By Jerry Lips
Airport Journals is like a three-legged milk stool; each leg is vital in providing an information/marketing platform that offers the most efficient and effective grass-roots link to general aviation.
Building each leg of the stool has been like crawling over 40 miles of broken glass on our hands and knees. Our first leg of the stool is the database. To start with the goal of building the most comprehensive list of general aviation ever compiled was nothing short of mind-boggling, especially considering the FAA aircraft owner list we started with was a bunch of Delaware corporations, leasing companies and nondescript entities. To connect an “N” number with an aircraft owner, flight department, chief pilot or others, we needed names, addresses, phone numbers, emails and 19 fields of information to make the information valuable—and that was just the beginning. Fractional owners, charter users, aviation businesses and anyone involved in general aviation, including the citizenry of the airports, were collected and entered into the “master data file” of general aviation. This leg of the stool has accounted for many of those 40 miles, but it’s equally gratifying to report that we now have the largest database of
general aviation ever compiled. With more than 600,000 names, the database is a powerful leg on our three legged stool.
The Business Aircraft and Jet Previews are the second leg of the stool; these airport events bring buyers and sellers face to face. In addition to the normal industry exhibitors, Airport Journals brings sponsors and exhibitors that fit the lifestyle and have a strategic fit. Like “Saab, Born From Jets,” these exhibitors are incremental to the traditional aircraft exhibitions and add to the overall interest and effectiveness of the shows. These sponsors and exhibitors bring marketing power that translates to sales for the exhibitors.
The third leg of the stool is really the most important. The airport community newspaper truly brings the airport together as a community and defines the true definition of grass roots. This leg of the stool is where our readers will recognize the passion we at Airport Journals have for bringing to your airport the best newspaper product we can.
Together the three legs provide the platform that is revolutionary to the industry, making the most efficient and effective communication/marketing package possible for general aviation.