EAA Young Eagles - Getting a Clue

I was at the Sequim Unity of Effort event and the EAA booth was there. Linda Priddle got the information pamphlets, brochures, and marketing materials for the booth, and we laid it all out and got prepared.

While I was standing around and visiting with a few people from the crowd and watching numerous people walk right past our booth, I was feeling like there wasn’t a good way to pitch the Young Eagles program without it feeling unnatural or awkward.

And as I was looking at our signage and banners, it occurred to me that at this “non-aviation related” community event, we had no signs or banners that gave any real obvious clue about who we were or what we were trying to offer to the public.

EAA is just a generic sounding acronym to the general population, I would guess, and the large “Young Eagles” signage doesn’t necessarily give a great idea about the fact that kids can go fly a plane and get introduced to aviation. This leaves it to the booth attendants to have to “sell” what we’re offering to the public.

I almost ran home and grabbed a sandwich board that my wife and I had lying around and brought it back to the booth. I was going to write something on it to the effect of, “We can give your kid a flight in a plane for free! Ask us how!” I’m paraphrasing there, but it would be something like that.

It makes a statement that seems kind of bold (but isn’t a lie), and if the words on the sign were big enough to read quickly, then people might stop, think, and even maybe ask us how we could provide that for a kid (their kids, grandkids, friend’s kids, etc.), and that opens up a very “natural” segue for us to talk about our organization, the Young Eagles program, and how their kids can have an experience that they probably don’t think is financially feasible for them to provide because they know that flying is expensive, but haven’t considered that a national organization that promotes aviation would be a way for them to give that experience to their son or daughter.

Without that way of quickly (and clearly) telling a general audience who we are and what were “selling”, so to speak, then we have to forcibly engage them, and they might be turned off by being talked to without them wanting us to talk to them, but if “they were curious” about how we could give their child an experience for free and stopped to inquire about it, then we’re not invading their space and taking up time that they didn’t necessarily want to give us.

Anywho… That’s just some food for thought for future booth set-ups at large events intended for a general population. Don’t know if other people would necessarily agree with me. I’m no salesman, but getting people to come to you on their terms is pretty low-hanging fruit in the realm of winning people over psychologically.

— Sid