Oct 26

hunting-firearms-content-marketing-small-budget

How to Get Started with Inbound Marketing on a Small Budget

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

For some hunting, outdoor or firearms manufacturers, getting started with inbound marketing may be too much at this point in your company’s history.

You’re serious about growth and have thought a lot about your goals, but you just don’t have the resources to go all in on hiring an agency were typical retainers start at $3,200 a month. Plus the purchase of a full-blown marketing automation software platform like HubSpot, Marketo or Pardot is out of reach to do it right.

So what do you do when you’re ready to start inbound marketing, but you just don’t have the resources to pull the trigger?

In this post, I’m going to give you four steps on how to start inbound marketing on $1,500/mo. or less that can jump start your digital marketing strategy of attracting visitors to your website, converting visitors to leads and leads to customers.

1. Design an “inbound-ready” website that enables conversion
The best websites in the industry have three things in common in addition to being e-commerce enabled. One, they have a blog that is active and is—at minimum—updated weekly with helpful, relevant content that speaks to your customers or buyer personas. Blogging also builds links and increases your search engine rankings which means more traffic.

Two, they have social share buttons attached to content that increases the likelihood of your content getting shared over social media networks like Facebook and Twitter where hunters, fisherman, and shooters hang out.

And three, they have downloadable offers with landing pages to capture visitor information so you can continue to market your product and services to them after they have shown interest and left your website.

By having the minimal aspects above in place, your website meets the basic criteria of what it means to have an “inbound-ready” website. Only through content offers (whitepapers, ebooks, videos, case studies, etc.) will you be able to convert visitors into leads that will provide the necessary contacts to build a viable email marketing list of prospective customers.

But that’s only the beginning of what it means to be “inbound.”

2. Install lead intelligence
You can’t do inbound successfully unless you have set goals and have a tracking and analytical tool that allows you to test and see what content is working and what isn’t—in real-time. Google Analytics is great, but you need a tool that tells you a little more about your prospects. Like how they found you and what they’re interested in.

Leadin is a free and simple tracking tool that allows you to see who’s on your website specifically and provides the context of what your visitors are interested in. It can also tell you what pages they visited, what offers they downloaded and what social media channels they are on so you can potentially engage in a more meaningful trust-building conversation. No more guessing who is on your website and where your traffic is coming from, and did I mention it is free?

3. Create basic lead nurturing workflows
Another powerful feature with LeadIn is that no matter what form your visitors fill out on your website they are automatically added to your favorite email marketing programs like MailChimp or Constant Contact instantly. This allows you to define simple automated workflows that nurture your leads through your sales funnel. So for example, if you have a contact who has visited your website 15 times but has not purchased that $1800 rifle, but has downloaded a spec sheet, you may want to send him/her a series of emails to help him figure out what rifle is the best for him or why your rifle is better than your competitors.

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels available. (Source: McKinsey & Co.) Some studies suggest that it’s 40 times better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter. Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. (Source DemandGen).

Leadin Contact Intelligence

4. Analyze performance
One of the biggest features of marketing automation software is that it centralizes all your contacts in one place, versus having it spread all over your inbox sporadically when a form is submitted. It allows you to organize, track and analyze the performance of your campaigns and hone your messaging to make it more effective.

Leadin also gives you an understanding of your contacts and demonstrates the value of inbound marketing analytics.

The whole point of doing inbound marketing versus the traditional approach i.e. trade show, magazine, and T.V advertising and for some—cold calling, is to reach your customers at the right place at the right time, and this is online when your prospects are actively searching for a solution to their problem.

You may be getting excited right now—but a word of caution. The above steps will give you a starting point to doing and learning inbound, but it doesn’t take the place of a full inbound marketing program.

This smaller approach or “Inbound Lite” doesn’t take into account the time-saving features of building landing pages, list segmentation, campaigns, social monitoring, comprehensive workflow analytics and search engine optimization intelligence found in marketing automation software. But with the right mindset and some of these budget-friendly tools in place—you can be on your way to doing inbound.

Oct 19

Is Inbound Marketing Right Firearms Business

Is Inbound Marketing Right For My Firearms or Hunting Business?

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Over 55% of today’s marketing budgets are being shifted from traditional marketing (print, trade show and TV) to content or inbound marketing (Source: CMI). As a business owner, business development or marketing professional in the hunting, outdoor or firearms industry, you may be wondering if inbound marketing is right for your business.

Inbound marketing is not a tactic or channel, but a methodology for savvy businesses who want to become more relevant and current with consumer trends and who recognize the importance of building longer relationships with their customers and getting more ROI from their marketing budgets.

In this post, I’ll give you 7 indicators why inbound marketing might be a good fit for your business.

1. You question the effectiveness of your current marketing
You spent $5000 on a Facebook campaign, but it only brought in a few customers. Your website traffic is on the decline because of recent Google algorithm changes and that full-page ad you ran in Guns & Ammo—well let’s just say it failed. Does this sound familiar? These are common problems for hunting, outdoor and firearms businesses trying to market in today’s competitive marketplace.

Due to changes in technology (Mobile, Internet, On-Demand, DVR, etc.), consumer behavior has shifted.

Instead of the traditional marketing practices of the last 100 years that beg, borrow or buy peoples’ attention, your customers now have the ability to choose where, when and how they hear your message. They can easily fast forward through commercials, skip an ad or flip to the next page. And with everyone head down on their iPhones, they may not see your message at all.

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, attracts customers who are already interested in learning about your products and who are motivated to finding a solution to their problems.

2. You’re willing to learn
At this point, you may have done some research on how inbound marketing works and may have already concluded that inbound might be a good fit. You know that inbound marketing:

costs 62% less per lead than traditional “outbound” marketing methods
has the ability to track how many website visits become leads and how many leads become customers
increases traffic by 55% via blogging
generates 3 times more leads per dollar spent
yields higher rankings on search engines
builds your brand
unlocks more marketing budget because it proves ROI

Through the process, you’re going to learn more about your customers and explore new ideas about your business you’ve not yet considered. This all creates and establishes thought leadership that pushes your brand to new heights and leaves your competitors in the dust.

3. You’re willing to change your thinking
In order to be successful in inbound, your company must change the way it thinks. The culture must evolve—starting from the CEO/owner down to your pro staff. The typical hope and pray approach to marketing can now be replaced by measurable analytics that show you what’s working and what’s not.

4. You’re willing to become a writer (or at least try)
You must be consistent and motivated to see the program through. This means blogging 1-2x a week at minimum. It means creating remarkable and relevant premium content in the form of ebooks, whitepapers, webinars and videos on a consistent basis. If you do not have the time to create content, ask an agency for help.

You may shutter at the thought of writing or blogging. However, once you begin most people find they thoroughly enjoy it. Think of it as your contribution and legacy to the industry. The old adage “it doesn’t exist, till you write it down” applies here.

5. You want to grow or sustain your business
For product companies in competitive categories like optics, lasers, accessories, knifes and MSRs, the ups and downs of sales and cash flow issues affects your company’s ability to plan for the future. Inbound has the potential to supply your business with a steady flow of new customers every month. By expanding your digital footprint online, your brand is in more places.

6. You have a long buyers’ journey
Segments that can benefit the most in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry from inbound marketing are products that include a longer buyers journey. This is typically associated with products and services that cost over $250. With over 60% of all purchases beginning with an online search, companies looking to break away from the pack have ample opportunity to crush their competition and grab more market-share with inbound because it helps nurture your prospects through the sales funnel that provides valuable information for your customers to make informed decisions.

7. You’re in it for the long haul
Have you ever trained for a marathon? It takes about 3-4 months to create the endurance and fitness needed to cover the 26.2 miles on race day. The mindset of the inbound marketer is to consistently build—day after day, week after week, month after month—a foundation of valuable content that results in increased traffic, leads and customers over time. Depending on your website’s age, current rankings and functionality—inbound can take anywhere from 4 to 6 months to start showing results.

In conclusion, there is no doubt inbound marketing works when executed correctly. The Beretta case study demonstrates inbound’s effectiveness to build and sustain a steady flow of sales. Inbound marketing is a proven methodology for today’s consumer behavior—meeting them at the right place, at the right time and on their terms. If you’ve become a believer in inbound and are ready to change the way you think about marketing, are disciplined, motivated and committed for the long haul—then the benefits of inbound marketing are waiting for you.

Oct 12

3 Kinds of Hunting and Firearms Content You Should Be Writing

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

If you’ve committed to—or are just getting started with content marketing to help your hunting, outdoor or firearms company drive more website visitors, convert visitors to leads, increase sales and build your brand—there are three kinds of content you should know about that forms the foundation of your content marketing strategy.

Most companies in the industry are getting their content wrong. Most content is highly self-promotional that serves the company rather than their customers. Other brands write about topics that have no relevance to their buyer persona’s problems or questions. Further yet, once companies start writing content, they give up in 3-4 months.

Creating content is not easy and takes time, devotion and the commitment of your entire team to make it work. However, by having a better understanding of what kind of content you need to be creating in the first place, you can focus and plan more effectively so your efforts don’t fall flat.

According to Google/YouTube and Mark Schaefer, author of the new book, The Content Code, there are three forms of content: Hygiene, Hub and Heroic.

Hygiene Content
Hygiene content makes up the bulk of what you see out on the web. Hygiene content is the lifeblood of your content strategy and keeps your website fresh. These pieces of content typically involve your run of the mill 500-800-word articles that gives your readers “How-To’s”, “Tips and Tricks” and the “Do It Your Self” articles. This kind of content keeps your audience engaged and helps you maintain your search engine rankings. (Source: SEOMOZ)

Some examples of this type of content would be:

How to Clean Your AR-15
3 Ways to Become a Better Turkey Hunter
5 Best Hunting Apps for Hunting Coyotes

Hub Content
Hub content goes more in-depth about a certain subject and usually is 1000-2000 words in length and serves more as a reference piece that your readers visit time and time again. Hub content or “evergreen” content serves to attract visitors to your website and keeps them there. This kind of content builds brand loyalty and in most cases will help in building links to your website. You know you have created a piece of evergreen content by quickly looking at your analytics to see what pages of your blog consistently get the most visits. These types of articles require planning, a lot of thought, research and understanding of the topic to make them valuable to your readers. Hub content is also critical in building thought leadership in your category. Hub content also remains high on search engines for an extended period and is typically staggered throughout the year.

A few good examples of Hub content are:

Heroic Content
This is the hardest content to produce and also the most surprising. Heroic content—also sometimes called viral content—typically receives thousands to millions of shares and views and is highly entertaining and educational all-in-one. Heroic content also challenges perceptions and opinions and can be controversial or polarizing.

Here are a few examples:

Video: Bobcat Stalks and Attacks Turkey Hunter. This video received over 77.4K shares on Facebook and 700,000 views on YouTube because it’s unheard of that a Bobcat would attack a hunter. If you hunt, this is something that typically never happens, and when it does, it turns out to be one heck of a story to share around the campfire.
Photoshoot with 15-year old Elk Hunter Challenges Photographers Views on Hunters. This article received 40.5K shares on Facebook because it helps further our cause of conservation and heritage and helps change negative stereotypes about hunters.
BATFE To Ban Common AR-15 Ammo. This article received over 88.1K shares because it threatens the industry and acts like a warning siren to alert the firearms and hunting community.

By focusing on creating these three types of content: hygiene, hub and heroic, your content/inbound marketing strategy will remain consistent and focused all year long. Plan your hub content in advance and think about how to come up with one or two good viral pieces. Then fill the rest of your content calendar with helpful hygiene content to keep your audience engaged and your website fresh.

Sep 22

The Hunting and Firearms Industry’s Best Website Designs

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

What makes a great website? Most of the time you know it when you see it, but you just can’t put your finger on it. To have a website that stands head and shoulders above your competitors, brands must focus on creating engaging user experiences. To do so, here are ten points to keep in mind:

Design for your buyer persona
Less really is more
Use interesting colors and quality imagery
Make sure it works on all mobile and tablet devices (responsive)
Gives users something to “stick” around for like a blog, videos or other forms of helpful content
Write content in your buyer persona’s language
Make your content easy to share
Optimize for search engines
Add an SSL for extra security if you’re running a shopping cart
Must load in under 5 seconds

Earlier this year, Google announced that if your website was not mobile friendly—or in other words “responsive”, you could be penalized in search rankings. And with more than 95% of all product searches starting online and more algorithm changes on the way, it’s important to take advantage of these changes to make sure your website will remain competitive. One way most hunting and firearms websites are ensuring their survival is by adopting content marketing. By creating consistent content in the forms of blogs, videos, whitepapers and downloadable offers, companies can keep on top of the search engines and provide a “branded” user experience to their users. This is a significant trend away from which historically has been left to content publishers like Field and Stream, Guns & Ammo and others.

In this post, we looked at over 200 websites in the hunting and firearms industry and chose one from 25 categories to see how the industry is moving forward by adopting the latest web trends and technologies. Last time I checked the Webby’s (Website awards) weren’t giving any awards for brands in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry, so we hope to change that with this post.

Use this post to gain ideas for your own website or to get inspired.

Accessories
Magpul’s great products combined with stunning imagery and their unique sense of humor reflects perfectly on their brand personality.

Ammunition

Barnes does a great job with imagery and creating some interesting features like their load data and information page. They also feature their community members that adds to its credibility and “social proof.”

Attractants
Big & J’s website uses great imagery and product callouts.

Blinds (and Tree Stands)
Muddy’s website has a lot of engaging imagery and a full-screen interface that makes for a clean user experience.

Bows
Bear Archery does a great job using “parallax” technology on their page scroll and telling the story of their products. Along with clever imagery (see hunter in the sky) this site makes it fun to scroll.

Clothing
5.11’s firearm accessories website does a great job of communicating quickly their large line of apparel and accessories and helps the user get to where they want to go quickly.

Coolers
No surprise here. Yeti’s website is also very clean and does a great job with text and imagery to convey their brand’s messaging. Thier “Field Notes” blog provides great recipes and how-tos on cooling game along with other interesting content.

Decoys
Bigfoot Decoys website uses really great imagery and a simplified navigation menu. Check out their dealer locator.

Fitness
Not only is Mountain Ops an interesting newcomer to the hunting industry, its products and branding are very persuasive as redefining hunters as “wilderness athletes.”

Food Plot
Packed full of information, BioLogic’s website helps users figure out what products to use and provides relevant information about their products.

Handguns
Springfield Armory’s website is very clean and utilizes a good amount of whitespace. Packed with great video content, blog and reviews, the site does a great job using graphics and content to educate its users.

Game Calls
Knight and Hall gets honors in the game call category. They also have a great blog packed with calling tips and other great hunting information.

Game Cameras
Wildlife Innovations combines their celebrity lineup with their line of innovations. Real faces of real people make it interesting to look at and scroll through.

Game Feeders
On Time’s brochure-ware site is super simple in look and feel and does a great job of communicating the brands products. If you have a low budget, this is a good example of what can be done.

Gun Cleaning
Although the Hoppe’s website is not responsive, it was still the standout among its competitors. This heritage brand does a great job of bringing its brand into the 21st century.

Holsters
Interesting imagery and typography makes the Blackhawk! website very engaging. We also liked how they used vertical imagery to scroll the user down the page.

Knives
Kershaw’s website uses a clean and minimalistic design that showcases its products nicely.

Lasers
Crimson Trace’s website uses an interesting type style along with their signature campaign imagery of peoples faces in silhouettes.

Modern Sporting Rifles
Bring the rain! Black Rain Ordinance does a great job of communicating their unique brand on their website.

Optics
Burris uses a unique minimalistic menu function that opens up the page to its great imagery and content callouts.

Packs
Badlands website uses a darker (and meaner) color palette to communicate the seriousness of their brand, combined with their sponsored hunters and shooters makes the site very engaging.

Patterns
Mossy Oak leads the pattern category. With plenty of great content, interesting design and great imagery, Mossy Oak’s website is engaging and does a great job of presenting their sub-brands (upper left).

Safes
Securit leads the safe category with interesting imagery, persona-based navigation and a great library of content.

Suppressors
Our leading favorite only because SilencerCo. is the coolest brand out there right now, but also because its got our good buddy Jep on the home page. Their #fightthenoise campaign has been highly effective.

Rifles
The winner of our review is Mossberg. With helpful content, amazing imagery, persona-based navigation and a responsive design, you can tell a lot of work went into this website.

If you’ve noticed one thing about the websites listed in this post, it’s the investment in quality photography, graphic design and copy. These three elements combined with solid programming and ease-of-use is only the first step in joining the digital age of marketing. Turn your website into a powerful sales tool by adding useful, helpful and consistent content that helps your customers solve their problems and that answers their most burning questions.

What do you think of our list? Who did we miss? What was your favorite? Please post your comments below!

Sep 15

5 Ways To Boost Your Hunting or Firearms Brand’s Experience

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

With so much economic upheaval and pressure to stand out in today’s hunting, outdoor and firearms marketplace; business owners and marketers have been feeling the pressure to produce greater results.

One overlooked element is how you create better brand experiences for your customers. Brand experience goes beyond the basic function of the product or service and seeks to connect with your customer on an emotional level that makes your brand the preferred choice in your category by adding something extra.

How do top brands create great brand experiences? I took a closer look at a few brands inside and outside the industry and boiled it down to five things that stood out to me on how to go about building a great brand experience—and how you can begin implementing them into your own branding and marketing efforts.

1. Find your “one” thing
Most of the world’s best brands are known for “one” thing. It can be tough (Ford); it could be repeating arms (Winchester); it could be rugged (Marlboro) or status (Rolex)—it may even be duck hunting (Duck Commander). Whatever the case, the best brands are known for “one” thing that puts them head and shoulders above others—and in the process define an entire category. The first step in boosting your brand experience is to know and understand what your “one” thing is. Communicate your one thing over and over again in every piece of marketing until your name is associated with that one word that places your brand on the top shelf of your customers and prospects minds.

2. Rise above function to connect on an emotional level
Once you’ve drilled your prospective buyer with what your one thing is, you then must begin to connect your brand at an emotional level. Zig Zigler said it best; “People don’t buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons.” Your product or service should mean something more than what it appears to be. Can your brand make your customer feel better about themselves? Can it make them feel different when they put it on? Will it win the admiration of their friends? Take a look at some of the top brands for an example of how they connect at the emotional level:

Coke is Brown Sugar Water > Happiness in a Bottle.
SilencerCo. is a Suppressor > Fight the Noise.
Budweiser is Fermented Barley and Hops > King of Beers.
Matthews is a Bow Manufacturer > Supremely Accurate.

Great brands rise above the functional attributes of their product to connect to their customers emotionally.

3. Take your customers somewhere
Does your brand take your customer somewhere? It doesn’t have to be a physical place, it can be a state-of-mind. For example, when you turn on your truck—how does it make you feel? Do you feel like a bad ass or a grocery getter? How about when you put on your favorite football team’s jersey—do you feel like you’re part of the team? When you sip on a Corona, does it take you to the beach? Great brands take their customers somewhere.

4. Build a cult-like following
There is a company out there called Johnny Cupcakes. Ever heard of it? Neither did I till I was at a marketing conference this summer. Johnny Cupcakes founded by Johnny Earle, named America’s #1 Young Entrepreneur creates custom designed t-shirts that are then sold in a store that looks like a bakery—all over the world. At first glance you’re probably like “what?” But what makes the Johnny Cupcakes brand interesting is its cult-like following. So much so, that people tattoo Johnny’s logo on themselves and stand in line for hours to get his latest designs. Think Apple when they release their new iPhone. When his customers order a shirt from Johnny online and receive it in the mail; it’s better than Christmas. His packaging seeks to create an experience pre-primed by his brand’s irresistible appeal. Not only do they get the t-shirt they ordered, but there’s always something extra. Sometimes they get a sticker, maybe a book, a used candy wrapper or Johnny’s used sock. Sounds silly—but Johnny’s fans love it. What can you add to your customer experience that gives just that little extra touch? Doing so, may help you create a cult-like following that will give back to your business for years to come.

5. Give them a community
Another important aspect of great brand experiences is being a part of what Marketing expert Seth Godin calls a “tribe.” A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea…. People want connection and growth and something new. I’m a member of the Professional Outdoor Media Association. I’m included in a community of other marketing professionals in the industry—giving me a network and a small sense of belonging. Think of the communities you belong to. How do they make you feel?

It should feel good. Can you do the same for your customers?

All marketing doesn’t have to be tradeshow, print or a TV sponsorship. Marketing can be an app, a community group or some random chachki in your packaging. Look at other ways to stand out from your competitors.

To sum up, to boost your brand’s customer experience, find your “one” thing that makes you different, be something more than just a function, take your customers somewhere and give them a sense of accomplishment and community.

Aug 17

How Inbound Marketing Increases Your Dealers & Distributors Firearm Sales

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

I am often asked by frustrated manufacturers in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry about how inbound marketing can specifically help their business increase sales over their entire chain of distribution.

They are frustrated because many have bought email lists thinking they could send their offers to interested distributors or customers, redesigned their website that cost thousands of dollars only to get zero increase in traffic, hired an SEO firm to boost traffic or even spent money on a trade show sponsorship that brought little to no results. And cold calling doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to.

Some have been left feeling burnt with little or nowhere else to turn except to some other web or PR firm making big promises.

In this post, I want to look at three components of the distribution chain: the distributor, the dealer and direct-to-consumer and give you three bottom line takeaways on how inbound marketing is different from traditional methods you might have used in the past and how specifically inbound marketing can help your business’ bottom line.

So let’s go…

First, let’s start with the distributor
Distributors are always on the look out for the next hot product. They want to know if your brand’s product can get a good margin, sell quickly and most importantly, know if their investment in your product will pay off. (Source: Entrepreneur)

To attract more distributors, you can utilize the inbound marketing methodology to create content to establish your brand which in turn, creates “thought leadership.” Nobody knows more about how your product helps customers than you. By publishing your content on B2B networks like LinkedIn, where distributors are looking for new products and ideas—you can really stand out among your competitors.

Top hunting, outdoor and firearms LinkedIn groups

There are several active groups on LinkedIn you should join.

By creating and sharing helpful information and answering questions about your product, you begin to build brand awareness and trust within your network. Trust is a large consideration when creating a partnership with a distributor. Buyers go through about 57% of the purchasing process before ever talking to sales. (Source: CEB) This means that helpful content has the potential to create trust with your potential distributor before you even talk. This makes the selling process much easier and more likely to end in a purchase order.

Example Questions Your Inbound Marketing Should Address

How much profit can we make when selling your products? (Address this on both a per-unit level and an expected total sales level.)
How does your product compare financially to other similar products? What are the profit levels you can bring compared to someone else’s product?
Does your company provide additional marketing funds to help sell these products? What exactly do you do to help them sell?
Is there a demand for your product? What need does it serve, and which retail market is most likely to be effective when selling it?
Do you produce a variety of different products that can also easily be distributed?
(Source: Iqnection)

hunting-firearm-distribution-inbound-marketing

Inbound marketing tracking sources report

Since inbound marketing is internet-based, it’s also trackable. Imagine knowing exactly how your marketing has affected your bottom line and being able to show a prospective distributor real results. This can be very powerful especially for startups or mid-sized companies looking to create a strong sales case study.

Bottom line: Inbound marketing increases sales by building thought leadership, trust, speeds up the sales cycle and is trackable.

The Dealer
Dealers and distributors interests are sometimes the same in how they can sell more to the end consumer. Unlike the distributor who is more interested in a quality product and good margins, the dealer—who is also interested in those things—wants products that have a large customer base and can profit quickly.

Did you know that 81% of products are researched online before purchase? (Source: Adweek). Inbound marketing creates greater opportunities for your products to be found online. By creating content that helps your customers become better shooters, better hunters or provides insight and tips pertaining to whatever product or service you sell—you build your brand and cultivate a deep interest for your brand’s products that are based on trust—not persuasive ad messaging.

And with 54% of shoppers wanting to actually see the product before they purchase it, inbound can potentially drive customers to your local dealers with a sense of trust already established in your brand which increases the likelihood of purchase which benefits your dealers. (Source: Social Times)

Bottom line: Inbound marketing increases sales by creating greater awareness of your brand online where customers start their searches for your products.

Direct-to-Consumer
As an end-user, your customer also goes through a lengthy buyer process before deciding to purchase your product. One of the key differentiators of inbound marketing (assuming that you built a good product) is that it delights your customers and turns them into promoters of your brand’s products after purchase.

Social media is like digital word of mouth. Word of mouth and referrals—as we all know—is the best kind of marketing there is. Inbound uses social media to encourage sharing over social media networks that spreads your content and messaging to a larger audience.

80% of all new product searches begin online, so if your product is not taking advantage of the benefits of the hundreds to thousands of online searches within your product category every month, you’re missing out on a viable revenue stream. (Source: Adweek)

Bottom line: Inbound marketing increases sales by turning your customers into promoters of your brand.

These are just three ways on how inbound marketing can help increase sales for your hunting, outdoor or firearms manufacturing company throughout the distribution chain. Inbound marketing builds trust, establishes thought leadership, speeds the sales cycle, increases traffic to your website and turns customers into promoters of your brand.

Larger brands like Beretta, Stag Arms and Mossberg have already adopted inbound marketing programs. In a case study by HubSpot, Beretta reported a 76% increase in organic leads to customers last year with inbound marketing. And with more than 80% of CMO’s increasing their content budget, (Source: Ad Age) the question becomes, who’s going to break out in your product category first?

Aug 10

How to Deal with Negative Customer Comments

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

“This product sucks, I bought it and within five days it broke. I called the manufacturer and had to sit on hold for 15 minutes to figure out how to get my money back. And when I finally did get them on the line, I had to go through four different service reps to find out it wasn’t under warranty. I will never buy from this company again, and I’m going tell all my friends to stay away.” – John M. from Facebook

Sound familiar?

At some point if you’re a manufacturer and sell products online in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry, negative feedback is not a matter of if, but when. We work in an industry where reputation is everything. People are highly passionate about the shooting, hunting and the outdoor sports—any negative experience like faulty products, bad customer service or false information will be met with a highly passionate response.

According to a new survey conducted by Dimensional Research, an overwhelming 90 percent of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions, while 86 percent said buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews. (Source: Marketing Land)

In this post, I’ll give you five ways on how to deal with negative customer comments to help you minimize damage to your brand and neutralize an angry customer.

1. Deal with the problem immediately
When a customer is unhappy, whatever the reason, it’s important to act quickly. A negative review or comment on your website or social media page has the potential to be seen by other potential customers. You don’t want the customer’s anger to fester. By acting quickly it shows you care about the customer and providing good customer service.

2. Be polite, apologetic and public
The old saying, “the customer is always right” is applicable here. You have to swallow your pride, be polite and apologetic. If the customer is unreasonable, others will see this on your feed and know you are doing all you can to remedy the situation. For example, if they sharpened their knife with a grinder and want their money back because it was milled to a toothpick, this obviously is not your fault. Be polite and explain to them that your product isn’t supposed to be sharpened in this manner. This makes you look better in the eyes of the people observing. If it gets too heated, take it offline. It’s not worth it to try and win an argument on social media for everyone to see.

3. Make it right, if possible
In all instances, whatever you can—within reason—try to make it right with the customer. If you have to send them a new product or refund their money—expedite their request. You’ll end up saving your brand’s reputation and cut off any negative reaction the angry customer might engage in. Like writing a blog or producing a video about their negative experience, posting a review on Google or filing with the Better Business Bureau. All of these are almost impossible to overcome and will affect your business’ bottom line.

4. Pick your battles
It seems like there are a lot of people who just like to kick up dust and cause trouble. We’ve all observed unwarranted attacks in forums from people who just want to attract attention or make someone else look stupid. If a person attacks your brand or product for no apparent reason, respond as politely and tactfully as possible. Use facts to back up your reply. Most of the time they are only trying to stir up controversy. Before responding, see how big of following they have on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and if others feel the same as they do. Sometimes, you may just have to ignore or delete their comment. Sometimes they may be right.

5. Hire the right people
By employing the right people for your organization you can drastically reduce the number of customer complaints from a customer service standpoint. 62% of B2B and 42% of B2C customers purchased more after a good customer service experience. If you get an angry customer who calls in demanding their money back, it’s going to be very important that the person who takes the call incorporates the above points. We’ve all experienced the grumpy customer service person. Make sure your customer service rep is trained correctly and can resolve the situation quickly. In the same survey, 72% blamed their bad customer service interaction on having to explain their problem to multiple people. (Source: Zendesk)

Working in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry is highly rewarding work and sometimes not for the lighthearted. By dealing with negative customer feedback quickly, being polite, doing all you can to make it right, picking your battles and hiring the right people, you’ll be able to save and manage your brand’s reputation more effectively when dealing with negative customer comments and reviews.

Jun 27

How to Measure The Value of Your Hunting or Firearms Brand

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Most company’s in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry today base brand value solely on sales volume, and sometimes even Facebook likes.

According to a recent survey of over 400 (non-industry) marketers, 80% of them believed building brand awareness is “extremely” or “very” important, 76% admitted that they don’t know what percentage of their target market is aware of their brand. And nearly 70% said they weren’t sure how to measure brand awareness. (Source: Survey Monkey).

I believe these numbers are even higher in our industry, because most brands still solely focus marketing spend on traditional methods like print, tradeshow and TV to boost sales that are hard to track and prove ROI.

In the past, figuring out brand value and brand equity, for the most part, were left to the academics and statisticians to figure out. Even today, there are still varying opinions from the experts about how to measure brand value and equity with not a lot of consensus or standardization to the process.

However, with the rise of email and web-based survey tools—hunting, outdoor and firearm companies that have invested in web-based ways to collect customer data, can now evaluate and understand their brand’s value without spending a fortune on complex traditional research. No longer are focus groups, mail-in reply cards, rebates, unsolicited emails and statisticians necessary.

The goal of brand development and branding (two separate disciplines) is to create awareness and preference of your products over your competitors.

“Preference cannot happen unless you know how your customers think and feel about your brand.”

If you’re interested in understanding how you can maximize your brand for increased sales, gain market share or increase customer satisfaction, there are four aspects you need to take into account to figure out your brand’s value to understand how it impacts your bottom line.

To begin, you want to start with non-customers and customers alike. By utilizing a web-based survey system and tapping into your customer database—you can incentivize your customers to take the survey or utilize a non-customer sample to acquire the data you need.

According to the BrandAsset Valuator model, your company’s brand health and future can be determined by collecting consumer insights in these four key areas:

1. Differentiation
How well does your brand stand out from your competition? You can measure this by asking questions about how often your customers come across your brand, if they recognize it and if it stands out from your competition.

Takeaway: When your brand is different, people are curious and want to know why.

Industry Example: By being bold and utilizing a strong visual with a unique brand position and product features, people will naturally be curious about your brand and will want to know more about it. One brand that comes to mind is Patriot Ordnance Factory. POF-USA was the first company to take the gas piston AR to market and has been leading the way with their revolutionary platform innovations ever since. I like their approach to using 18th Century subject matter, and how they intertwine Revolutionary War concepts with present day 2nd amendment rights.

2. Relevance
This area examines aspects of price, convenience, and if the products you produce are of use. You can determine this aspect by asking questions of the likelihood of them to purchase your product or whether they purchased it in the past.

Takeaway: If your product is more relevant than it is different, your brand may no longer be interesting which means you are competing on price and convenience alone. This will help you determine how to change your messaging and perhaps direct product development.

Industry Example: Your hunting product may have extensive distributorship in Cabella’s, Bass Pro or Walmart and other large retailers with high sales volume, but that doesn’t always means you’re the strongest brand customers prefer. Perhaps you’re just the cheapest and most convenient. If you’re the only product on the shelf, that the customer needs, you still may lose out to a competitor with a stronger brand when and if they come along. Don’t settle for second best.

Marketing experts like David Ogilvy believe that there’s more to a company’s success — or failure — than pricing, convenience, or location. Success is defined by brand equity or overall brand power, which is your brand’s value as determined by consumers’ positive or negative attitudes about your brand. (Source: Survey Monkey)

3. Esteem
How well regarded is your brand? Does it hold a high level of superiority and respect in your customers mind? Would they drive across town to purchase it? Are you on top of their list to visit at the upcoming trade show? By being able to answer these questions—you’ll be able to uncover how well respected and needed your product(s) are. This perhaps is one of the most important aspects of brand assessment.

Takeaway: When customers hold your brand in high-esteem, they want to buy it to know why.

Industry Example: When Colorado passed a law that limits ammunition magazine capacity to 15-rounds, Magpul, moved their entire operation out of Colorado—along with $80 million dollars in revenue and 200 employees and some other 400 supply chain jobs (Source: Washington Times). I assume it was a rough time internally for Magpul. But the industry stood next to them and the situation generated a great amount of positive press and a great deal of respect with their customer base.

Photo: Magpul

4. Knowledge
How well do your customers know your brand? Have you told the story correctly that they can tell it back to you? What makes you different and why? Is it positive or negative?

Takeaway: When customers have a knowledge about your brand, especially if it pertains to negative perceptions, they may think they don’t need to learn anything more and will begin to look at your competitors.

Industry Example: Heritage brands tend to suffer most from the knowledge aspect. For generations, your family may have used products or shot the same brand of gun, but one ammo or magazine malfunction or negative customer service experience may cause them to reevaluate their options. Beretta is an ideal example of how a 500 year old company continues to reinvent itself to remain relevant and attract a new generation of customers and brand advocates.

In conclusion, gathering data for data’s sake without implementation is a fool’s errand. Make sure before conducting a survey that evaluates your brand—that it is connected with a clear initiative and goal you can use to spur growth, sales, attract talent, increase workforce efficiency, communications or direct product development.

Once you see how high or low the above 4 factors stack up, you can begin to determine your brand equity based on brand stature and brand strength. This will allow you and your team to create a strategy on how to maintain your brand’s position, or how to improve it.

When customers have a chance to choose between your product or your competitors, and they choose you, that’s good for business.

Jun 02

6 Secrets on How To Increase Online Firearm Sales

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

The typical firearms buying process can take up to 3 months. (Source: NSSF) From online research, background checks, buying a safe, FFL transfer, learning how to shoot, cleaning accessories, holsters and figuring out what gun to buy can take a long time for someone who’s new to the idea of owning a gun or someone who is considering an MSR.

81% of all purchases begin with a web search (Source: Retailing Today). And even more astonishing is that 57% of the sales cycle is over before your customers even contact you (Source: CEB). These two statistics are the main drivers why you need to maintain and optimize your website—which is crucial to increasing online firearm sales.

In a recent survey, 29% report to having already purchased a firearm online and 58% are willing to consider purchasing one online. This data is most likely higher today. (Source: NSSF 2011)

And unfortunately with more gun regulations on the way, rising crime and unrest, customers will continue to seek ways on how to protect themselves, home, family, and property.

Firearms sales are booming. (Source: CNN)

Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of customers searching the web on how to buy, shoot and own a gun. Here are the top searched keywords per month according to MOZ:

ar15: 110,000
ammunition: 90,500
gun: 90,500
shotgun: 40,500
hunting rifle: 5400
rifle scope: 3600
firearm: 2900
ar15 accessories: 2400

So how do you get a piece of this lucrative online traffic? Below are six secrets to increase your online firearm sales.

1. Understand the buyers journey

Does your website adequately address and incorporate the buyers journey? Is it answering your prospects questions? Does your website simplify how they can buy a gun from you? Are you building trust with your prospect?

To understand how to maximize your online sales, you must first understand the buyer journey. See example below:

You may be missing out on ways to grow your business or build a more predictable sale forecast by not understanding your buyers journey.

2. Know who your customers are

Each brand in the industry is typically a product of its company culture or its owner. How does your style match your prospective customer? To maximize your online sales, you must define the buyer persona. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns. Create content based on your ideal customer or buyer persona. (See ebook below)

3. Create valuable content

Blogs are great ways to attract more customers. Firearm manufacturer websites (49%), magazine articles (40%), and online forums/blogs (38%) are the most referenced information sources when considering the purchase of a handgun.(Source: NSSF 2011)

Eighty-two percent of manufacturers are incorporating content into their marketing strategy, according to the 2015 B2B Manufacturing Content Marketing Trends report, recently published by the Content Marketing Institute.

If you’re not blogging on a consistent basis, you are losing out on a viable and predictable way to sell and market more firearms.

Three big names in the industry have already adopted content and are moving into the digital era. Beretta, Mossberg, and Stag Arms have already integrated inbound marketing into their marketing programs and are having massive success. See Beretta case study.

Why leave content to industry magazines (that you have to pay for) when you can create content for your own company that attracts prospects, builds your brand and retains your current customers? After all, you are the expert. You work in the industry, and build guns every day. By sharing your knowledge with your prospects or customers, you become the known expert, which in the end equals profits.

Here are some stats on why blogging works:

Blogs convert readers into buyers. 42% of consumers look to blogs for information about potential purchases; 52% say blogs have impacted their purchase decisions; and 57% of marketers have acquired new customers with their blogs. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)
B2C companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those that do not (Source: Rick’s Tips)
79% of online shoppers spend 50% of their shopping time researching products online (Source: HubSpot)
Blogs attract repeat visitors who continue to come back to their website for fresh content.

4. Create downloadable offers to generate leads

When blogging consistently on topics that answer your customers most burning questions—you attract them to your website where you are then able to keep them their longer and keep them coming back. When creating a downloadable offer in the form of: How-to guides, pricing info, catalogs, etc. and then trade this information for their email address—you earn their permission to send them more offers.

This allows you build a qualified email marketing database that moves your customers from strangers to loyal customers and enables you to close more sales.

5. Nurture customers through email marketing

In 2014, email marketing was cited as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the United States. (Source: eMarketer).

Email marketing allows you to educate your prospects and customers on your products, cross-sell or upsell, generate new sales down the road and establish your expertise.

Email marketing is the most effective way to personalize messaging and ROI in the firearms industry.

6. Pull, don’t push

Ever wonder why all social media posts look the same?

Notice how most social media messages are all about “pushing a message.” Instead of pushing your message on your customers, a better way is to “pull” them to your message. By creating valuable and relevant content that solves their problems, answers their questions or helps them become better at something, (i.e. knowing about guns) you will attract them to your message and your brand much more easily. This gives your followers valuable information that they will appreciate and remember when it’s time to buy that second gun.

In conclusion, companies in the firearms industry can increase their online sales by focusing on the buyers journey, creating and identifying their buyer persona, creating content based on solving their customer’s unique problems, creating downloadable content offers, nurturing through email marketing and using social media to pull your customers to your message and content rather than pushing it on them.

May 16

7 Brands That Are Changing the Hunting, Outdoor & Firearms Industry

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

The hunting, outdoor and firearms industry is changing—again. New faces, mainstream cross overs and digital marketing are exciting flashpoints that are driving new revenue opportunities, changing perceptions and redefining how companies are approaching their business development and revenue goals.

In this post, I picked seven brands that are changing the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry for the better. Either they are changing perceptions and opinions, making advancements in product design or tapping into new revenue streams through internet marketing. These factors are drawing new hunters and shooters, especially women (Source: Shooting Industry Magazine) and improving the industry’s image with the general public—which in the end, benefits everyone’s bottom line.

If you’re responsible for sales, marketing or business development in the hunting, outdoor or firearms industry, here are a few brands worth taking a closer look at. You may want to take some of these ideas into account for your next product release or upcoming brand marketing program.

Photo: Mountain Ops

1. Mountain Ops: Health and Wellness

The country is becoming more and more health conscience. Coca-Cola and Pepsi sales (Source: Fortune) are in decline as well as Big Macs. (SOURCE: Fortune).

Consumer healthcare is a $502 billion market that will grow by almost 50 percent to $737 billion over the next five years. This growth will be driven primarily by preventive health and wellness categories such as vitamins, nutrition, weight management and fortified foods and beverages—fueled by demand from health-focused consumers and the growing wealth of emerging market consumers. (Source: Accenture)

Hunters have always known the health benefits of staying in shape to hunt and to harvest lean organic venison or elk from the field, but few companies have capitalized on this burgeoning trend until now.

One such company is Mountain Ops. Mountain Ops offers outdoor performance nutrition supplements aimed at the outdoor athlete—or hunter who is looking to shed a few pounds. Their suite of products: Yeti, Blaze, Enduro and others help hunters prepare for the miles of hiking, running and the grueling pack-out (or drag) that consists of strapping 80+ pounds of meat on your back. They help hunters get prepared for hunting season by maximizing their gym time with supplements and energy products to fuel their hunts. Mountain Ops brings an interesting aspect to the outdoor market in that they focus on the health and wellness side of what it means to be a hunter.

Photo: Field and Stream

2. Eva Shockey: Conservation

There is no doubt that Huntress Eva Shockey continues to bring a positive impression to the hunting industry. Field and Stream and Fox News recently said she is the “New Face of Hunting.” In a male dominated sport, Eva is attracting women to the hunting lifestyle and bringing attention to our principles of conservation. Her brand image breathes new life into the sport hunting category. Backed by Under Armour, Eva has the platform to propel the message of conservationism to skeptics in the general public, attract women and change negative perceptions.

Photo: Tracking Point

3. Tracking Point: Wearable Tech

Wearable tech is a growing trend outside of the hunting/firearm world with buzz surrounding the Apple Watch, Google Glass and a plethora of fitness trackers. One such company in the firearm industry is Tracking Point. The new Shot Glass™—the world’s first weapon-integrated digital shooting glasses—allows you to see around corners, share your target practice, record your hunt.

“Wearable tech, designed to enhance the shooting and hunting experience, changes the way you experience the sport,” said TrackingPoint CEO John Lupher. “ShotGlass™ adds an element to hunting and shooting that is beyond belief.”

With Tracking Point blazing the path in wearable tech, you can expect other innovations in the future. I think it’s important for companies to focus on tech innovations as a way to keep up with the younger generation. I understand the importance of keeping hunting traditional (even though this is a tactical product), but there may be opportunities for companies to expand on tech offerings that appeal to different segments of the market who want these kinds of gadgets.

4. Benelli: Product Design

Photo: Benelli

Benelli’s new 828U is eye-catching and worth note from a product design standpoint. Leave it to the Italians to design this one. The 828U breaks the mold on shotgun design and brings a new and modern look that positions its products as refined, innovative and cutting edge. Its sleek lines, metal contrasts and patented steel locking system looks and feels like something from the future. These new and improved attempts at gun design are motivating the industry to bring more style to the products they produce. The 828U will push other companies to improve their product designs, making the tools we hunters and shooters use look a lot more innovative.

5. Duck Dynasty: Virtues

Photo: patdollard.com

I don’t think any other brand or group of people have done more for the hunting industry than Willie, Jace, Si and Phil. With over $40 million dollars in revenue in 2012, and the number one cable show in history, no one can deny that the Robertson Family/Duck Commander/Duck Dynasty brand has pushed hunting and our virtues more into the mainstream as they have. It’s not known how the industry as a whole has benefitted from Duck Dynasty—but I would bet their impact has been very positive for all of us.

6. Outdoor Edge: Innovation

Photo: Outdoor Edge

Outdoor Edge continues to push the envelope on what’s possible with knife design. The SwingBlade combines a skinning blade with a gutting blade to create an all-in-one hunting knife that really stands out from its competitors and creates a much-needed tool when it comes to field dressing. Outdoor Edge is pushing the blade category forward in terms of functionality, utility and innovation by continuing to come up with new and creative ways to design a knife.

7. Beretta: Marketing

Beretta has made big changes in the way they have marketed their brand and products over the years. By utilizing an inbound marketing strategy, they have proven and validated the inbound methodology in the hunting, outdoor and firearms space. Much of the industry still focuses on traditional marketing practices, such as trade show, print and TV. Recent statistics have shown that these methods are rising in cost, losing their effectiveness and do not prove or create the necessary return on investment they once did. According to a recent case study by HubSpot, Beretta improved their conversion rate of organic leads to customers by 76%, attained a 15% conversion rate of social media visitors to customers, and drove 4,000 sales in a single day during Black Friday—all through their website that utilizes inbound marketing.

Beretta is improving the industry by showing that inbound marketing is a valid strategy for reducing and maximizing marketing costs, improving customer satisfaction, attracting talent, creating brand preference and helping marketers improve ROI.

In conclusion, these are just a few of the top brands I see that are changing and leading the industry to new heights. As companies and marketing teams struggle to figure out how to keep up with the latest trends, internet marketing tactics and product designs, one thing is for certain, as markets change, brands must change with them.

What brands do you admire or think are changing the industry for the better? Please post your comments below.

Apr 28

What to Expect in Your First 3 Months of Inbound Marketing

By Joshua Claflin Inbound Marketing

Starting an inbound marketing program is an exciting time in your business’ history. You’re convinced that an inbound strategy is what you need to grow your business and build your brand. Hopefully by now, you’re well aware of the time, dedication and work that needs to go into inbound and you’re motivated to get the train moving down the track.

Inbound marketing is like a locomotive. It takes time to build momentum and to get your program up to speed.

Your content must tell a story and help your buyer persona solve a problem that answers their most burning questions. Unlike “push” or outbound marketing—where it is an ad and a prayer—inbound marketing builds trust and helps you build an audience of promoters, admirers, and customers over time.

If you’ve pulled the trigger on inbound marketing and are waiting to get started—here is what you can expect in your first three months.

1. The Hubspot setup

When implementing your inbound program, the first thing you need to do after signing up with an inbound marketing agency is to get Hubspot set up. We obviously use Hubspot for our marketing automation because it gives us unmatched efficiency, intelligence, and the time-saving tools to conduct everything we need to do inbound marketing accordingly.

A typical Hubspot set up looks like this:

Install tracking code on your website
Create a subdomain for your landing pages
Set up CANSPAM settings for email marketing
Load in your buyer personas
Connect your social media accounts
Setup email template
Create your calls to actions
Create your workflows
Create your forms and landing pages
Integrate your CRM
Create a blog subscription sign up form

The above list is just for Hubspot. Depending on what kind of shape your website is in—you may also need to do the following:

Consolidate your content
Search engine optimize each page with appropriate page titles, descriptions, and image titles
Confirm that your website is mobile-ready or make it responsive
Add in social signal buttons for sharing
Set up additional social media channels
Develop your brand
Redesign your website

Much work goes into properly setting up your website and Hubspot investment. Most of the setup work can be done by your current web manager or IT person to save on costs.

2. Get an offer up quickly

To get your inbound marketing program moving down the tracks faster, you’ll need to create an offer with a form and a landing page and the necessary blog articles to begin driving traffic and capturing leads.

Empty out your desk, pull up old powerpoints, use anything that can be repurposed into an offer to generate leads while you work on other premium offers.

If your website is brand new, you can expect Google to “sandbox” it for a month or two before you start to see your website showing up on SERPS (Search Engine Ranking Pages).

Within this period, you should be creating as much content as possible to increase your website’s digital footprint. The more pages you have—a higher ranking authority you will receive. To see where you stand right now, check out Hubspot’s marketing grader.

3. Blog on the keywords that have a low difficulty to rank

To get some quick wins, start by going after the most searched terms with the lowest difficulty. Write content based on those keywords and use them in your titles and content. By targeting these words, you’ll be able to generate traffic in short order as you wait for your website to start gaining momentum. Write other pieces of content based on high traffic/high difficulty keywords to augment the lower trafficked keywords. There is nothing better than seeing your keywords rise to the top of the rankings quickly.

If your website is established, you may need to spend time optimizing, doing some interlinking or repurposing past content pieces to bring them up to date. These tactics can also drive traffic fairly quickly.

4. Research and grow your audience

Start growing your audience by taking to Twitter. Twitter is an excellent way to gain traction in your first few months of inbound. Begin by following others in your category. Favorite their tweets and retweet their content when possible. This will allow your feed to start generating activity quickly. You also need to be sharing your content as well—even if you only have 1-2 posts. Share 2-3 times daily, and tweet at least four+ times a day. Utilize the 80/20 rule which means your Twitter feed should consist of eighty percent of other people’s content and only twenty percent of your content.

Begin to identify whom the centers of influence are and create lists based on your buyer personas. I recommend BuzzSumo, Right Relevance, and TweetFavy to help you identify the highest ranking people in your category. Learn what content is getting the most traffic and try to write about those trends to gain followers and increase traffic.

5. Have the right mentality moving forward

The above points are three whole months of work that will give you a firm understanding to intelligently analyze what’s working and what’s not as your inbound marketing program grows. It is important to have the right expectations moving forward. Inbound is about building relationships and trust—and like any relationship, it takes time to build and nurture. This is the fundamental reason why inbound marketing is so effective.

After three months, you may start to feel like giving up, or you may lose motivation. Inbound marketing is a marathon and not a sprint. You will see results and you will gain traction in time. Most people give up just when things hit an inflection point, and traffic goes through the roof, so stick with it. Consistent creation of relevant content, social media best practices and email nurturing will bring results and create a bedrock of internet marketing fortitude that will last for years. And not only that, it will completely annihilate your competitors chances of winning the internet marketing game in your category.

For quick boosts of traffic, you can always allocate budget to PPC while you wait for your organic traffic to rise to the top of Google. Depending on your goals, you can always mix a little outbound tactics with your inbound to create some activity. If you write a blog post that gets some decent shares and traffic, consider boosting on Facebook or sponsoring it on LinkedIn to magnify its results.

In conclusion, the first three months of inbound is based on setup, analysis, and research. Much of the work can be done upfront and in-house. After you have Hubspot setup, created an offer and targeted low-difficulty keywords—focus on growing your network and remember to keep a marathon mentality.

Once your inbound marketing program is up to speed—there’ll be no stopping it.

Apr 14

hunting shooting firearms social media company

5 Ways To Understand How Social Media Can Work For Your Hunting Company

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting, Inbound Marketing, Social Media

If you’re like most business owners or marketers in the firearms, shooting and hunting industries, social media is still a bit of a mystery. A lot of marketers and business owners think that social media is a waste of time or are vague on how to effectively use it. Like all things we don’t understand, we typically just shrug it off.

We know we have to have a Facebook page—and maybe even a Twitter account, but still we struggle to grasp the importance of social media and its use.

Social media can be explained like this: Social media is digital word-of-mouth. Like traditional word-of-mouth or referrals, you share content, ideas, recommendations, stories or pictures with people who are your neighbors, friends or family. If you stop for a moment and think about it, most of the services and products you have bought in the past—have come from referrals by neighbors, friends or family.

If people find your information (i.e. content) useful or interesting—odds are they will share it, tweet it, like it or buy it.

Social media helps get your information or content out to more people—and given the right circumstances, can grow your website traffic, leads and customers exponentially. By spreading your content far and wide—you cast a bigger net, which means you increase your odds of generating more customers.

Here are 5 ways to finally help you understand how social media works in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry.

1. Social media starts with valuable and relevant content

If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, then social media starts with creating content. You can’t attract new customers without generating content. Content can be created in the form of blogs, videos, whitepapers, ebooks or infographics. Tweet, share and post these pieces of content and distribute them on your social media networks to maximize your content reach. Write your content specifically for your buyer persona.

Should I post the same content on all networks?

To help you better understand the differences of social media, here are few comparisons made by social media guru, Guy Kawasaki (1.7 million followers on Twitter)

Facebook = People. It’s mostly for communicating with those with whom you already have some connection.
Twitter = Perceptions. It can help you build your reputation and visibility.
Instagram = Passions. It’s for sharing your passions with others who have the same passions.
Pinterest = Pinning. It’s about beautiful images and finding great stuff.
LinkedIn = Pimping. He means this in a good way, Kawasaki said. “LinkedIn can help you position yourself as a serious person and influencer.”

For Facebook, you’ll want to bring your content down to a human level and mix it up with real-life experiences. Try to make your content sound “casual” and make it fun. Posts on Facebook should be about office happenings and culture. Think reality show.

For LinkedIn, dress your content up in a suit. Make sure you add your own personal comment as to why you’re posting. Try to think in terms of how to establish yourself as an influencer or perhaps even a thought leader.

For Twitter, you only have 140 characters to get your point across. Your tweets should be short and succinct. Try to invoke curiosity or urgency to drive clicks to your content.

Buffer found that tweets with images receive 18% more clicks. Always add an interesting, eye-catching picture. This also goes for Facebook and LinkedIn.

What the heck is a hashtag?
Hastags (#) are used to identify a subject. So if you were to post something about Elk hunting in the Rockies you may tweet something like: “Elk Hunting is the Best in the Rockies! #hunting #firearms #wyoming” What the hashtag does, is allow other users to search for the same hashtag. This creates a small micro-community that follows an interest, event or subject.

2. Identify which channels work best for your business

Not all social media channels work and operate the same (as noted above). The only way to understand what network works for you is to experiment. We typically have more success on Twitter and LinkedIn than on Facebook. So we concentrate a lot of our efforts on those channels because they are more B2B oriented.

If you’re focused on reaching women (which is currently exploding in the industry) – you may want to try Pinterest as their members are almost 90% female.

Google+ should be used to help with increasing search engine rankings and indexing your pages. Google continues to struggle with creating a viable social network. However, Google+ should not be overlooked.

3. Curate other people’s content and follow back your customers!

In order to start gaining followers, you must tweet, post and share often–especially on Twitter. It’s recommended that to gain followers on Twitter you need to tweet at least 4x a day—for starters. It’s been proven the more you tweet, the more followers you get.

You won’t have enough content in the beginning—so tweet other industry/topic relevant content. Make sure to follow the 80/20 rule: tweet 80% of other people’s content and only 20% of yours. By retweeting, favoriting and sharing other people’s content, you gain followers as people are likely to follow you back.

For LinkedIn and Facebook, I recommend once a day or at least 4 times a week to maintain top-of-mind awareness. Back off if you sense people are getting annoyed or you start losing followers. Always be professional and courteous. Do not use profanity or coarse language.

Most companies in the industry are highly self-promotional. They are always tweeting out their latest products, sales, deals and happenings—push, push, push. Their social media strategy dictates that: Follow less people and have more followers than we’ll be considered more important.” Companies in the hunting, firearms and shooting industries should follows their customers back. Social media isn’t about being the most popular kid on the playground—it’s about sharing and associating with the people you are trying to help, build a relationship with to turn them into life-long customers.

Here’s how this plays out. I’m considering a new AR-15. So I head to Twitter and follow Stag Arms, Colt and Daniel Defense so I can learn more about their products and get updates on their latest news to help make a decision on what AR-15 to buy. Out of those three companies, Stag Arms ends up following me back! Wow. A big brand like Stag, wants to follow me? Guess who I’m going to buy from. Stag! So go ahead, follow back! You tell your potential customers you’re interested in them and you care about them. This goes along way in establishing your branding and inbound marketing strategy.

4. Boost your content on Facebook

Facebook has changed its news feed recently and it has become harder to get your content in front of the right audience. Facebook now offers “boosts” to reach your target audience outside of your network for increased exposure. Boosts start at $20 and go up from there. Boosts are a cost effective way to drive traffic and capture likes, leads and shares.

5. LinkedIn is about establishing yourself as an influencer and thought leader to establish credibility

Once you commit to creating valuable content, you’ll begin to learn even more about the industry and your buyer personas. An amazing thing happens when you start to research, read, tweet, post, write and curate content. You wake up one day and realize that you’re living on the bleeding edge of the latest trends, industry news and technology. You become a resource that others will find useful. I tell this to my customers who are venturing into inbound marketing. Like training for an Ironman, you start out slow, but gradually over time, you gain momentum and fitness to go the distance—and before you know it, you’re a stud triathlete.

Ok, if you’ve made it this far down on this article, you may be asking, OK great, how does participating in social media really help my business? Here are 5 important reasons:

Builds your brand and reputation
Social proof (i.e. a lot of followers) establishes trust among leery visitors
Attracts customers you otherwise would not have reached
Drives traffic to your content and landing pages to convert visitors to leads
Establishes yourself as resource, influencer and thought leader to a global audience

So there you have it.

If you were confused about how social media works—you should now have a better understanding. Social media starts with valuable content, choosing the right network, curating other peoples content (80/20 rule), following your prospects back, tweeting to drive traffic, boosting on Facebook to gain shares, and using LinkedIn to establish yourself as a credible thought leader. If you still have questions? Contact us or give us a call to see how to make social media work for your business.

Apr 11

6 Key Marketing Takeaways From NRA 2015

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

[dropcap]I [/dropcap]was fortunate to attend The NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday. I started in on the exhibits at 10 AM which only gave me 4 hours to hit my goal of hitting all of the 550 exhibits over 9 acres before my first round of meetings starting at 2 PM.

Being at the show was an amazing experience. It was good to be among the thousands of people who share the same values as I do for shooting, patriotism and the 2nd amendment.

If you’re a business owner or are responsible for marketing or sales for a hunting, outdoor or firearms company, here are 6 takeaways from a marketer’s point of view if you weren’t able to attend NRA 2015.

1. Brand aesthetics

The first thing that struck me once I entered the exhibit hall and started down the 9 acres of trade show booths, stands, signage, pop-up displays, guns and gear, was the amount of time, attention and refinement that had gone into the exhibits. Most of the larger exhibits were mobile storefronts. DPMS pulled in an entire tractor-trailer that served as a basic store on wheels. Trijicon’s booth was at least two stories high. These large-scale booths that can cost upwards to a million dollars, added real value to the show.

Marketing Takeaway: There are over 5,500 trade shows a year in the firearms industry. To compete effectively, an investment in graphic design and environmental experience is a must. From photography to apparel—your ability to capture the imagination of your customers and present a professional image should be a top priority.

Battle Arms Development – NRA15

There are a few exceptions. If your product is unique but has to work within a lower budget—a simple booth design can work just as good. The important thing is to create a professional, credible brand image and boost the experience of your products unique features.

2. The industry is growing

With 78,000+ attendees, rest assured the industry is strong. According to a recent study by Hoovers, the firearms industry is expected to grow 3% over the next three years due to the following trends:

Target Shooting Growing More Popular
Participation by Women
Investments in Gun Safety
3D Printing

With an increased interest in home defense and personal safety— fueled largely by anti-gun legislation attempts, anti-gun groups, and oversea conflicts—the largest sales are coming from the handgun and concealed carry segments. Younger buyers are attracted to Modern Sporting Rifles, which is also driving new products and new product development.

Marketing Takeaway: Manufacturers and industries associated with the Firearms industry should have a positive outlook and move forward accordingly with plans that involve growth because all trends are pointing up.

3. Technology & product design is evolving

A large part of the industry seems to be focusing on concealed carry and suppression. It seemed that a lot of the stage talks, break-out sessions and latest gear were directed towards personal defense.

There were also plenty of new sleek and modernized gun designs that appealed to hunters, especially Beretta and Benelli.

The Benelli 8828U and Ethos shotgun looks even better up close. Its sleek design, fluid lines and materials represent the latest in gun design.

Beretta’s shotguns and Black Rain Ordinance’s 300 Blackout also caught my attention.

Marketing Takeaway: Technology and product design is evolving. As the industry looks to attract younger customer segments, greater attention to modern design, materials, patterns, colors, personalization and technology are being applied.

4. Fragmented customer segments

Once you enter the hall, you are surrounded by thousands of people of all ages. There is an exciting energy and vibe. The people that I had an opportunity to meet and talk with were genuine, helpful and interested in what I had to say. People were extremely polite despite the crowded environment.

Marketing Takeaway: Focus on your customers or what is called your buyer personas. Know exactly who your customers are and why your product will appeal to them. Although the customer base of the Firearms industry share common beliefs and values, it is comprised of many different customer segments. I saw a 40-year old dad looking for a way to protect his home and a retired special ops looking to impress his buddies—both looking at the same gun. Knowing your customer should be at the top of your list at all times, which brings me to my next point.

Kimber – NRA 2015

5. Differentiation and brand experience

Amongst the sea of people, towering booths, music, sights and sounds it can be hard to stand out, especially if you are not a brand like Colt, Sig Saurer, Daniels Defense or Remington. The strongest booths were the ones who utilized a strong branding system were colors, type, imagery and materials worked together to form an experience and impression to make their prospects or customers feel something. For example, when I walked into Kimber’s exhibit, it felt like being in an upscale mountain ski chalet in contrast to Black Rain Ordinance, where it was like being in a special forces planning room.

The most successful booths were those in which you were able to experience what the brand was communicating.

Among other successful booths that weren’t so “experiential” was Mossberg, who had the Duck Dynasty clan, Tactical Tailor, which used custom photography from Straight 8 to capture their brand’s essence.

Marketing Takeaway: Invest in your brands experience and make sure that it is consistent across your packaging, website, content, ads and trade show booth. If you are unable to do what the larger brands do, use people to classify your target market in a setting in which your customer can envision themselves, e.g. Benelli’s perfect pheasant hunt.

6. Drive sales through internet/inbound marketing

It was nearly impossible to connect to the internet while in the exhibit hall. I wanted to follow the show’s hashtag: #NRAAM. What I found was that a large majority of the show’s participants weren’t tweeting and the exhibitors weren’t either. I wish I would have received this one about Marcus Luttrell from Remington:

Head to the Remington Booth to see great American hero, Marcus Luttrell. #NRAAM #NRA2015

— Remington Arms (@RemingtonArms) April 10, 2015

I also noticed that many of the brands present did not drive attendees to their websites to track engagement, gain insight and benchmark responses for future shows. Glock was the one exception with their GlockLive streaming program.

Marketing Takeaway: Firearms companies can take advantage of digital/web marketing i.e. social media, mobile and content to drive traffic, sales and reach the next generation. Firearm and hunting companies who recognize that their customers are changing how they receive content will have an advantage over their competition. There were thousands following the event on social media who weren’t able to attend NRA. Brands who did not utilize their website and their social media channels may have missed out on opportunities to build their brand and generate additional sales.

My day ended with a long drive back home with a good stack of business cards, new friends and the feeling that the NRA knows what it’s doing. As a shooter and hunter, the heritage and freedom I love is in tact.

What were your top takeaways?

Apr 08

Why Your Website Needs To Be “Mobile-Friendly”, Like Yesterday

By Joshua Claflin Responsive Web Design

Starting April 21, 2015, “mobile-friendliness” will be a ranking factor on Google. Confirmed by Google in February—companies that do not have a mobile-friendly or responsive website will suffer ranking depreciation. Is your website mobile friendly, find out here.

Did you pass? If so, you can click away from this article or maybe take a look at the 4 Things Google Wants From Your Website in 2015.

But, if your website is not mobile friendly, better keep reading…

I didn’t pass. What does this mean for my business?

If you’re like most busy business owners, you may have pushed your website to the back burner and let it coast for a few years. You may have not seen the importance of blogging or SEO because well, you’ve been busy. It happens.

Decline in traffic

Google’s past algorithm updates like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird have been catastrophic for some businesses. It’s speculated that this mobile update could have the same effect on brands that have not made the change to a responsive “mobile-friendly” design, but only time will tell.

If you haven’t made the move yet, don’t fear. If you’re running your website on WordPress or some other mobile-capable CMS’, the change should be fairly painless. You should definitely start making preparations now to upgrade.

Why the update?

Consumer behavior has changed drastically with more than 50% of all internet users accessing the web from a mobile device. (Source: Smart Insights) How can this be? Think about it for a moment. When you’re in a store, you may pull out your phone to compare prices of the same product from other stores to make sure you’re getting the right price. This is called “showrooming.” Or if you’re traveling and search for a nearby restaurant—you go to Google. And not to mention that if you walk down any street in America, you’ll see people’s heads buried in their iPhones. What’s also amazing is that 90% of all interactions per day is done through a screen of some sorts – 38% by mobile (Source: Hubspot). And with the trends of wearable tech and more go-go gadgets on the way, you can be sure that mobile will become the norm from here on out.

Check out the latest statistics that validate Google’s Decision:

57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site (Source: Mobile Playbook)
40% have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience. (Source: Mobile Playbook)
By 2017, it is predicted that 85% of the world will have 3G coverage (Source: Ericcson)
There are almost 1.2 Billion users in China (Source: Statisa)
56% of American adults are now smartphone owners. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013)
75 percent of Americans bring their phones to the bathroom. (Source: Digiday, 2013)

Needless to say, mobile is here to stay. Don’t let all your hard work of blogging, search engine optimization and investment go to waste. Contact us today to learn how to best prepare for this update.

Apr 03

The 4 Stages for Establishing Thought Leadership with LinkedIn Groups

By Joshua Claflin Inbound Marketing

LinkedIn Groups are one of the best ways to position yourself as an industry expert, establish thought leadership and generate new leads. In a survey by Forbes, 60% of users scored Groups as one of their favorite features on LinkedIn. Moreover, with only 16% in the maximum number of groups allowed (50), there’s a reason LinkedIn sees Groups as a valuable personal marketing tool. (Source: Forbes)

By having a strong personal brand within your industry, you can help your business attract more customers and eventually charge higher fees. (Source: Lee Fredrickson).

With a little finesse and tactful posting, you can establish your personal brand within LinkedIn that drives people to connect with your company’s products and services.

In this article, I’ll show you how to leverage LinkedIn groups for your advantage in four stages.

First, there are four ground rules you need to be aware of.

RULE 1: Anything that is not business related, don’t post it. Don’t be that guy.
LinkedIn is a business-based network geared towards professionals. Posting jokes, rude or obnoxious pictures should be saved for Facebook or thrown out altogether.

RULE 2: Help—don’t sell.
When posting to LinkedIn, your #1 goal is to help—not sell. By being helpful and showing people you care, you’ll earn their trust, admiration, and eventual respect.

People join LinkedIn groups for insight—not to hear about how great your latest service or product is—so please abstain from self-promotion.

Content is an exception, but with everyone getting on the content train these days, it is just like promoting your product or service, so be aware. However, by all means share and post your articles to your feed or on Pulse—LinkedIn’s publishing forum.

RULE 3: Write clearly.
Make sure to write clearly and use good grammar and punctuation. Having the ability to write clearly will help your efforts.

TIP: Check out the Grammerly and Hemingway app to become a better writer.

RULE 4: Create a great profile and get a professional photo.
The last rule is to create a great profile and get a professional photo taken! Make sure your profile is clear, contains your keywords and includes a viable work history with recommendations. All these factors will increase search engine visibility.

Ok, so now that is out of the way, let’s jump in.

The first stage in building your personal brand is the awareness stage. Followed by knowledge, insight, and trust. Each stage builds off the former with the trust stage being your goal.

Awareness > Knowledge > Insight > Trust

1. AWARENESS

Commenting and Liking
The first step to engaging your group and building awareness is by commenting and liking others’ posts. This can be as simple as typing in “Thank you for the post.” or a “Like.” People will remember you next time around and may return the favor. The goal is to make some friends and get your image and title into the group’s feed.

Ask for referrals
Ask your group what their experience has been related to working with third-party industry vendors and if they have any recommendations. Most people will be glad to help you out.

2. KNOWLEDGE

Do research and ask for validation of current trends
Once you get the feel for your group and have liked a few others posts and posted a few comments, it is time to post something of your own. The easiest way is to research a topic within your industry and share the data. Pose the research data to your group and ask them to confirm it. By posting industry data or statistics, you share valuable information to the group while playing it safe. This establishes your personal brand as someone who is knowledgeable and helpful.

Identify a problem and make suggestions on how to solve it
If your industry has a problem—it may be good to do a little research and post some of your ideas on how to solve it. Try to do so in a way that doesn’t sound like you’re complaining. Think through potential responses and how you might respond if you stir up controversy.

3. INSIGHT

Newsjacking
Another method is “newsjacking”. Newsjacking is a method of taking the latest news and posting it to your group for comment. You may even write a blog post about it and link it back to your website—being careful to not self-promote. The latest news allows you to position your personal brand as someone who is up-to-date on the latest trends and happenings. There are many tools out there to stay on the bleeding edge of breaking news.

TIP: Set up Google alerts or Twitter notifications (under Settings) that notifies you the minute news breaks.

At this point, if you’ve posted a few times, you may have noticed that you have obtained “Top Contributor Status.” You may have also begun to notice your picking up more Profile Views. These are all good signs that you are gaining traction towards the coveted “trusted” stage.

4. TRUST

You’ll know you’ve made it to the trust stage if you are getting connection requests and asked for advice via Inmail or invitations to speak. You’ll also notice increased traffic to your website from LinkedIn. These are all indicators you’re achieving trusted status.

Once you’ve received trusted status, you can drive a little deeper into understanding your industry group that will help you learn even more about your ideal customers.

Here are two examples to start posting once you’ve achieved trusted status.

Questions about their business
Everyone likes talking about their business. A great way to get group members talking is to post questions on:

How’d you come up with your name and what does it mean?
How long have you’ve been in business?
What’s been your most valuable lesson?
What is your biggest success?
What makes your brand special?

People love to talk about their businesses. Most business owners are not going to give away trade secrets or other information. So keep it high level. Follow up by writing a blog post and share it with your group.

Recommend latest industry tools or reports
Is their some new tool or software that is helping your industry? Using third party subject matter can stoke conversation. Make sure you have a good understanding of any tools you recommend or criticize.

How often should I post? A good rule of thumb in posting is once every two weeks. After you’ve been consistently posting for 4-5 months—yes, this is going to take time.

Start a survey
Another great way is to post a survey about a certain industry topic and offer to also share the results. This is a great way to shape influence. However, this should only be attempted if you’ve achieved “trusted” status.

In conclusion, by posting the right way to your LinkedIn groups, you can expect more connection requests, learn more about your ideal customers, generate more leads and establish your personal brand and expertise. By following this 4 stage process, you now have a framework on how to go about achieving “trusted” status within your LinkedIn group.

Joshua Claflin

How to Get Started with Inbound Marketing on a Small Budget

Is Inbound Marketing Right For My Firearms or Hunting Business?

3 Kinds of Hunting and Firearms Content You Should Be Writing

The Hunting and Firearms Industry’s Best Website Designs

5 Ways To Boost Your Hunting or Firearms Brand’s Experience

How Inbound Marketing Increases Your Dealers & Distributors Firearm Sales

How to Deal with Negative Customer Comments

How to Measure The Value of Your Hunting or Firearms Brand

6 Secrets on How To Increase Online Firearm Sales

7 Brands That Are Changing the Hunting, Outdoor & Firearms Industry

What to Expect in Your First 3 Months of Inbound Marketing

6 Key Marketing Takeaways From NRA 2015

Why Your Website Needs To Be “Mobile-Friendly”, Like Yesterday

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