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Case Study — Flight School

Take Flight Aviation

18 months running this flight school’s marketing, led by an instrument-rated private pilot — we started behind the camera and finished running the whole department: website, Google Ads, email, footage from the right seat, aircraft listings, the phone script. Nobody had to explain a run-up. Here’s what we did, lane by lane.

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WebsiteGoogle AdsEmailVideo
The Engagement

One pilot. The whole marketing department.

Not a vendor with a list. A seat in their Slack, a login to Zapier and their lead software, working inside the school every day.

  • Google Ads leads a month, February to April
    99to 173

    99→173 Google Ads leads a month, Feb–Apr

  • Across the engagement
    610

    real, confirmed leads across the engagement

  • The engagement
    18months running the whole marketing department
    26strategy meetings with ownership

  • In one year: 3 CFI students · 5 professional-pilot students · 2–3 multi-engine.

    Program pages written by a pilot who has sat through the training himself: private certificate, instrument rating.

01

Leads & growth

  • Google Ads + the landing page they pointed at
  • Tracking wired, numbers reported back
  • Website rebuilt, old rankings kept
  • Email program written and sent
  • Analytics reporting
02

Content & video

  • Long-form YouTube + Reels, TikToks, Shorts
  • Air-to-air & in-flight footage, shot from the aircraft
  • Photo shoots planned and art-directed
  • Podcast filmed
  • Logo set + event flyers
03

Systems & sales

  • Review-request system
  • Inbound call script for the front desk
  • Aircraft listings on Controller
  • Socials run: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok
The Google Ads Numbers

February to April: 99 to 173 Google Ads leads a month.

One number carries this page. In February the account recorded 99 conversions. By April it was recording 173 a month — 610 real, confirmed leads across the engagement. Leads, not enrollments: a phone ringing, a form filled. The school still had to sell every one.

Google Ads · Conversions Monthly · December through May
Conversions · February
99
Conversions · April
173
▲ +74 vs. February
Peak month
Apr
173 conversions
Conversions · engagement total
610
real, confirmed leads
Conversions (leads) per month — from the Google Ads account we ran Highlighted: February to April
Conversions (leads) per month, from the Google Ads account we ran, December through May
MonthConversions
December47
January68
February99
March107
April173
May116
February to April Other months, as recorded Highlighted span Source: the Google Ads account we ran. Nothing estimated.

Wheels up in December at 47. Climbing to 99 in February and 173 in April. May closed at 116. 610 real, confirmed leads across the engagement — every one a phone ringing or a form filled.

How The Role Grew

Started with the camera. Ended running the department.

What we were responsible for at each point — and what we added on.

  1. December 2024

    Where we started

    • Short-form content — Reels, TikTok, Shorts
    • Long-form YouTube videos — program videos, aircraft reviews
    • Social media — YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook
    • Photography — shot lists and art direction
    • In-flight and air-to-air footage
    • Event planning and flyers — open houses, free-flight days, air shows
    • Editing in Adobe — Premiere Pro, Photoshop
    • Aircraft-sales marketing — Controller listings
  2. September 2025

    When we took on more

    + 9 added

    Everything before, plus:

    • Mailchimp email campaigns — to their list
    • Email outreach
    • Following up with every lead — texts, emails, calls, lead-status tracking
    • Full website rebuild — with SEO redirects
    • Google Analytics reporting
    • Weekly strategy meetings — with ownership
    • The lead-response script
    • The review-request system
    • Zapier and their lead software
  3. December 2025

    The whole department

    + 1 added

    Everything before, plus:

    • Google Ads — its own landing page, tracking and reporting
    • We replaced the agency that was running their Google Ads — and we know how to manage it.
Watch The Work

Long-form on YouTube. Short-form everywhere else.

We produced Take Flight’s long-form and short-form content — full YouTube videos like these, and the Reels, TikToks and Shorts cut from the same footage. Two of the full-length pieces, on the school’s own channel:

From The Flight Line

Their ramp. Their aircraft. Our camera.

Every frame below is Take Flight’s own fleet — planned against a shot list, art-directed, and graded for the rebuilt website and its sales pages.

Glass cockpit of a Diamond DA42, avionics screens held legible against the bright canopy
Glass cockpit, Diamond DA42 — screens held legible against a blown-out canopy.
Two training aircraft parked nose-to-nose on the ramp
Two trainers nose-to-nose on the ramp.
Close-up of an aircraft winglet with the pitot streamer still attached before the first flight of the day
Winglet detail with the streamer still in — shot before the first flight of the day.
Twin-engine aircraft waiting on the ramp under scattered cumulus
Twin waiting on the ramp under scattered cumulus.
Head-on view of an orange single-engine aircraft, three-blade propeller centered, hangars and cumulus behind
Head-on at the hangar line — three-blade prop dead center.
Garmin glass panel and switch quadrant of a twin-engine aircraft, tail number N215E, avionics still aligning
Twin panel and switch quadrant, N215E — avionics still aligning after power-up.
Over-wing view in flight above snow-covered fields with a ridge on the horizon
Over the wing on a winter flight — snow on the fields, ridge on the horizon.
From The Shoots

The work, on camera.

A few more frames from the fleet shoots behind this project.

  • Open canopy of a Diamond single with the sun bursting over it
  • Nose and propeller of a Diamond with blue and gold stripes under clouds
  • Red-striped Diamond single seen from the wing, three-blade prop and blue sky
What We Added
Ads stop the day you stop paying for them. Assets don’t.

Here is what the school owned at the end — the list of what one person built.

What’s still there after the ads stop.

  • 01

    Website

    A full rebuild — seven pages rebuilt or redesigned by name, staged before launch, an SEO redirect on every legacy URL, and student-financing content so the cost question had an answer before a prospect had to ask it.

  • 02

    Google Ads

    A dedicated landing page for the ads, tracking wired in, and the numbers reported to ownership every month.

  • 03

    Email

    Mailchimp campaigns written and sent; the list imported, segmented, and maintained month over month; interview-based student and instructor stories to feed it.

  • 04

    Video & content

    Long-form and short-form — YouTube videos, Reels, TikToks and Shorts; in-flight and air-to-air footage shot from the aircraft; named program videos; and a podcast planned end to end.

  • 05

    Photography

    Shot lists art-directed and tracked in a sheet shared with their team, a final library organized by page and slot, and a standard photo for every new instructor at onboarding.

  • 06

    Reporting

    Google Analytics reporting across web and social, so decisions ran on numbers instead of hunches, and a Google Business Profile kept current.

  • 07

    Brand & events

    A ten-variant logo set, event flyers as the calendar called for them, a sales deck for a Diamond dealership program — and events run in person.

  • 08

    Aircraft sales

    Controller listings written and specced, plus a buyer-representation, pre-purchase-inspection, and delivery service page drafted as its own sales line.

  • 09

    The phone

    Lead follow-up by text, email and call with lead-status tracking, a lead-response script for when prospects reached out, and a review-request system running in the background.

Your Turn

Want this for your school?

Tell us what your flight school — or your business — needs to do online. We’ll map out what running it, all of it, looks like month to month.

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