BuyRockets.com - was it worth the cost?

We had good enough sell through to about triple our money. But we have a mature product line attarctive to a wide range of people.

Very few participants had "payoff".

I can confirm "awareness" was dramatically increased.

The problem is the industry itself crushes all new commercial companies as hard as possible so our "net" is very narrow industrywide.

Estes retail is the ONLY wide net.

Jerry

Please state the goal of the ads. The only way to know if it was worthwhile is to have a specified goal and measurable results. I don't remember any statement about increasing the number of N/T members. That would be one measurable result however.

If the goal was solely to increase population awareness, the website hits show it was a success.

Several clubs have stated that a few people have been in contact with them because of the show. But again, what is the flying weather like in most parts of the country (suckers!)?

Joel. phx

Then there is the question of the Popular Mechanics ads. It is difficult to see an increase in web hits over the span of a magazine delivery cycle to know if that was the cause.

When did they hit the street? It seems the TV ads pulled better despite the huge cost/time ratio.

Jerry

The SIAR didn't pay anything, we didn't even know about happening, but one old member found us again, and we got 5 new members, 4 in the local area of SIAR-HQ and one from down in Los Angeles. Might be small compaired to the bigger groups, but still good none the less for us.

-- "In this universe the night was falling,the shadows were lengthening towards an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning lingered: and along the path he once had followed, man would one day go again."

Arthur C. Clarke, The City & The Stars

SIAR

Telescope Buyers FAQ World of Dahlias Slideshowv1.0 $10.00 for Windows machines. Email: snipped-for-privacy@despammed.com

Bundick's logic was flawed and his numbers were premature as it takes many months before you can evaluate the results of an advertising campaign.

Even at that early stage, the NAR had gotten enough new members to match the money that it donated. (As Gassaway pointed out, that still didn't cover any additional costs incurred due to the new memberships. I'll bet that by now, those costs have been covered by new memberships received since then.)

But your question assumes that we should evaluate the return on investment on a purely monetary basis. I believe that the success of this effort should be considered in a number of different ways.

Most importantly, from my perspective, we should consider this project a success because it was the first time in a long while that the community worked together on something and made it happen. I think that the NAR (and everyone else) should participate in projects that foster community unity.

There are many portions of the community that benefitted from this advertising, so to evaluate its success, you need to consider how each part of the community benefitted. I don't know how to do this in an accurate and effective manner. I suppose the best way is to ask if enough people would donate again to a similar opportunity. I know I would.

We also need to consider that much advertising is done for "brand awareness". Given our problems with hostile government entities, we should be doing everything we can to improve the awareness of model rocketry by the general public. Unfortunately, to evaluate how this advertising has affected the public's awareness, we would need to spend more money on polling...

Finally, the NAR needs to evaluate its participation in this effort in comparison to its other projects. How does the return on investment for this advertising compare to the return on investment for some of the other projects that NAR has funded?

My $.02, Craig

Craig R. Saunders, crs at MaxThrust.net,

News and Information for model rockets and high-power rocketry

Very powerful words to be heeded.

I could open a new rocketry business in my basement this evening selling rocket kits and Tripoli/NAR/anyone are not going to stop me in any way.

Yes, I would have to jump through a lot of hoops to make motors, but motors is not "all new commericial companies" by any stretch of the imagination.

Brian Elfert

I don't know if we have recovered our investment from a monetary perspective.

I do know, however, that we have had 3-5 visitors at each of our monthly Whitakers launches since the airing, all saying that the came specifically because they saw the Rocket Challenge on discovery, and followed the link to find local launches. The interesting thing is that the number of new visitors has NOT tapered off.

I think it will take time to see how many of these new prospects actually join and contribute to the rocket economy. We'll probably never be able to accurately measure the impact.

The conditions they sow to maintain a painfully small 4000 member base, many of which are armchair rocketeers, prevents your basement firm from selling into a 20,000 person customer base.

How many active members does the NAR have? O.C.

From a post by Mark Bundick (NAR president) in another thread on this newsgroup, currently 4,737:

Year JR LR SR LIFE TOTAL

1994 1,749 135 2,326 -- 4,210 1996 1,520 143 2,820 14 4,497 1997 1,525 145 2,846 14 4,530 1998 1,160 183 3,070 15 4,428 1999 1,242 216 3,697 16 5,171 2000 1,011 207 3,911 17 5,146 2001 695 241 3,909 17 4,862 2002 621 276 3,945 16 4,858 2003 609 324 3,787 17 4,737

hard as possible so our "net" is very narrow industrywide. >>

No one crushed me when I started manufacturing rocketry components. Of course, if I started making motors for sale, there would be a lot of government redtape to deal with. Once that's taken care of, getting the motors certified would seem pretty easy by comparison.

No part of jerry's business is commercial or military. What you see is all there is.

Where did you get this number from Jerry? I'd guess that 99% of rocketeers who attend launches and form the consumer base for rocket companies are either members of TRA or NAR. Please correct me if you believe otherwise. Considering membership in both organization hovers around four to five thousand, with many people holding membership in both organizations, where are the other 13000 rocketeers? Is this the size of your customer base? I know a large part of your business is commercial/military but how much of it is "consumer?"

I'm trying to get an idea of exactly how many of us there really are out there excluding the weekend rocketeer who goes to Wal-mart, purchases a RTF kit and never discovers the rest of this wonderful hobby. O.C.

The peak HPR industry customer base.

They are now because of rules added in the past 10 years. Yes.

Now there are painfully few "lone rangers".

Refer to the thread about TRA/NAR continuous membership being REQUIRED to maintain Consumer Certs.

Jerry, This is why so many people in this forum don't take you seriously. You are living 10 to 15 years in the past. The thread is about the CURRENT state of the hobby. Not what was, could be or in your opinion should be. Aren't you sick of repeating yourself again and again and again? Why can't you realize that this is 2004? You're starting to sound like a grandparent talking about prices of yesteryear. Things have changed! It sucks, I, everyone agrees. We need to deal with it and move foward. You obviously have an enormous amount of experience and knowlege that would benefit this hobby. Haven't you relized that the rules aren't going to change? Why not just comply? You waste all of your time fighting a battle that you will NEVER win. Call the ATF, get your LEMP! Call the DOT get new EX numbers! Do these two relatively simple things and start making motors legaly. I'll be your first dealer. I'm sure others would follow suit. I've spoken to you about this in the past. I am even willing to help you out with financing this goal. The more motors the better for us all!

(PLEASE DO NOT ANSWER THIS POST WITH THE PATENTED

because it is BULL@#$%)

Now if you or anyone else out there could please answer my original question: How many people are actively involved in this hobby TODAY? Anyone out there have some numbers on Estes and Quest? How about other manufacturers?

Thanks, O.C.

Not for me.

That resolves that discrepency.

Show me.

Jerry, You are a lost cause man. Anyone out there with some real feedback. O.C.

Actually, that is only the case for certified HPR flyers. For those who don't fly HPR, the numbers are quite different.

I did a non-scientific poll about 3 years ago and found that only about 30% of members of NAR sections are also members of NAR. So you could extrapolate from there... (BTW, the NAR has no better idea of this percentage as they have not performed any more reliable survey than I did.)

On the other hand, you could try this kind of estimate...

90% or more of HPR flyers belong to NAR, TRA, CAR. Taking into account a few double memberships, you probably have about 7000 HPR flyers.

30% of non-HPR adult flyers belong to NAR or CAR. If there was 2000 members, that would make about 6000 flyers.

Only about 10% of minor flyers belong to NAR. So, given about 1000 junior members, you have about 10,000 youth flying rockets.

That adds up to about 23,000 flyers. But, of course, that's a SWAG. There is no data that we have access to. (Estes and Aerotech probably have a better idea but they wouldn't publish information that could be used to estimate their sales...)

Cheers, Craig Craig R. Saunders, crs at MaxThrust.net,

News and Information for model rockets and high-power rocketry