Texas flight school uses digital campaign to take off

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Advertiser: Flight Source, a flight school
Company: oaoa.com, in Odessa Texas, owned by Freedom Communications

Ad Director: Stacey Ream

Challenge:   Flight Source flight school wanted to market weekend adventure flights as well as develop a pool of new pilots in training. Customers had been telling them to talk to the local daily newspaper, so a marketing consultant's  "walk-in" cold-call was well-timed.

Strategy:The Odessa staff came up with a creative offer for a $99 "Discovery Flight" special. The ad showed a small plane flying through clouds with headline "See the world from a different angle" and a classic call to action: "Click here for ultimate freedom!

“You could go out and get a little classroom training, then go up in a small plane," says Stacey Ream, Ad Director.  Customers included both people who wanted flying lessons and people who just wanted the experience.  "Now  all those people have an opportunity to decide 'Do I want flight lessons.'" 

The campaign had a strong interactive component,  delivering 50,000 impressions on oaoa.com and 30,000 behaviorally targeted Yahoo impressions. The  click-through rate of .1% was high for the type of service, yielding about 80 new inquiries. 

The school chose not to disclose total sales for  three month campaign, however, they renewed with a twelve month contract.

Lessons learned:

1. This ad really worked to  buy long term customers by offering low-cost short term flights. The call-to-action, "Click here for ultimate freedom" told visitors exactly what to do. 

2. This campaign also used a compelling image that conveyed the message. Changing the colors on the background and keeping an attractive offer kept the click through rate consistent for three months.

3. Total ad impressions, at 80,000 compressed into the three month period, were just high enough to deliver a noticeable response. 

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