Marketing

As we approach the mid-year mark with another SHOT Show and sales season on the horizon, it’s essential for outdoor, hunting, and shooting sports brands to revisit their marketing strategies and make necessary adjustments to stay ahead in the competitive market and finish the year strong.

During this time of year when sales are generally sluggish for most brands, this article presents seven valuable tips or reminders to enhance your marketing efforts. The aim is to optimize your strategies while your customers are enjoying their time on their boats, thereby achieving greater success and better preparedness to tackle the slow months in the future.

From leveraging influencers to embracing AI and refining messaging, these tips will give you some ideas on how to connect with your target audience, create engaging content, and build strong customer relationships.

1. Target Micro and Macro Influencers Strategically

Influencer marketing continues to be a powerful tool for outdoor, hunting, and shooting sports brands to reach and build awareness of their brand. However, rather than focusing on high follower counts, engaging with micro-influencers with a smaller but highly engaged following is more effective. Aim to collaborate with influencers who genuinely align with your brand values and possess an authentic connection to the outdoor lifestyle. By targeting 25 or fewer influential individuals, you can ensure that your brand’s message and products resonate more strongly with the right audience.

• Micro-influencers generate up to 60% more engagement than macro influencers.
• 44% of marketers say that the biggest benefit of working with micro-influencers is that it is less expensive.
• 56% of marketers who invest in influencer marketing work with micro-influencers.  (Source: HubSpot)

2. Embrace AI and Start Planning Now

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a game-changer in the marketing landscape, and outdoor brands should begin incorporating it into their strategies—like yesterday. Start by building a knowledge base to understand AI’s potential, such as predictive analytics, personalized recommendations, and automated customer interactions. Utilize AI-powered tools to analyze customer data, segment your audience, and enhance the overall customer experience. Use ChatGPT to rewrite some of those badly written product descriptions. By embracing AI early, you can gain a competitive edge and future-proof your marketing efforts. It won’t be long before AI can do all your marketing, and you’ll need a solid knowledge base to work and learn from.

• According to Salesforce, 23% of customer service companies are currently using AI
• IBM reports that using chatbots can reduce customer service costs by as much as 30%
• 68% of users enjoy the speed at which chatbots answer, according to UserLike

Take the AI Poll and we’ll share the results in our next blog.

3. CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)

With the introduction of Google Analytics 4, it has become simpler than ever to comprehend the points where your customers are leaving the sales process. This presents a great opportunity to focus on improving your conversion rates. When considering Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), aim for small incremental improvements. Even a modest increase of 0.75% to 1% can result in substantial gains over the course of a year. Here are ten aspects to increasing CRO:

1. Messaging
2. Desktop speed optimization
3. Mobile speed optimization
4. Home page bounce rate optimization
5. Menu A/B testing
6. Funnel Understanding and Analytics
7. Optimize Top 10 selling products: Write better descriptions and add better imagery
8. Cart/Checkout optimization
9. CTA A/B testing
10. Upsell/Cross optimization emails

Do 2-3 changes per month, track, rinse and repeat over 3-6 months to improve.

4. Double Down on Email

While social media platforms and emerging technologies may dominate the marketing scene, email marketing STILL remains the top marketing channel in outdoor. Don’t underestimate the power of a well-crafted email campaign to nurture relationships with your existing customer base. Personalize your emails, offer exclusive promotions, and provide valuable content to keep your audience engaged and loyal. Create automation, especially a Welcome Series and Retargeting Emails. Remember to optimize your emails for mobile devices to cater to the growing number of users accessing their emails on smartphones and tablets.

5. Prioritize Customer-Centric Approach with HubSpot CRM

To succeed in today’s competitive market, outdoor brands must prioritize their customers. Top-of-funnel marketing is important, but don’t forget your current and past customers. So many brands overlook that they are sitting on top of interested customers who would still buy from you. Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system, such as the HubSpot Service Hub, can help put your customers at the center of your marketing efforts. HubSpot CRM enables you to track customer interactions, manage leads effectively, and deliver personalized experiences. Leverage the power of CRM to understand your customers through surveys better, tailor your messaging, and build long-term relationships based on trust and loyalty.

• CRM can boost conversion rates by 300%
• The ROI of a CRM software system, when properly implemented, can exceed 245%. (IBM)
• 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM system
• 22% of sales professionals are still unsure about what CRM is.
• 74% of companies say CRM technology gives better access to customer data
• 94% of customers look to make a purchase from the same source they have previously.

Source: Techco

6. Keep Creating Content That Helps Your Customers

Content marketing remains a cornerstone of any successful marketing strategy. To achieve organic traffic, you have to keep creating content. To have a strong email marketing program, you have to create helpful content that helps your customers achieve their goals. To have a robust social media campaign, you have to create, yes… content. Whether it’s blog posts, how-to guides, engaging videos or shorts, focus on providing relevant information, inspiring stories, and actionable tips. By positioning your brand as a reliable source of expertise, you can establish credibility, foster engagement, and drive more conversions.

• According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.
• 91% of marketing pros surveyed by Semrush achieved success with their content marketing in 2021.
• Half of all marketers say they outsource some content marketing.
• The pandemic increased content usage by 207%.

7. Clarify Your Messaging

Effective communication is crucial for outdoor brands to resonate with their target audience. Take the time to clarify your brand messaging, ensuring that it aligns with the problem you solve and speaks directly to your customer’s aspirations or goals. Craft a compelling brand story that captures the essence of your outdoor brand and conveys the unique benefits you offer. Use consistent language across all your marketing channels to save marketing dollars and create a cohesive brand identity that evokes emotions, trust, and engagement that builds trust among your audience.

As outdoor brands navigate the mid-year point and head into sales season, refining their marketing strategies to maintain a competitive edge is essential. By following these seven tips, outdoor brands can leverage the power of influencers, embrace AI, optimize email marketing, prioritize customers with CRM, create helpful content, and clarify messaging.

Setting goals can sometimes quickly become a cruel lesson in futility. Like New Years’ resolutions—you set goals with great motivation and vigor—only to have your best intentions sidetracked by company requests, family life or other distractions. That is unless you’re a part of the only 8% who keep them.

To stay focused on your initiatives—here are three points to help you organize your thoughts and make a plan to achieving them.

1. Create a Vision

If you were given a 50,000 dollar budget to spend on marketing—what would you do with it? Build a better website? Write more content? Produce more videos? Upgrade your photography? Increase sales by 20% within 9 months? The first step to creating a goal is to figure out what you want. If you don’t know what you want, you don’t know what you need to achieve to get there. What do you really want to create for yourself, your business or your brand? How will this benefit you personally? Don’t be afraid to think big. Take fifteen minutes and document your vision. Take note of the details. Try to incorporate all the different angles into your vision to make it effective. (Source: Forbes)

2. Use the SMART method to set your goals

SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely – think of these as the ingredients of success. Here’s what they mean and how to apply them:

Specific: Set real numbers with real deadlines. Don’t say, “I want more website visitors,” or “I want to dominate my category.” Look at your website metrics, sales numbers or anything else you have tracked in the past in the form of visits, leads, sales or customers to establish benchmarks. These metrics work, because they are measurable, and they can be used to understand how they affect your bottom line now and in the future. 

Measurable: Make sure that you can track your goals. Don’t hide behind buzzwords like “brand engagement” or “social influence.” If it’s leads, how many leads do you want? Don’t pick something out of thin air, pick something you can measure correctly and track.

Put the right tools in place to measure like Google Analytics or other web tracking software like HotJar, Databox, or HubSpot. You can’t measure what you can’t track. 

Attainable: Work toward a goal that is challenging but possible. Don’t try to take over the world in one night. How much time is it going to take? How much budget and resources do you have?

Realistic: Be honest with yourself, because you know what you and your team are capable of. Don’t forget any hurdles you may have to overcome, e.g. competitors, economy, changing regulations, talent, etc. 

Timely: Give yourself a deadline. Don’t keep pushing towards a goal you might hit “some day.” How long is it going to take? 6 months, 1 year? Set a realistic timeframe. Give yourself enough time to reach your goal, but not too much that it drags on.

By utilizing the SMART method—your goals are much more attainable and measurable. (Source: Hubspot) 

Here’s an example of a SMART goal:
Increase visits by 25% (2,250 per month to 3,000 per month) and make $150K in additional revenue by EOY.

3. Write it down!

According to a study done by Gail Matthews at Dominican University, those who wrote down their goals accomplished significantly more than those who did not write down their goals. Who doesn’t want to accomplish significantly more? If you don’t write it down, it doesn’t exist. We all know that having a plan is one thing, but accomplishing that plan is something different. 

Get out a big pad of paper and a sharpie and begin writing down your goals and post them on your wall. That way you can refer to them every day and track progress as you cross them off the list.

As marketers and business owners in the hunting and firearms industry, we are always being pulled in 10 different directions. We’re constantly trying to find ways to keep the train on the track. By establishing the above SMART goals, you can alleviate a lot of stress when you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing. SMART goals keep you laser-focused and on task. Now that your goals have been set—plan it out and get moving. Don’t forget to celebrate each goal as you achieve it!