Piper Brought The PiperSport To Market Using Some Unique Ideas
It was an interesting year for the folks of Piper Aircraft... and while issues with the vendor that built their PiperSport turned out to be serious enough to sever the program just a few weeks ago, it sure showed it had the "right/light stuff" when it came to working the LSA market.
Piper did some ingenious stuff with the PiperSport program -- including the mounting of one of the first credible social media sales and support programs in GA... and garnered solid successes in short order -- even to the point where a PiperSport was sold over the web early in the program's genesis. ANN corralled Piper's Director of Marketing, Jackie Carlon, at the 2011 Sebring Florida US Sport Aviation Expo, where Piper showed up (even after announcing the program's dissolution) to support the PiperSport customer and sales base... and to tell us a little more about what they'd learned... and can teach the rest of us... about aviation marketing in of the toughest sales environments we can recall in MANY years.
By the way; we really must extend serious kudos to Piper for showing up even after the disappointments they'd suffered with the problems with their vendor, Czech Sport Aircraft. They kept smiling. They were consummate professionals. We heard NO sour grapes. Instead, they answered questions, continued the process of helping the PiperSport dealers band together to support the remaining aircraft, and showed the LSA industry what a serious aircraft manufacturer does... even when things don't go as planned.
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