Aviation Marketing Solutions

We know that the learning process in a flight school is all about getting the experience from actually doing what’s supposed to be done: Fly. However, this fact does not necessarily mean taking off on an airplane but through a Flight School Simulator, which becomes a safer and financially wiser option nowadays. We had a talk with Brittney Miculka from RedBird, a company dedicated to the technology of flight school simulator, and she shared with all of us some insights on how a sim can help you and your flight school business.

Let’s start with an exercise that may not seem to have anything to do with flight school. Just imagine for a second that you’re at a farm, getting along with the countryside and enjoying all the beautiful things it has to offer. You get to the grasslands where all the cows are eating but, suddenly, there’s this kinda different cow that calls your attention. You get closer and closer and once you’re right in front of it, you see this cow is purple. A special and unique purple cow. During a TED Talk, Seth Godin told a similar story with the intent of teaching that in this hyperconnected and flooded with media advertisements, you have to be remarkably special to attract people and make them interested in what you are and what you do. Related article: How to Attract More Qualified Students So, is your flight school a purple cow? And, if it isn’t, what to do to make it one?

You have been told that the flight school business plan needs to be a long document. You imagine yourself writing pages and pages for several hours. If you have written a business plan before you know that this is not a pleasant task and, after you work for hours in it, you get proud for your accomplishment. However, when you get in front of investors, partners or bankers they just want to read a summary or view a presentation deck instead of reading your 200 pages plan.

The way people search for information in the moment of considering a purchase makes the companies to look for better ways to address their needs and meet them halfway. For flight schools this is more latent and previous ways used to qualify the prospect students are not enough anymore, which requires from them new approaches to achieve their goals.

Your flight school marketing recruitment process is one of the biggest drivers in growing or scaling your flight school. It is an active process of going out meeting students in career fairs or create events to attract potential pilots and explore a career in the aviation industry. However, it takes a lot of time and at some point you realize it is a good idea to look for help.

The internet has transformed many industries and flight training is not the exception. Today people are empowered with technology using smartphones, tablets and computer to conduct research before any major purchase. So, how potential student pilots are looking for a flight school?

The very first people that get in touch with a potential student is your school’s admissions team and, besides all the efforts that should be made nowadays online to meet halfway the target audience, they are key in causing a great impression and finish the job of the marketing strategy, whose ultimate goal is enroll more good prospects to your flight school.

The reason I decided to write this blog post is to explain you how the student journey has changed in the last decade. As I mentioned in the video, consumers are taking more educated decisions and flight training is not the exception. 5:44 5:44 Facebook Twitter Embed Speed 1x 0.5x 1x 1.5x 2x Quality Auto Auto 224p 360p 540p Hi! We're Wistia. We provide business video hosting to attract, engage, and delight Learn More About Wistia Report a problem 4:56 Thanks for reporting a problem. We'll attach technical data about this session to help us figure out the issue. Which of these best describes the problem? Choose one Video plays but frequently stutters Video has poor quality Video fails to play Other Any other details or context? Cancel Send message

There is a real warning in the area of Flight Schools, and that is the enormous amount of flight schools that are severely understaffed. This means that the staff members responsible for marketing activities usually are students with very little or no marketing knowledge at all. Additionally, most of them don’t care about marketing because they will be moving soon to other careers in the flight business area.

Running a flight school is a time consuming job between maintenance, regulations, instructors, admissions, finance, insurance and students just to mention a few. You probably feel drowning in all your to-do list, emails and paperwork. Also, on top of all those activities your recruitment and admissions are your priority number one. For your mental health and to be more productive in your position having the admission and marketing in autopilot it will be beneficial for you and your organization.