I have spent many years marketing flight training, with varying results. This week I got a pleasant surprise. WNC Aviation, Asheville, NC, (hereinafter called WNC, which, BTW, stands for Western North Carolina) is actually selling flight instruction with what is to me a new and unique marketing tool in the aviation industry.
Groupon, as many of you know, is an online company that distributes coupons across the nation and—so far—in 44 other countries around the world. They send me notices of such deals for my area every day, and I read them to see if there’s a bargain that I want or need. This week, to my amazement, there was a coupon deal from WNC. The coupon provided an hour of simulator training for half price.
Let me tell you about this coupon…
This is not a coupon that you clip out and take to the flight school so they can sell you the simulator time themselves. No siree! The coupon is sold to the student by Groupon in advance, online. The school doesn’t have to sell it to you. Lawd, y’all, this totally eliminates one of the big problems of past marketing programs for flight training. The coupon is already sold and the money collected. You do not have to teach CFIs to sell. Most CFIs—not all, but most—do not want to sell.
Groupon, on the other hand, is good at selling.
The coupon ad has a picture of student and instructor in a sim. The student was female, thus including a much wider group of prospects. (Men aren’t discouraged by women in ads, but some women are discouraged—and sometimes even resentful—if an ad seems to be for men only.)
The ad for the coupon gave the details and warned that the deal was available for only—in this case—two more days, 13 hours and so many minutes from right now, so you’d better act quickly.
I immediately called WNC and talked with Chief Flight Instructor David Shields. He told me that this coupon has already sold 120 hours in the sim. He said they ran one last spring that sold 240 introductory flight lessons, and they will run another such coupon again this year.
Folks, if you’ve ever tried to sell flight instruction, you will be impressed—if not downright amazed—by these numbers.
I’m even more impressed that this flight school is thinking outside the box and trying new ideas. My hat’s off to WNC Aviation.
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