Case Study: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) achieves 20% increase in web traffic and 15% membership growth with Sitecore

Airplane owners and pilots soar with marketing cloud

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), the world’s largest aviation community with over 500,000 members, needed to modernize its outreach to attract younger pilots and the growing drone market while streamlining a legacy-heavy marketing stack. Facing 50 million annual emails, large but fragmented customer data, and a million monthly anonymous website visitors, AOPA turned to Sitecore (using Sitecore Experience Platform and Sitecore Experience Database hosted on Microsoft Azure) and Salesforce Marketing Cloud to enable more timely, targeted, and personalized digital engagement.

Sitecore implemented a centralized, responsive web platform (Sitecore XP and xDB) and connected it to Salesforce Marketing Cloud via Sitecore Connect, automating content sharing and real-time personalization. The integrated solution enabled in-the-moment, individualized emails and automated newsletters, saving about one hour per day in content management and eliminating duplication. As a result, AOPA saw a 20% increase in web traffic, a 15% rise in membership, and a 20% faster time to market while delivering more intelligent, personalized marketing driven by Sitecore.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

John Hamilton

Vice President of IT