How do you attract new club members
10-11-2012, 03:40 PM
#26
RE: How do you attract new club members
We use to do a Mall Show but we never got anyone new from it. Sure we would all talk to someone who was all fired up about learning to fly but they were always a no show at club meetings or the field. Malls are not a good target audience anyway, mothers pushing strollers, with a “boys and their toys” smirk as they go by are not really interested in model airplanes.
Something that has been successful with my club has been an Open House. All you need is a couple of guys with trainers and buddy boxes and maybe a few other guys flying around to show what awesome planes we fly. We do hours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., just four hours unlike the Mall Shows which you need people for days at a time. Start off small and build from there. If you want to add different features like food, or raffles work it in over time. No sense jumping in the deep end for the first show. The good thing about having an Open House is the people who show up are already interested in R/C flying so it’s not a hard sell. I’ve found it much more relaxing and fun being at the field flying rather than standing around at the Mall. You will have to at the very minimum get a story or advertise in the local newspaper. The people you are targeting don’t read the back of Model Aviation magazine.
We usually average 150 people for those four hours and usually sign up a couple of new members that day. The next few weeks we will get a few more directly from the show. Not bad for just four hours of work with a handful of guys.
Something that has been successful with my club has been an Open House. All you need is a couple of guys with trainers and buddy boxes and maybe a few other guys flying around to show what awesome planes we fly. We do hours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., just four hours unlike the Mall Shows which you need people for days at a time. Start off small and build from there. If you want to add different features like food, or raffles work it in over time. No sense jumping in the deep end for the first show. The good thing about having an Open House is the people who show up are already interested in R/C flying so it’s not a hard sell. I’ve found it much more relaxing and fun being at the field flying rather than standing around at the Mall. You will have to at the very minimum get a story or advertise in the local newspaper. The people you are targeting don’t read the back of Model Aviation magazine.
We usually average 150 people for those four hours and usually sign up a couple of new members that day. The next few weeks we will get a few more directly from the show. Not bad for just four hours of work with a handful of guys.
