>
> >> For what its worth, my tiny local hometown paper claims a circulation of
> >> 2,700. Pretty good for a town that in the 2000 census only had a
> >> population of about 2,200.
>
> > Frank, your situation may be a little different.
>
> Oh, it probably is. And I like it that way ;-)
>
> > You are in a largely rural area. The local paper is probably the
> > cheapest and best distribution source.
>
> Dunno about that. We are quite rural, but with a large population center
> (Portland) less than an hour away.
>
> > How well is your area wired for broadband, btw?
>
> Fair. I've got wired DSL at home. There's cable internet available in
> many areas. The local ISP has done a good job with providing wireless
> broadband. I daresay high speed internet of some form or another is
> available to anyone who wants to pay for it. The fact of the matter is
> that it is not generally a high tech area and people just like to get
> their news the old fashion way.
>
>
>
> --
> Frank Stutzman
> Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
> Hood River, OR

[Paul Tomblin]

In a previous article, "Dan" > said:
>I was considering listing us in Airnav.com at the fields we operate
>from.
>
>How many of you use that site?

Back when listing was free, we were listed on there, but I rarely saw it
in the referrer logs for my web site. It certainly never generated any
real leads.


--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"This also tells they understand our language. They are just not willing to
speak to us using it." "Who knew they were French?" - Babylon 5

[Bob Fry]

>>>>> "PT" == Paul Tomblin > writes:
PT> Our flying club does that. We buy the list from the FAA.

Isn't this information free? Download the ascii file from the FAA,
upload into an RDB (Access is convenient), set up filters to limit to
certain zip codes, and print addresses.