I've never done this but looking at it from a purely business POV (which I do know about) I would pick an airfield with no competition (or competition which is struggling under a severe lack of capital and with an ageing fleet), which has plenty of money in the vicinity (automatically true in much of England) and I would get a modern fleet (DA40TDi), decent instructors, and market the product at people who drive BMW Z4s and spend £600/year on membership of a gym
I would do direct mail promotion, to owners of sports cars and £600 gym memberships.
A lot of schools advertise in free local rags, which is a complete waste of money since much if the readership is living off the DSS. Anything below the level of the best quality local paper (I know that "local paper" and "quality" is a contradiction) is a waste.
One can't avoid teaching the WW2 syllabus, so (to avoid people dropping out because they are sick of the old stuff) an important thing to demonstrate during the training is that this needs to be done just to pass, and then show how much easier ways there are once people get their PPL.
Time to duck
