Apr 02

To Stand Out In The Outdoor Marketplace, Make Your Customer The Hero, Not Your Brand

Standing out in the ultra-competitive outdoor, hunting and firearms industry is really difficult—if not impossible. The imagery is getting better. The copy is more persuasive. The products are more durable and it seems like every brand claims the same thing:

We Make the World’s_____.
We’re the Superior ______.
We’re #1 in _____.
The Worlds’ Most_____.
The Ultimate _____.

Does the above list sound familiar? A quick look through any outdoor, hunting or firearms magazine and you’ll see what I mean.

There’s nothing wrong with claiming to be the best—if you’re a brand who really is the market leader – MagPul (Mags), Sig (Pistols), Ruger (10/22), Remington (700)—you earned it. But for brands less well known, making such claims can be down-right dishonest. The truth is, if you’re a relative unknown brand making the claim that you’re “the best,” you’re wasting money on marketing and your customers don’t believe you anyway. False claims have caused a backlash in other industries as well as our own.

People have great distrust in brands (and companies) these days (Source: Forbes). It’s been documented that your prospective customers will check out 11 pieces (social media, reviews, blogs, websites, ads, forum review and articles) of content before deciding to hand over their hard-earned money because they are afraid of being cheated or taken of advantage of. When was the last time you bought something for first time over $250 without doing any research online?

To combat this “me-too,” and “I’m the best” mentality, marketers and business owners need to find other ways to get their customer’s attention and break out in the marketplace—and the way to effectively accomplish this is by putting in the time to think through their messaging —a good way to do this is through the power of story.

Story has been around since creation. Story has been hard-wired into our brain as a sense-making device. It helps us understand our environment, situations and how to achieve our goals. Stories engage our imaginations and hold our attention for hours on end. Think about the last great movie you saw. Movies like Jason Bourne, Days of Thunder, Star Wars and Saving Private Ryan are all incredibly captivating.

The same methods used in the movies can also apply to your outdoor, hunting, defense or firearms business.

In the following, I’m going to explain how to write story into your marketing, make your customer the hero and stand out in the marketplace to attract more customers. This process if called StoryBrand.

1. A Character

Make your customer the hero, not your brand.

Every great story starts with a hero. The hero in your business is your customer. As humans, we all want to become something better: better hunters, better shooters, more fit, smarter and more wealthy. We also have personality and character traits like age, income, values, beliefs and interests. Define your customer as the hero in your ads, emails, website copy, and sales letter. Once you start defining what your customer wants, they start paying attention.

Q: How can you make your customer the hero?

Brands that participate in the transformation of their customers win in the marketplace. (Source: StoryBrand)

2. Has a Problem

Every hero in every story has a problem that must be solved. Without a problem to be addressed (a bomb to diffuse, a girl to rescue or a disaster to prevent) the story would fall flat and you lose your audience’s interest. It’s up to you to identify what the problem is and how the hero will overcome this problem.

Q: What problem does your product or service solve?

A story gets interesting when the conflict is defined. (Source: StoryBrand)

3. Meets a Guide Who Understands Them

No hero can solve the problem on their own. They can try, but it won’t be as successful nor as exciting. Luke Skywalker had Ben Kenobi, Cole Trickle had Harry Hogge, and Neo had Morpheus.

This is how your brand plays the guide:

First, you must show Empathy. Empathy means to relate. How can you empathize with your customer’s problem?
Second is Authority. Heroes look to guides who have gone before them. If you haven’t gone where your customer wants to go, how can you be the guide? How have you solved the same problem your customer is trying to solve? This must be communicated clearly to establish trust.

Never position yourself as the hero in your brand’s story. (Source: StoryBrand)

4. Who gives them a Plan

At this point in the story, your customers find themselves at risk. This is the point where most customers will bounce off your website or find themselves confused about what you offer. The purpose of giving them a plan is to break down the steps on what it takes to work with or buy from you. The plan eases any friction points in the buying process and helps your customer move forward.

Q: What are the steps your customer must take to work with you?

A plan alleviates confusion or hesitancy about the next step. (Source: StoryBrand)

5. And Calls them to Action

No story can proceed until the hero is called to action. Your customer will not take action unless they are challenged. You must call them to do something.

Buy Now
Schedule A Call
Sign Up
Find A Dealer

are all clear call to actions. This language must be repeated over and over again to make it clear what it is you want your customer to do.

Q: Do you have a clear call to action on your website?

If we don’t have the confidence to ask people to buy from us, they assume our product won’t solve their problem. (Source: StoryBrand)

6. That Helps Them Avoid Failure

Two forces motivate people: avoiding failure and experiencing success. Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending. Your customer must know how you will help them be successful.

Q: How will your product or service help your customer avoid failure.

Human beings are sometimes more motivated to avoid a loss than achieve gain. (Source: StoryBrand)

7. Or Ends in Success

As the guide, you must cast the vision of what success looks like if your customer uses your product or services.

Communicate through words and images that your product or service solves your customers’ problems. (Source: StoryBrand)

By understanding these seven principles, you will be able to

Stop wasting money on ineffective marketing
Get and keep your customers attention
Cut through the marketplace clutter of me-too products
Attract more customers

By taking the time to clarify your message and figure out these aspects of your story, you will be able to transform your marketing, attract new customers and stand out in the crowded marketplace.

You can also schedule a call with me, and get a clear plan on how stand out in the crowded outdoor, hunting, defense and firearms marketplace.

Feb 19

Three Game Changing Takeaways From The StoryBrand Conference

By Joshua Claflin StoryBrand, Brand Development

I just completed a ground-breaking week-long study on consumer behavior, by Donald Miller, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best Selling Author, on how to use the power of story to clearly communicate for better results. I wanted to share with you my three biggest takeaways from the StoryBrand Certified Guide Training that is sure to get you thinking differently about your business and how to communicate your brand’s message with greater clarity.

We are at a point in human history where your prospective customers and clients are bombarded with an unprecedented amount of noise and clutter. Facebook ads, phone dings, bings and bops, emails, podcasts, pop up banners, click-bait and unsolicited phone calls and texts have made it difficult to make any money spent on marketing work as good as it used to.

Furthermore, these intrusive methods have made brands untrustful as some companies have tricked customers into buying their products which have driven trust among brands past the point of no return. This barrage of distraction has the potential to stymie your business growth, waste thousands of dollars on marketing that doesn’t work and ultimately bring your business to the precipice.

However, there is a unique proven framework to fight against this to make your marketing work—and it has to do with the power of story. You see, storytelling has been a way to communicate with just about everyone since the dawn of time. It’s the sole reason the 43 Billion dollar movie industry continues to thrive year after year. And when you think about it, it’s the reason we love to sit around the campfire and listen to someone who overcame impossible odds that ended in success. And since story is used to create clarity in our understanding—it’s a perfect tool to infuse into your business and marketing communications that cuts through the clutter, grabs your customer’s attention and ultimately drives more sales. This process has been proven in thousands of businesses including brands like Chik-Fil-A, Pantene, Car Max, Intel, Berkshire Hathaway, and even Presidential political campaigns.

So in the following, I’ll give you my three biggest takeaways from last week’s StoryBrand Conference with some links to some resources that will give you more understanding on the power of story and how to use it to grow your business.

1. People don’t read websites, they scan them.

Website Wireframe

People don’t buy the best products, they buy the ones they understand the clearest. When you’re trying to build your business, clarity beats cute and clever every time. Your website is the hub of all your marketing activities and is the easiest way to track marketing spend. If a prospective customer lands on your website and you can’t spell out to them how you solve their problem within 8 seconds, you lose them. They bounce off and find someone else who can, usually a competitor.

2. Customer’s buy products or services based on internal problems, not external problems.

The difference between an internal and external problem is this:

The external problem is the tangible obstacle your customer has to overcome to get the thing that they want.

Ex. I need a new set of binoculars, mine just busted.”

Because your character is facing the external problem, how is that making them feel internally?

Ex. “I have a big adventure trip coming up and if I don’t have good set of binos I’m going to miss out on seeing all the wildlife.”

See the difference? The internal problem miss out has much more meaning behind it because the results are more tragic than the external problem. Most marketers communicate the external problem and don’t sell the internal problem.

3. Your product/service should show how the customer will transform into something better.

People naturally want to become better. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, become a better speaker, hire a better candidate or grow a bigger business—we all want to be aspire to our future itself. For example, a hunter in the below MTN OPS post wants to become a “conquering outdoor athlete.” For a hiker, it could be to become a “conservationist sojourner.” For a fitness fanatic, it could be to become “the athlete everyone wants to be.” Whatever your customer wants to become—you have to show how your product or service will get them there. Most companies put all the focus on their products benefits and features, not what their customer’s want to become. This doesn’t trigger the emotional responses in the brain needed to help your customer understand how you can help them or move them to the desired call to action.

View this post on Instagram

@chadmendes taking it all in at last light during his Utah Mule Deer Hunt. | #MtnOps #ConquerMore | @luke.dusenbury
A post shared by MTN OPS (@mtnops) on Oct 31, 2018 at 3:25pm PDT

By taking the time to clarify your message and figure out these aspects of your messaging, you will be able to transform your marketing and grow your business. In the following weeks, I will be rolling out a series of articles based on story and the StoryBrand process.

If you’d like to check out the book and learn more about the process yourself you can:

You can also schedule a call with me and get a clear plan on how to move forward that will allow you to grow your business more effectively in the age of distraction.

Feb 03

Five Marketing Takeaways from SHOT Show 2019

By Joshua Claflin Firearms Marketing

After a cold and windy Range Day, a ride in Glock’s submarine, Aquila’s mini-shells and a peek at Maxim Defense’ new gun—SHOT Show 2019 has left me wondering what the coming year holds.

After taking some time to think through my experiences and having a few discussions with clients and industry professionals—here are my top takeaways from a marketer’s perspective—on what I thought of this year’s largest shooting, hunting, and outdoor industry trade show and some marketing ideas for your consideration.

1. Increased International interest?

Clients and friends I talked to agree—there seemed to be an increased international interest this year. I saw and spoke to a lot more companies from Turkey, India, Scandinavia, Israel, and others than previous years. I was approached by a couple of European companies about expansion into the U.S. market. There are a few things that could be driving this, and I don’t want to speculate, but with more international brands entering the U.S. market, competition in 2019 and future years may get a bit tighter.

2. Brand communication shifts indicate where the market is moving.

Three exciting brand shifts that caught my attention belonged to Mossberg, Daniel Defense, and Springfield Armory.

Mossberg goes black.
A hunting brand long known for their shotguns looks to have finally completed their evolution into a tactical/self-defense brand with their new MC1sc 9mm Sub Compact pistol along with an entire booth and website redesign that aligns with their “Arm Yourself” campaign theme. They also traded their traditional blue and yellow color palette for black and yellow. This change is a total rebrand of the 100-year-old company.

Photo credit: Daniel Defense

Daniel Defense mixes in the country.
On the opposite end—Daniel Defense with the release of their new bolt gun moves to the middle between tactical and outdoor which signals a push to balance the brand between the two markets. A quick look at their website shows the Ambush models front and center. They incorporated a more apparent outdoor theme into this year’s catalog, which also indicates where the manufacturer’s head is on current trends.

Springfield focuses on being more real.
Springfield Armory’s catalog pictured models on location in Wyoming (my home State – Go Pokes!) riding four wheelers, camping, fishing, fending off bears and hunting. These look like regular folks which to me was a breath of fresh air in contrast to the often overused black tactical imagery. This kind of imagery also started popping up in some of Glock’s materials.

Photo credit: Springfield Armory

So what do these shifts in brand communication mean?

Top brands are aware of the trends that point to a more humanistic approach
Hunting is still essential, but self-defense is where the money is at
Brands still struggle to walk the line between being a tactical and hunting company (or both)
Younger marketing professionals are taking the reigns reflected in this year’s marketing materials
Is “Tacticool” finally over? 🙂

4. “An Unprecedented Effort”

NSSF’s outgoing president Steve Santenni stated that “NSSF is embarking on an unprecedented effort to get out the positive messages about our industry across the country. Using all the tools available to us, we will fight the shaming and name calling being thrown against us, with the truth that we are a critical part of the solution.”

I applaud the NSSF for taking this on. But in order for this to work, NSSF must have a clear message, rally the involvement of manufacturers, dealers, and distributors, media, create a coalition of out-of-industry ‘gun friendly’ groups and then track and optimize this effort over time to ensure success.

Our industry is full of good, honest, hard-working regular people who follow the laws, pay their taxes and want to raise their families and live in peace—this must be emphasized. NRA’s “Safest Place” Campaign during the last Presidential election is an example of a step in the right direction. However, to win over the Millennials and grow our numbers (shooting and hunting) a more humanistic, trust-building, fact and value-based approach will be required—not another glossy PR campaign.

Here are a couple of ideas and a framework you can use to contribute to the effort:

Define your audience. What does your customer/audience want?
Who is the villain in your story (or the problem you are trying to solve)?
Misinformation, government control, political agendas, anti-gun/anti-hunting sentiment, failed mental health programs?
How can you guide your customers/audience to the solution?
Show the faces of real people in our communities (CCWs, LE, Vets, Pastors, Teachers, Firemen, Doctors, Moms, Dads, etc.) who are contributing to the desired solution. Tell the stories of how a firearm helped a family survive a home invasion. Or how Venison provides fresh organic field-to-plate protein to localvores. Show empathy and authority.
What is the plan to get your audience to the solution?
What resources, events and actions need to be developed? How much will it cost?
What are the direct (community involvement, donate, sign up, call your senator) or transitional (downloadable educational materials, webinars, attend a speaking event) calls to action?
Explain what success and failure looks like.
Paint a person absent of the ability to protect him or herself—show what the difference would be.
Show people how they can transform into something better: safer, more confident, healthier, active etc.

I encourage you (Industry Marketers) to consider incorporating the positive attributes of not only your products but industry contributions into your advertising. We are the messengers that shape opinion, attitudes, and culture. It’s upon us to communicate the positive attributes of our products for conservation, self-defense and the Second Amendment—without compromise—in the best positive light. Don’t just say we support these efforts—show your audience why. Allow those messages to permeate into the mainstream in greater frequency. We are the rescuers, the conservationists, the warriors and the people who want to protect, who fight for the good of others. It’s high time to take back the public square of opinion and confront those who’ve tarnished our good name in a respectful tone with more focus and effort.

5. Looking forward

2019 will be another turbulent year for our industry. More virtue signaling, boycotts, anti-gun/hunting protests, rants, and the upcoming Democratic primaries and Presidential election will keep our industry on the front burner. This turbulence will affect sales, marketing budgets, trade show attendance and our ability to plan for the future.

Use your platform to spread far and wide the positive attributes of our industry and the good-willed people in it.

Those are my thoughts; I’d be curious to know yours? Please comment below…

Jan 22

PODCAST: What is the Number One Thing Outdoor Hunting Marketers Look for in Influencers?

By Joshua Claflin Influencer Marketing

I recently sat down with Brad Luttrell who runs one of the most popular podcasts in the outdoor industry: Restless Native and the wildly popular GoWild App. If you haven’t checked them out, I highly recommend it as a source of not only great content but also as a direct line into what’s happening in all things outdoor.

Restless Native is a podcast about maximizing every moment we have in between birth and death. We chat conservation, cooking, fishing, hunting, entrepreneurship, success and failures.

In this episode, we discuss influencer marketing and the changing factors brands must navigate to maximize their marketing dollars. Below is the excerpt from the episode and link to listen in.

Influencer marketing is relatively new… One of the things I look for first in ever single influencer we work with, is do they have …”
— Josh Claflin, Digital Marketer

Over the last few weeks we’ve unveiled a lot of behind the scenes content from GoWild. Today I have one of the better looks under the hood of outdoors marketing that you’ll hear.

Brand content doesn’t happen like your personal content. It’s not spur of the moment. Brands have content calendars, copywriters, photographers, designers, strategists, account managers and, maybe most importantly, thousands and thousands of dollars at play here.

There is no one philosophy on how to build a brand or spend a budget. Some people live and die by print ads and trade shows. Other brand managers may invest heavily in video content. But lately, there’s been a huge trend to push for influencers.

What is an influencer? A lot of people would generically say it’s someone with a lot of followers. But my guest today is here to tell you having followers doesn’t make you a leader.

Josh Claflin is very knowledgeable. He’s going to unveil some things some outdoor brands might not even want you to know. We’re going to get into how the social media sausage is made. And I will bet that for many of you, he’s going to open your eyes to tell you follower and vanity metrics don’t necessarily make you an influencer. Or even relevant.

In fact, Josh is going to unveil the one thing his company looks for beyond your like counts, follower numbers and impressions. (Source: Ever Restless)

Jan 05

How To Get The Most Out of Your Outdoor E-commerce Email Marketing

By Joshua Claflin Outdoor, Email Marketing

Running an online store means zero in-person customer interaction — and this poses a big challenge when you want to build meaningful relationships with your customers in the outdoor industry. This is why email marketing makes a great channel for e-commerce. Outdoor e-commerce email marketing is about building relationships through regular communication and engagement. And it’s exactly what online businesses need to thrive.

There are various ways to generate sales for an e-commerce business. But since email marketing accounts for roughly 23% of total sales, it doesn’t take much convincing for online retailers to start harnessing its potential.

Email use is on a steady ascent among consumers and in today’s business world. Around 205 billion emails are sent and received every day — a figure that’s expected to grow at an average annual rate of 3% over the next four years. By the end of 2019, this number may reach 246 billion. It’s enough proof that email isn’t going anywhere.

Email Marketing: The Key to E-commerce Success

Smart online retailers know that email marketing is one of the most reliable and profitable marketing channels. But to make it work for your business, you have to build an email list first. Having an email list keeps you in the competition. It’s a business asset that no one can take away from you. Online stores rely on website traffic, particularly from repeat visitors, to drive sales. Your email list and campaigns help retain more of that traffic by providing an incentive to return — discounts, new products, valuable content, etc. — and communicating it on a regular basis.

Benefits of Email Marketing for E-Commerce

Before we discuss how you can make the most out of e-commerce email marketing, let’s first have a look at the key benefits email marketing brings to your online business.

Email can be a powerful tool for customer acquisition. It’s actually 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter. With email, you get to take the conversation about your business, products, and services to your customer’s most personal online space: their inbox.
Email is more effective in driving traffic and sales. Having an email list allows you to reach your customers in various ways. You can leverage email campaigns to increase website traffic and enhance subscriber engagement in much deeper ways.
Email helps build relationships with both existing and new customers. Social and search are great ways to get discovered online, but email is the best way to maintain and strengthen that relationship over time. In fact, 60% of online consumers prefer to buy new products from brands they’re familiar with.

Integrating email marketing in e-commerce requires time and attention to be successful. Here are some e-commerce email marketing tips to help you deliver better customer value and build stronger relationships.

Segment your email list for better engagement.

With the clutter going on in everyone’s inbox, the last thing you’d want to send is a one-size-fits-all email. Your emails need to be relevant to the recipient for it to get the latter’s interest and possibly drive a conversion.

One surefire way to make your subscribers feel happy and valued — which could eventually make them purchase — is by sending emails with content tailored to them. You can do this by segmenting your email list into groups with similar needs or interests.

Creating emails based on specific criteria using segmentation helps increase engagement and conversion. In the Garmin Example, they ask you as soon as you sign up what you’d like to get updates on.

Nurture your email list and provide value to subscribers.

Having loyal customers is one of the main reasons a business survives. Fostering relationships with these customers is vital to keep them coming back to your business. To do this, you have to regularly provide value to your subscribers through discounts, loyalty programs or good content.

Including a healthy amount of nurturing emails along with promotional emails is important in outdoor e-commerce email marketing, especially since not every subscriber is ready to purchase. On the other hand, creating loyalty programs further cultivate customer relationships and drive them back to your business.

Nurture your leads by delivering relevant content, interesting news, and product updates. This will keep your subscribers interested in your brand. Sending valuable, content-rich emails to your subscribers early on can make them more likely to open your promotional emails in the future, which can lead to better engagement, click-throughs, and conversion.

In the example below, Northface welcomes their subscribers and lets them know more about their brand in a subtle, amusing way.

Follow the anatomy of a good email
Standing out in your subscriber’s inbox is one challenge you have to overcome. The good news is that you can actually do it when you know how to craft your email in a way that would entice your readers and inspire an action. Below are key elements you need to consider in your emails.
- Subject line. The first step in grabbing their attention is by coming up with a compelling subject line. Since it’s the first true contact point of email marketing, your subject line needs to entice the recipient to open your email. Create irresistible subject lines to increase your open rates.
- Body content. The main rule when it comes to your email content is to keep it short and make it visually appealing. Ensure that the reader knows right away how they can benefit from your message.
- Call-to-action. After your subscriber opens your email, the next thing you’d want is to inspire an action. Focus on a primary action that you want the recipient to take. Use action words in your call-to-action and make it visible in the email.
- Format. Mobile opens accounted for 46% of all email opens. This shows that more email recipients are opening their emails on mobile devices. With this in mind, you have to optimize mobile in your emails. Make sure the emails you send are responsive to the size of the screen they’re displayed on.
Optimize transactional emails.

Being an online business means you get to send a lot of transactional emails. Consumers interact with these emails — password resets, login details, order confirmation, shipping notifications, shopping cart abandonment, etc. — on an almost, if not daily basis. In fact, transactional emails get 8x more opens and clicks than any other type of email and generate 6x more revenue.

While it may seem easier to send out default transactional emails, getting creative with it can be more effective in making your customers come back to your store for a repeat purchase. A transactional email offers high levels of relevance, and when optimized properly, can drive additional sales and revenue in the process.

Create a consistent brand experience for your prospects and customers in your transactional emails. You can use the same branding with your website or marketing emails, include special offers to entice customers to make another purchase, or give product recommendations that your customer might need.

Warby Parker came up with a clean design in line with their branding in this transactional email.

Ensuring email deliverability

Ensuring email deliverability is another important factor that determines the success of your email marketing. After all, what’s the use of sending beautiful, optimized emails when they don’t even reach your subscriber’s inbox?

The thing is, getting those emails to the inbox isn’t always easy. Email deliverability issues, such as high bounces, flagging spam filters, and low engagement, can be present. With 20% of emails not reaching the inbox, there’s a chance marketers are missing out on potential revenue and the opportunity to build a strong relationship with subscribers.

To ensure email deliverability, you have to take actionable steps that will help your emails reach the intended recipients. Start off by better positioning your campaigns to reach the inbox. Follow key steps to avoid being marked as spam. Improve reputation score and check feedback loops. Send re-engagement campaigns to subscribers who haven’t opened an email in over 12 months. These are just some of the many ways you can improve email deliverability.

Here’s a great re-engagement email to get a subscriber back to the site.

Wrap Up

Email marketing can help take your Outdoor e-commerce business to greater heights as it helps your brand engage with customers and build lasting relationships with them. E-commerce email marketing is both a science and an art. It entails sending relevant emails to the right audience at the right time. The strategies you employ in your e-commerce email marketing will define the success of your campaign. The first thing you need to do is understand how email marketing helps your online business, then follow tried-and-true ways to let you get the most out of e-commerce email marketing.

Dec 27

3 StoryBrand Outdoor Marketing Fixes That Will Save Money

By Joshua Claflin Outdoor Hunting Shooting Sports, StoryBrand

Whether you’re someone starting a business, a marketer trying to move the needle for your company—or an executive trying to figure out how you can grow more effectively—foggy and confusing marketing is costing you thousands of dollars and keeping you from seeing your way to the top.

Humans have a tendency to complicate things—especially our marketing materials because we don’t understand how to connect and engage customers correctly. The human brain is drawn to CLARITY and away from CONFUSION. If customers are confused about what you offer, they’ll look past you for somebody who can say it clearly. (Source: StoryBrand)

In the following, I’m going to list three factors on why you are wasting thousands of dollars on marketing and why your marketing is foggy and confusing your customers.

1. You leave marketing to a designer

Most businesses will approach their marketing material (website, ad, brochure, email, catalog etc.) by looking to a graphic designer or a design agency. This is all well and good, but the problem with this approach is that that designer is not concerned about how to communicate your product or service as much as they should be—they are only really concerned on making your marketing material look amazing.

Don’t get me wrong—amazing visuals are important and graphic designers are extremely critical to your business’ success, but this one-sided approach is not going to grow your business or give you a faster return on investment.

I started my career as a designer back in 1998. Back then and for the next 10 years, I was only concerned (ninety percent of the time) on making a website, brochure or advertisement look awesome for my client. This is what was taught to me in College. “If it looks good, it has to be good,” because at our core, we think like artists, not marketers! As time went on, I began to wonder why my work wasn’t generating the results my clients expected, especially when data and analytics became more prevalent in marketing campaigns. These lack-luster results lead me on a journey to discover how to communicate more effectively. I wanted to know the secret behind what moved people to buy? I wanted to uncover the key on how to hold a person’s attention long enough to create a memorable brand connection.

What I concluded after almost 20 years of design and then marketing is that people love pretty pictures, but if the words don’t address your prospects fundamental problem—plainly and directly—“you confuse them and eventually lose them.” (Source: StoryBrand) Sounds simple enough; however, you’d be amazed by how so many brands fail to capture this on their websites and every other piece of marketing they produce.

2. You’re not addressing your customer’s problems

Humans are natural problem solvers. We love to figure out our best friend’s relationship woes, we ponder and argue over politics, we post advice on Facebook about someone’s issue with their dog, and we even seek in our own lives to get smarter, faster, slimmer, or at least be more accepted. This natural human inclination is the first step in understanding how to make your marketing more effective. The more you talk about your customer’s problems, the more you will hold their attention and have greater success in moving them to your desired action.

People who have a deep desire to solve a baffling problem will take to the internet 90% of the time. If your website doesn’t communicate the customer’s problem clearly, when they first hit your home page, you lose.

3. You are not the hero, they are

Another great mistake that is costing you money is that businesses tend to put themselves before their customers in their messaging. They lead with messaging about how great they are, how many awards they’ve won, how superior, their product’s features are and how excellent their team is. That’s all very important, but that information means nothing to a customer who is quickly trying to understand your service or product over your competition. Moreover, to further complicate the issue, in most cases, these customers may not even know or have clearly defined what their problem is! You must put your customer’s problems first, seek to determine the problem and then show them how you solve it. Then and only then, through their journey of discovering who or what can solve their problem (best and for the right price) do you communicate these other great things about your company. So many businesses lose customers because according to the customer, all they knew about your brand was that they were the best at something that meant a lot to them, but not much to the customer.

Wasted marketing dollars take away from your ability to make that next hire, upgrade your equipment, expand office space or save for retirement. Not getting your marketing right is stymieing your growth and success.

By taking the time to clarify your message and figure out these aspects of your story, you will be able to transform your marketing, attract new customers and stand out in the crowded marketplace.

Schedule a call with me, and get a clear plan on how stand out in the crowded marketplace.

CLEAR MESSAGING TASKLIST

Is your brand getting noticed?
How much is unclear messaging costing you? The following tasklist will help you (the business leader, director or executive) in the outdoor, hunting, adventure or shooting sports industry determine if your message is clear. It will help you and your team think about how to make your customer “the hero,” and position your brand as the “the guide” that will revolutionize your marketing.

What you get:

Introduction to a 7-part framework to clarify your message
Know what to say and what order to say it in
Give your team a messaging process that can be implemented across all your marketing materials

DOWNLOAD TASK LIST

Dec 15

Four Things That Start to Happen When You Stop Blogging

By Joshua Claflin Inbound Marketing

I owe you a big apology.

I’ve been really slacking on my blog posts the past four months. I got so busy this summer with several new clients I wasn’t able to stay consistent in my writing. And then the craziness of SHOT Show preparation started in August with still so much still to do!

With all sincerity, I’m sorry…

Which brings me to the topic of this post about the perils of starting a blog and doing content marketing and then failing to keep up with it.

Since 2014, I’ve written over 140 blogs with a consistent tick of about 2-3 posts per month. Content marketing is like a slow-moving train leaving the station. It starts out slow—and then over time—gains momentum. But once it starts, it’s hard to stop. You have to keep feeding the “content beast”—or it becomes a complete train wreck, which means you have to start all over.

So in this post, **if you’re still interested?** I want to highlight a few points on what happened to me when I started creating content and then stopped for a few months.

1. Out of Touch

One of the great things that happen when you start blogging is that you force yourself to stay up to date on current trends, marketing technologies (like A.I., Service and Influencer Marketing) as well maintaining a voice in your niche. If you fall out of practice—you leave your audience wondering what’s going on. It also leaves a void for your competitors to move into. A digital presence is necessary to remain relevant in today’s digital environment. By staying on the minds of your followers, you’ll grow your brand (product or personal brand) faster.

blog with leads 2. Leads and Social Media Lags

Google loves fresh content. (Source: MOZ) To keep your rankings up, you have to keep creating content consistently. Inconsistency stymies your email list growth, open rates, and social media reach. Although I didn’t see a dip in traffic or leads over the past few months, I did see a decrease on social media channels, especially Twitter.

3. Open Rates Drop

After the email for this blog goes out, I expect the open rate to be below the standard 20% open rate of my total readership (500). I also expect a few unsubscribes. Which is OK, because it will keep my database lean and up to date. If you don’t email your list regularly, your subscribers will start to fall off and forget who you are. And as of now, email marketing is still the most effective way to reach your customers.

4. Looking Forward

In the coming months, I have several content campaigns scheduled that will be on the topics of service marketing, brand storytelling, artificial intelligence and the ever-changing world of influencer marketing and how to use these tactics and technologies in the outdoor, tech and firearms industry.

I hope you stay tuned.

Sep 25

firearm hunting customer review marketing

How to Get Online Firearm Customer Reviews That Boost Your Business

By Joshua Claflin Firearms Marketing

It’s not hard to figure out that online reviews are essential to building and maintaining a firearm, hunting or outdoor business these days. After all, we all use our phones, search engines, and social media profiles to look up new businesses and products every day.

Customer trust in businesses is fading. HubSpot Research found that customers trust recommendations from friends and family over any type of online marketing and advertising your brand can create. And in the absence of trusted recommendations, according to BrightLocal, 85% of consumers trust online reviews are much as personal recommendations—the single most trustworthy and credible source of “advertising” out there. (Source: Hubspot)

This fact puts an exclamation point on the notion that you need to establish a robust digital footprint and keep the positive feedback flowing.

What many marketers and business owners want is a way to speed this process up and make it less time-consuming. So today I want to share some quick and easy tips you can use to get the online reviews you need to boost your bottom line in the real world. Here’s how you can get started…

Make Your Brand Review-Worthy
Before we get into the online marketing component of things, it’s worth pointing out that the best thing you can do to get more and better online reviews is to build a great product and create a brand that cuts through the clutter. Make sure your team is well-trained, and your products or services represent good value for the money. Do that, and many of your customers will feel compelled to leave positive reviews for you just because they’ve had a good experience.

Complete Your Online Profiles
You can’t accumulate dozens or hundreds of positive online reviews if buyers don’t have a place to leave them. In addition to issuing a space for reviews on your website, it’s crucial that you have an existing presence on Yelp (Dealers and Instructors), Facebook, and glowing reviews on YouTube, Full30.com, industry blogs, and publisher sites. Having completed accounts with photos and contact details makes your business easier to find while encouraging customer feedback at the same time.

Double Check the Pertinent Details
Although you may be primarily concerned with accumulating reviews online, you should know that all of these profiles serve a secondary purpose, as well. Google will often scan online business listings to verify things like location and contact details. That makes it very important that all of your different profiles be consistent from one entry to the next. In search results, your ratings will also show up in the results that will further build trust with your prospects.

Get Some Social Buzz Going
The outdoor and firearms community is not shy about sharing and interacting on social media—encourage them to add their comments, reviews, and experiences on your Facebook page or your website directly. Not only will their friends and contacts be able to see their comments, but you may see your reviews multiply—as groups of acquaintances and people in their network get in on the act to share their stories and opinions. Don’t be afraid to engage—and make sure to be available on Messenger, online chat or set up a chatbot.

Automate the Process
Setting up your accounts and getting those first few reviews is the hardest part of the process, but the work isn’t finished once a few buyers say good things about your business. The key is to keep your profiles up to date and encourage even more positive feedback. That gets a lot easier when you have the right tools.

Several services can automate this process. We utilize workflows within HubSpot and Klaviyo to ask for reviews 14 days after our client’s customers purchase from them. Other options include Rivet Works or Podium that gives you the capability to ask for reviews via text over mobile.

You can also set up free Google alerts or purchase social listening software like Mention to help you stay on top of negative reviews and leverage the positive ones to drive engagement and online sales.

In conclusion, if you’ve been missing out on the tremendous upside presented by online reviews and other cost-effective web strategies, now is the perfect time to implement them.

Aug 31

Five Online Firearm Marketing Mistakes To Stop Repeating Today

By Joshua Claflin Firearms Marketing

Albert Einstein once defined insanity by doing the same thing again and again and expecting different result. While he probably didn’t have online marketing in mind at the time, his quote is as relevant to the business owners we work with as it is to any physics professor in the country.

The point here is that there are thousands, of firearm business owners and executives out there right now who keep repeating the same internet marketing blunders repeatedly and then wonder why they aren’t getting better results. These errors can take a lot of different forms, of course, but there are a few we see every week.

To help you from making or repeating them, let’s look at five online marketing mistakes you should stop repeating today…

1. Ignoring Your Website
You don’t have to do a lot to your website to keep it running, but you can’t completely neglect it, either. Looking after things like updates (to your content management system and plug-ins) and adding new articles or pages can keep your site relevant and secure. Additionally, you should schedule a website audit 2-3x a year so you will be aware of any underlying programming issues that could slow your pages down, cause security concerns, or lead to error screens. Consider taking a growth-driven design approach to your next website design process.

2. Only Posting Promotional Updates or Press Releases
Obviously, you want to use your website to promote products. However, that doesn’t mean your customers want to read nothing but promotional messages. Avoid turning your blog into a PR dumping ground. Knowing that, smart marketers will walk a fine line, giving fans and followers a steady mixture of information, entertainment, reviews, and offers to make a purchase. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your email newsletter, your social feed, or any other online channel: don’t just ask people to buy from you every day—provide value, be helpful, make people stop and think.

3. Taking Content From Competitors
We are continually amazed at how many marketers think they can get away with borrowing things like content, images, logos, names, video, and other materials from their competition. Even if the source material is slightly altered, using something that has been copied from another company is bad for your business. It opens the door for other business owners to sue you, customers to ignore you, and Google to blacklist you from the search engine listings. Don’t use content if you don’t own it.

4. Dismissing Negative Feedback
You will never be able to please 100% of the buying public all the time. And, those people who are most annoyed with you also happen to be the ones who are going to leave negative reviews, so you shouldn’t take everything to heart. However, if customers are complaining about the same things again and again, don’t dismiss their feedback. Every review is an opportunity to learn. If you don’t take that opportunity, it’s going to hurt your business.

5. Paying for Lackluster Results
Some business owners will pay online marketing invoices for months or years, even when they aren’t getting the results they expected, simply because they don’t know what else to do. But, that’s not the way you want to run your company, and it isn’t going to lead to positive growth. If you’re getting lackluster results from your online marketing campaigns, or no results at all, think about switching to a more accountable vendor.

Time to Turn Your Website into a Business Asset?
If you feel like you pour time and money into your website without getting much in return, this is your chance to set your business on a new path and get one step ahead of your competitors. Contact us today so we can set up a free consultation to evaluate your strategy together and find an affordable and effective way to boost your online marketing results.

Jun 17

8 Points on How to Strengthen, Grow and Optimize Your Influence from POMA 2018

By Joshua Claflin Influencer Marketing

I recently had the privilege to present to the Professional Outdoor Media Association on the topic of “How to Become a Better Influencer in the Outdoor, Hunting and Firearms Industry” in Lincoln, Nebraska, June 14, 2018.

Influencer marketing is changing in the outdoor, hunting and firearms marketplace due to increased interest, fakenews, and social media algorithm changes. If you’re new to influencer marketing, this talk showed you how to leverage this highly effective marketing tactic more efficiently for yourself and the brands you manage. I presented the latest trends, tools and insights, and how to track and charge/price accordingly.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to build a small pocket of influence with hundreds of marketing professionals and executives in the industry. I also work with some of today’s most popular influencers. This has provided me a unique insight into the workings of influencer marketing in the outdoor, hunting and firearms industry.

Below are eight points (and my slides) I gave to an audience that included writers, influencers, marketers, photographers and content creators on how to strengthen, grow and optimize their personal brand’s influence.

How To Become A Better Influencer in the Outdoor, Hunting & Firearms Industry from Joshua Claflin

1. Define your Niche

What is your area of specialty and interest, what is your focus? What area of the outdoor are you most passionate about?

For example, when I switched my agency focus to firearms, hunting and outdoor—I made our agency stand for something that stood out among other “all purpose” digital agencies. This allowed me to do a few things:

I repelled prospects from other industries I didn’t want to work with, while attracting prospects and qualified leads from the outdoor industry.
Broke through the clutter with a defined message and industry expertise.
If you’re a photographer or writer who covers all things hunting and fishing, I strongly suggest you narrow your focus on what you’re most passionate about. For example, you may only want to focus on Wolves, Big Horn Sheep or Mule Deer Photography.
Let your personality come through, don’t be afraid to be you.

2. Set Goals

I’m big on the SMART Goal method (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely). You may want to grow your audience by a million followers in one month—but that may not be realistic. Set your goals and work towards them on a daily basis with consistency. Make sure you have a goal post.

Always remember to write your goals down! If you don’t write them down they don’t exist.

3. Know Your Audience

Over time, you’ll get a good feel for your audience. You’ll understand what makes them tick, what problems they have and why they find you interesting.

Take at least 10 – 15 minutes and engage once a day.
Influence is nothing without engagement.
Use Instagram, Twitter and Facebook’s built in analytics to help you understand age, location and interests.

4. Be Helpful—Don’t Sell

In order for influencers to persuade, you must become a solution provider.

When I started doing inbound marketing for my digital agency, I looked to help my prospects first. That in turn earned their trust and allowed me to position myself as a solution provider and a partner in growth. It’s always a service, never a sell.

Furthermore, if you love the brands you represent and believe in them, your audience will naturally love them too because you’re not necessarily selling someone, you’re adding value to their lives.

For more information on how to perfect the art of persuasion, check out Adversaries to Allies, By Bob Burg

5. Be Authentic and Honest At All Costs

Never sacrifice your audience’s trust at the product or brands expense. If the product breaks or is faulty, you may find yourself in a tight spot. So always test the products you’re considering before signing that contract. Posture your clients by being brutally honest if the product doesn’t work and outline what the ramifications are.

6. Build a Website and Blog!

This past week, we saw Brownell’s YouTube channel removed from YouTube—and then, fortunately it was reinstated.

With all the anti-hunting/anti-gun social media channels out there—don’t rely on these third party channels. So many influencers are building their livelihoods on these third-party apps that can shut you down right now and for any reason.

Blog – When considering influencers to work with, I look to see if they have blogs that are updated consistently. Blogs provide content that work for your brands 24/7/365. They also build links and gives your visitors the ability to share information more efficiently.

Affiliate links – Blogs are also great for placing affiliate links that help you generate more revenue.

Contact Information – Make sure you have your contact information available within your Instagram/Facebook/Twitter profiles so brands can contact you. So many influencers out there give no way for people to get in touch with them.

7. Create a Good Mix of Content

Instagram video consumption has increased 40%
Photos generate 36% more likes than videos

We all know content is gold. Your content must add value to your audience. Create a good mix of high-quality video and photos. (Source: SproutSocial)

Make sure to always tag your content with a #sponsored or an #ad tag to remain in compliance with the FCC. Influencer marketing is still like the Wild Wild West, so make sure to stay up to date on any changes.

8. It’s not About You.

At the end of the day, if you’re not adding value to your audience, you’ll start to see your followers level out. When you truly grasp this—your entire mindset will change. (Source: Julie Solomon)

“Influencer marketing is not about you, it’s about them.”

About The Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA)

Whether you’re a hunting and ﬁshing industry communicator, industry professional or an avid outdoor sports enthusiast, POMA is working hard for you. POMA is dedicated to seeing the traditional outdoor sports story is told honestly and fairly so hunting, ﬁshing, the shooting sports and trapping will endure. Learn more on their website and sign up today!

Photo Credit: Tony Bynum

May 04

How to Become an Influencer in the Firearms & Hunting Industry

By Joshua Claflin Influencer Marketing

If you’re an influencer or aspire to be one in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry, there are some things you can do to attract more brand partnerships and generate more revenue.

There still seems to be a lot of confusion as to what an influencer and influencer marketing is, what to charge and what brands can expect in return. And with the constant changing Facebook and YouTube policy changes, everything is in disarray.

In this article, we offer some examples, advice and direction to influencers in the firearms and hunting industry looking to increase their growth and earning potential—and if you’re a marketer, information you can use to conduct and manage your influencer marketing campaigns more effectively.

What does it mean to be an influencer?

Influence means to impact other people. Thus an Influencer is someone who is influential or changes the behavior of others, which implies visibility (i.e., on a platform like social media) of an engaged audience. The keyword here is engaged (Source: Upfluence). There are three basic types of influencer marketing formats, some even say twelve—but for this article we’ll give these three basic examples to start with.

A. Engage by offering commentary and information
John Lovell’s video (below) not only helps answer several questions about how to manage recoil but also intertwines helpful advice as well as a certain amount of candor.

B. Engage with style and humor
You may also follow someone to be entertained, or for their particular style or because they have the “it” factor. No matter your reason, the influencer gives you something of value and makes you feel better about being associated with them in some way. Alex Rogers (below video) adds her own unique humor and satire to spoof an infomercial-style post on Instagram for ETS’ speed loaders.

Save your thumbs and your relationship with @etsgroup Speedloaders! #infomercial #elitetacticalsystems
A post shared by A L E X (@alex_zedra) on Apr 11, 2018 at 12:33pm PDT

C. Engage with Adventure

Probably one of the most successful (out of industry) influencer marketing videos online is by Producer Casey Neista. His “Make it Count” video for Nike has received over 27M views. As you watch this, how does this filmmaker make you want to buy a Nike band? How can this kind of approach and creativity be used in one of your videos?

The above three examples is influencer marketing done correctly. Each influencer not only has a highly engaged audience but can achieve the advertiser’s goal of reach, awareness, and engagement. True influence drives engagement from an audience that has bought into your mission and purpose.

1. Define your niche

Influencers range the gamut in interests and subject matter. There are gun aficionados, tactical trainers, tactical special ops trainers, CCW instructors, industry newsers, gun rights activists, writers, reviewers, trick shooters, myth busters, gun guys, gun gals, gun bunnies and a list of celebrities and some who are all the above.

According to a recent search in Upfluence, (a influencer marketing search, management and tracking tool), you can see the growing size of social media accounts that mention/include the keywords in orange—and their reach.

39,000 social media profiles with a reach 5.7 Billion
#firearms #guns #2A
47,000 social media profiles with a reach of 4.5 Billion
#hunting #deerhunting #turkeyhunting
124,000 social media profiles with a reach of 10 Billion
#outdoor #hiking #camping
36,000 social media profiles with a reach 3 Billion
#fishing #flyfishing
NOTE: Social reach includes multiple profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, YouTube and Blogs

These numbers are substantial.

You must decide what your niche is going to be and then become the best in it. Whether it’s through humor, information, conservation, stunning videography, style or personality, define your niche and own it.

Hickok 45 for example, is just an ordinary guy in Tennessee who’s humor and straight-forward advice on products has garnered the trust of 3M+ followers—all from his backyard.

2. Invest in your own website

YouTube has given many signs over the past two years of its growing hostility towards gun content creators (and some hunters). But when the move finally happened, it seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise. For those who had already been quietly building their website—the change wasn’t much of a shock.

Build a website that will enable you to host your content, generate organic traffic and build an email subscriber list. Invest in professional lifestyle photography and make it engaging that focuses on selling your unique personality, talents, skills, and niche.

It’s a huge bonus and an ever-growing requirement for brands when influencers run a blog that contains exciting and engaging content that is updated regularly. Blogs combined with video offer brands an “evergreen” solution that they can reference, build links and enjoy a continuous flow of referral traffic. Traffic can be a compelling selling point to leverage, which brings me to my next point.

3. Negotiate costs appropriately

If you don’t have an idea on what to charge, you can cause some frustration to the advertiser reaching out to you. Depending on how much you post and what kind of engagement and influence you have—you should know how much you’re worth. Some advertisers will set the going rate based on their budget and invite you to participate.

In the past, manufacturers who wanted to spread the word about a new product would ask reviewers to write an article or post to their social media accounts for free. “We’ll send you a gun, keep it for three months, give us a good review and send it back.” says Jonathan Wright of Tactical Toolbox, “but all this is changing.”

One way to determine costs is to use a tool called Social Blue Book. This tool will help you determine what’s fair and what’s not.

If you’re having trouble and don’t know what to charge, below are some baseline rates to consider if you work in the firearms, hunting and outdoor industry.

Micro – Tier 1 Reach < 250K (40-60/100 Engagement Level)
At this level, (also known as the “Power Middle”) you’re still growing your network or just starting out, and your level of engagement is on the rise. $50-$100 per postBlog w/ Video Post
$250 (inclusion/mention)
$500 (featured)

Macro – Tier 2 Reach 250-500K (60+/100 Engagement Level)
At the Macro level, you’ve been working for several years, know what works and what doesn’t, and you have a good understanding of your audience and a good idea on how to keep them engaged.$200-$1000 per postBlog w/ Video Post
$500 (inclusion/mention)
$1000 (featured)

Mega – Tier 3 Reach 500-1M+ (60+/100 Engagement Level)
At the Mega level, you’ve reached somewhat of celebrity status. You know one post can send thousands of sales your client’s way. $1000 – $5000+ per postBlog w/ Video Post
$1000 (inclusion/mention)
$5000 (featured)

4. Ask for revenue share

If you find yourself in a position where the brand can’t afford your fee, but you want to work with them, then the next best thing is to ask for a link and a percentage of sales you generate. Similar to becoming an affiliate, this will also help you understand your effectiveness and how to improve over time.

Typical rates range from 2-7% of all sales. There should also be an affiliate log in area on the brand’s website that allows you to log in to view your sales. You can also use software to track your own performance.

5. Be responsive and follow directions

A great way to build trust, accountability and get your contract renewed is to stay in contact with your brand representative or agency and know their product inside and out. Let them know what you’re working on, when to expect your posts and the occasional phone call to bounce some ideas around. Make sure to read the directions of what the advertiser is asking you to do and get a good understanding of what their goals are.

Partnerships that are collaborative will always be the most effective. As a paid or sponsored influencer, you must keep your client’s best interest at the forefront. It’s a delicate balance, because after all, you know your audience better than the brand, but the brand is paying you to access it. Be upfront and candid about what works and what doesn’t. Work together to come up with the perfect solution. Is posting twice a week going to be overkill? Or can one engaging video post once a month have a more significant impact? Go off of what’s worked in the past and how the product aligns with your unique style.

6. Focus on engagement

As an influencer, the main reason brands are interested in you is because of your ability to engage with your followers. Engage means to attract their interest. Whether you are a Power Middle or a Mega Influencer—engagement and your ability to move the needle whether translates into likes, shares or sales—is more important than the number of followers. Posting static pictures or sarcastic comments may not be enough.

7. Track your results

Most influencer marketing is done online, so it’s possible to track every post on social media and record its value. Every campaign should include a #hashtag or designated keyword. There are several software companies marketers use to track earned media value, impressions and reach.

Influencer marketing in the firearm, hunting, and outdoor industry continues to change as the social media landscape shifts. You most likely got into posting reviews and videos for fun, maybe made a little ad revenue on side in the past, but now with stiffer competition and serious money starting to flow into influencer marketing due to recent algorithm changes on Facebook, and reports that influencer marketing can bring a 11x ROI on marketing spend—there’s a lot you can do to start attracting brands and making more money in the process.

Remember to find and own your niche, invest in your website, charge a fair price, be responsive, drive engagement and be aware of how to track your efforts. And most of all have fun!

If you’re an influencer looking for opportunities, Garrison Everest represents several brands looking for the right ambassadors to carry their message. Contact us through our Instagram channel.

Photo Credit: Brenton USA

Mar 26

Firearm Content Gone From YouTube? Now What?

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Last week, YouTube dropped a highly restrictive policy on the firearm industry and gun content creators that—for the most part—prevents the publishing of all firearm-related content.

Much like Facebook, YouTube now acts as a virtual public square. The exercise of what amounts to censorship, then, can legitimately be viewed as the stifling of commercial free speech, which has constitutional protection. Such actions also impinge on the Second Amendment. (Source: NSSF)

Digital marketers in the firearms industry have been stripped of Facebook Advertising, Google PPC and now YouTube, which will ultimately hinder growth and sales in the digital age for the short term until alternative channels have time to develop.

Over the past week, I’ve watched the industry’s reaction to the situation as well as content creators like TGC News, Military Arms Channel, Tactical Toolbox and others. And like you, I wonder what this means moving forward without the use of YouTube’s free platform to leverage the benefits of influencer marketing, product reviews, training and educational content that is so important to communicating and reaching prospective law-abiding customers and outdoor enthusiasts.

This is a severe blow to the industry and a direct assault on First and Second Amendment rights. And when you calculate the thousands of hours and millions of dollars gun creators and brands have devoted to YouTube, the investment has been substantial.

In this post, I want to give you a few thoughts from a marketing perspective about what the future holds for firearm marketers, gun content creators and brands with the loss of YouTube.

1. Back to the future

Where were you in 2005 when the YouTube.com domain was registered? I remember SEO was a simple matter of placing keywords on your website to get first page rankings. We enjoyed open email rates of 50% or higher, all the while, Mark Zuckerberg was in his dorm room at Harvard building a website called Facebook. Much of the digital channels we utilize today were unavailable. Magazine ads, catalogs, a visit to the local dealer and gun shows were the only way for people interested in firearms to find out about new products.

In just 13 years, after YouTube’s $1.65 billion acquisition by Google (2006), it has grown to the world’s second largest search engine with over 30 million visits per day and 300 hours of video uploaded every minute.

These are massive numbers, and by all estimations are only getting larger.

6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV and by some predictions, by 2025, 50% of all viewers under the age of 32 years old will not subscribe to a pay-TV service. (Source: Fortune Lords)

The three most important metrics to any digital marketer is reach, engagement, and conversion. Without entrance to the YouTube platform, industry marketers have been cut off from a significant channel of communication to achieve these metrics.

This leaves us with only a handful of viable digital channels and tactics to consider in our marketing mix:

SEO
Content Marketing
Email Marketing
Ecommerce
Automation
Referral Marketing
Lifestyle Marketing
Native Advertising
Banner Ads
PR
Sponsorships and paid placement on Publisher sites: RecoilTV, MOTV, SOFREP and others.
Influencer marketing via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest
Organic Facebook posts – which only get 1% reach

2. Hurry up and wait

With YouTube taken off the table as a choice for free content distribution, what’s the alternative?

There are only a few options when you take into account Vimeo, BitChute, Twitch, LiveStream and a few other obscure channels.

Full30 – Free to sign up, but limited due to a small infrastructure and audience. Full30 is opening up soon to all content creators, but it may be a while before they can handle the bandwidth.
Patreon – Pay to subscribe for as low as $1 per month

Paid subscription channels like Patreon may be a barrier for some smaller channels.

With a very limited list, we will have to wait until other channels—free of industry influence and publishers—are developed. One company reportedly working on this are the founders of Utah Gun Exchange.

Some content creators have gone to PornHub. I am absolutely against this and will not advocate or allow any brands that we represent to be promoted on that platform—for obvious reasons.

3. A pause in growth

As a marketer who has relied on social media and YouTube to drive results in the past, I am moving my clients to other strategies and tactics to achieve their goals online. I think we all should expect the possibility that Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google Search may soon censor gun content as well.

4. What’s next?

Like the Facebook algorithm change in January, this will also need time to play out. I’ve always been a proponent of brands and content creators taking a “website first approach” that provides their own private platform to build their audiences rather than relying on third-party channels that are anti-gun. Google doesn’t own the internet. Developing your audience on your own website will always be a good fall back when significant disruption happens. By building your traffic, email subscriber list and then using social media as a distribution channel, you’ll always have plenty of options when disruption comes.

Regardless, things have inherently changed, and the firearms industry has been pushed out to the fringes of the digital world. I believe YouTube’s decision will only make our industry stronger in the long run.

Feb 24

Four Marketing Takeaways from SHOT Show 2018

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Like other industry marketers and professionals in the Firearms, Hunting and Outdoor industry—SHOT Show was crazy busy—rushing from meeting to meeting, trying to squeeze in time to see new products, exhibits, make new contacts, say hi to existing clients and old friends.

But through all the running back and forth, and thinking through what this year holds after several weeks of reflection—I’ll give you my four observations and takeaways from SHOT 2018.

1. Brand innovation pays off

There are many manufacturers who had trouble moving the needle in 2017, due to bloated inventories, immense competition and the “reset” of normal due to the election of President Trump. But one such brand that seems to have bucked the trend is Christensen Arms (CA).

CA innovated the first ever carbon-fiber barrel back in 1995 that enabled them to find the “white space” in our industry that no one else occupied—which created the differentiation CA needed to break through the myriad of hunting rifles.

Christensen’s solid product line and innovative designs—including the launch of their MPR, have enabled the brand to cement a solid foundation that will fuel their marketing efforts for many years to come.

TAKEAWAY: Many brands—especially start-ups—don’t take the time to correctly develop their brand, an innovative product roadmap, and their customer journeys before going to market which leaves them flapping in the wind and their audience wondering who they are what they stand for.

2. Virtual reality

I noticed many exhibits showcasing virtual reality (VR). VR may not be able to deliver the full experience your customers are looking for, but it can add to their experience that creates a lasting impression.

Here are some interesting VR Statistics to take note of:

500 million VR headsets could be sold by 2025, according to Piper Jaffray
171 million people could be using VR hardware and software worldwide by 2018, according to research firm KZero.
Nearly 1.3 million people subscribe to the YouTube 360 channel. Google’s push into panoramic 360-degree videos is also paying off and getting mainstream viewers interested in the idea of viewing VR content. That interest is fueling the rise of pricey 360-degree camera rigs.

As the market continues to evolve digitally, I expect more brands to create apps with VR experiences this year and in the years to come.

TAKEAWAY: VR is going mainstream and seems like an excellent way for customers to experience your brand.

3. Harvesting vs. Hunting

Localvores or eco-hunting has been a growing trend since it was coined back in 2005. There seems to be an increasing trend popping up around the word “harvesting.”

This word “harvesting” is being used in many instances to replace “hunting.” But aren’t they the same?

Consumer demand for organically produced goods continues to show double-digit growth, providing market incentives for U.S. farmers across a broad range of products. Organic products are now available in nearly 20,000 natural food stores and nearly 3 out of 4 conventional grocery stores.

Organic sales account for over 4 percent of total U.S. food sales, according to recent industry statistics. (Source: USDA)

Arby’s’ “We have the meats” slogan is right on target.

The fast-food chain, known for its slow-roasted roast beef sandwiches, began selling limited-edition venison sandwiches a year ago in select markets. (Source: AJC)

The company announced this week the “100 percent deer meat” sandwiches will be available nationwide in the chain’s 3,300 locations later this month. They’ve also started testing Elk! When Arby’s is pushing a wild game message nationally—we may all have a chance to benefit.

SilencerCo, even calls their blog “Harvested.“

A quick look at Google Trends suggest “how to hunt” and “deer meat” increasing in interest. This is intriguing because we all know hunting numbers are in decline. Or are they?

I believe with the increased interest in eating organic and healthy, the growing distrust of corporations (who process our food) and other factors like negative press and the continuing attacks from anti-hunting groups—the idea of “harvesting” could be a new and fresh approach in marketing hunting and hunting products. People who have been persuaded that hunting is bad or unethical, but who agree hunting for healthy organic food is acceptable—harvesting may be the position in which to communicate from. Without getting caught up in the semantics of hunting versus harvesting—harvesting from a marketing perspective—is worth consideration.

Steve Rinella of Meateater is another example of this emerging harvesting trend that may be pointing to things to come. He’s one of only a few hunting personalities that have crossed over to Netflix. Steve intertwines eating healthy with harvesting, gathering, and cooking (field to table).

Across the country, people in every community and from all walks of life are more focused on healthy eating than ever before. (Source: Christopher Cogley, NSSF SHOT Daily)

Heck, even Mark Zuckerberg is on the train. Who knows where this is going—and I am NOT advocating for anything here—but it’s something that should be on every marketer’s radar in the hunting, outdoor and firearms industry.

For more thought on this, check out this article: Hunting Matters: Harvest or Kill? Considering Our Choice of Language in Hunting Stories

TAKEAWAY: Always be looking for out-of-industry trends and shifts that your brand can either leverage or avoid.

Photo credit: Dangersoup

4. Women’s influence grows

It was nice to see more women being placed in exhibits and presented as professionals at this year’s SHOT Show. I think the industry has crossed the bridge and has embraced women respectfully for their talents and skills as hunters and shooters.

These shifts will also continue to attract other women that can expand industry brands’ appeal and reach.

TAKEAWAY: Start integrating women into your brand’s communications that showcase their skills, talents and professionalism.

By all counts, industry brands that continue to invest in brand development, consider new and upcoming channels for prospective customers to experience their brand, continue to push product innovation—whether, through materials, design (or a combination of the booth) and who stay on top of emerging trends outside of the industry will fare better this year than others. These have always been the recipe of marketing success.

Jan 12

Facebook Change Outdoor Hunting and Firearms Industry

What Facebook’s News Feed Change Means For Firearms & Hunting Marketing

By Joshua Claflin Firearms and Hunting

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced last night that it’s making a significant change to its News Feed in the coming months that will ultimately affect brands and publishers in every industry—including the firearms and hunting industry.

Firearms and most hunting brands have been banned from advertising on Facebook since late 2015. We’ve been shunned by the platform in more ways than one. So why does this change matter and what are the implications for business owners, publishers, and marketers?

In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments [from friends and family] that lead us to connect more with each other.”

Explaining, however, that recently “video and other public content have exploded on Facebook … [and] since there’s more public content than posts from your friends and family, the balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do — help us connect with each other.”

Zuckerberg also goes on to talk about mental health issues associated with the news feed stating: “We feel a responsibility to make sure our services aren’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being…the research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our well-being. We can feel more connected and less lonely, and that correlates with long-term measures of happiness and health. On the other hand, passively reading articles or watching videos — even if they’re entertaining or informative — may not be as good.”

Zuckerberg states users will see “less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media” and that he expects “the time people spend on Facebook … will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”

How does this affect your brand?

As a result of this algorithm change, your Followers may see even less of your stories, product announcements, giveaways, videos or any other piece of firearm or hunting content — unless it’s engaging. For many smaller brands and publishers, this will result in a further drop in visibility, reach, engagement, website traffic, readership and therefore revenue.

We see in this chart above that even if a business page was doing a super job with its content in 2011, only 26 percent of their followers would see its posts. Today, the organic reach for an average business is less than 1 percent. (Source: Business Grow)

So what can you do to counter potential reach declines?

Facebook’s Head of News Feed Adam Mosseri offers some suggestions: “Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in News Feed. For example, live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos. Many creators who post videos on Facebook prompt discussion among their followers, as do posts from celebrities. In Groups, people often interact around public content. Local businesses connect with their communities by posting relevant updates and creating events. And news can help start conversations on important issues.”

A bit of good news out of all this, (based on Mosseri’s above statement) is that the outdoor, hunting and firearms industry is an affinity culture — filled with publishers, influencers, celebrities and out-spoken characters who are highly active in discussion on Facebook. From gun guys to huntresses — our customers typically and enthusiastically share content and discuss new products and topics with their networks that sparks the “meaningful discussions” Zuckerberg is trying to instigate.

Since Facebook’s new algorithm will prioritize posts that drive authentic discourse (i.e. engagements: comments, likes, and shares), brands should start listening to their audience and tailoring content to their interests. That way, users can engage organically and brands can earn boosted social rankings in an authentic way. Intelligent marketers should see this as an opportunity. (Source: HubSpot)

According to Social Media Today: “Your key focus will likely need to switch to engagement, on generating interactions amongst those in your audience. That means Pages will need to dedicate more time to responding to comments, in addition to scheduling posts; to engaging in Groups, in addition to maintaining their own Pages. There’s no cover-all answer, it’ll be the cumulative impact of various efforts, but generating conversation will be key.”

Like all disruption, other media channels and solutions will emerge due to this change. We’ve already seen other brands in the industry launch podcasts, apps, groups and move to lesser-known social media channels to communicate online with their customers.

As marketing pundits continue to weigh in, one point of agreement is that brands and publishers need to keep creating engaging content. What the future holds today is anyone’s guess. More time is needed to analyze this change and for business owners and marketers to adjust their strategies.

This will undoubtedly be a topic of debate for marketers at SHOT Show next week.

Dec 09

How Photography Influences Outdoor Lifestyle

By Joshua Claflin Outdoor Industry Marketing

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably struggled with or maybe even have gotten into an all-out inner-conflict over the cost of photos you should purchase for your website or upcoming outdoor industry marketing campaign.

Should you go cheap and pick some “canned” image from iStock that costs only $10—or go big with the $500 shot from Offset. Or go even bigger and hire a professional outdoor lifestyle photographer for $7-$10K?

Photography, like good design and copywriting, should be viewed as an investment, not a budgetary line item. According to NewsCred:

Articles that contain images get 94% more views than articles without.
40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.
93% of people say that visual imagery is the # 1-factor impacting purchasing decision.

In the fight to stand out in today’s crowded firearm, hunting, and outdoor marketplace, professional photography is just another way to differentiate and win more business by looking better and more credible than your competitors.

Good photography is essential to creating credibility, telling your brand’s story, creating a favorable impression, and engaging your customers.

Here is five ways quality photography influences buyer behavior in the outdoor industry.

Photo Credit: Fluid Peak Productions for Brenton USA

1. Creates a favorable first impression that engages your visitors

Humans are visual creatures. We like shiny and beautiful objects. Most of us process information based on what we see. 65 percent of us are visual learners, according to the Social Science Research Network. (Source: Forbes)

When was the last time you were driving and stopped to take in a gorgeous sunset over snow-capped mountains? If you live in the mountain States, this may be an everyday occurrence. The same goes with engaging photography. Stunning photos can stop you in your tracks and make you take notice. It creates a connection—stirs your soul, ignites your senses and gives you a feeling of peace, excitement or maybe even awe and gratitude.

Marketers should not discount the fact that professional photography can be that extra element that creates that emotional connection between your brand and your buyer.

Good photography can also have positive effects on your website metrics by reducing bounce rates, keeping visitors on your website longer and increasing repeat visitors.

2. Makes your brand trustworthy

Trust is a diminishing factor for most brands today. Increasingly, consumers are making decisions well before the actual moment of in-store or online purchase. In fact, 88% of consumers research before they buy, consulting an average of 10.4 sources. (Source: Google, Zero Moment of Truth)

A CEB study of more than 1,400 B2B customers across all industries revealed that 57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a customer even talks to a supplier.

When every click and search counts, creating a viable and memorable impression through the use of good photography is crucial for influencing the customer purchase decision and building your brand and connecting with your customer’s outdoor or shooting lifestyle.

Photo Credit: Straight 8 Photography for F4 Defense

3. Creates style

Good photography sets a mood and creates a style of your brand. By utilizing people who resemble, look and act like your buyer personas, you can create a stronger connection with your customer.

So what makes a good photo? There are 5 rules of a composition according to Nikon that make a photo more interesting and engaging:

Use the rule of thirds
Watch horizontal and vertical lines
Have subjects looking off frame
Follow leading lines
Look for patterns and textures

Look for these elements when making a photo choice.

4. Imagery helps you communicate a story in thousand words in seven seconds

You can communicate more with imagery in seven seconds than in 1000 words. So when you put cheap looking “canned stock” on your site that isn’t interesting—thinking no one will notice—think again. A photo can potentially communicate all you want to say about your brand and how it will help your customer—in seconds. By choosing bad photos, it can also communicate things you don’t want to communicate—like cheap, unproven, unprofessional, etc. This ends up doing more harm than good. Good photography helps you communicate your solution quickly and more effectively. (Source: Assoc. for Psychological Science)

5. Look better than your competitors

Perception is reality—if you want to be the best, you have to look like it. By investing in good photography for your marketing programs and by taking professional product photos, you enhance the customer experience and push your brand head-and-shoulders above your competitors. When your competitors are cutting corners and using cheap photos, invest in quality imagery to stand out—it will pay dividends later. You certainly do not want to have the same cheap photos that your competitors are using either. It would be a tremendous embarrassment to show up at SHOT Show or Outdoor Retailer with the same booth photos as your competition—this has happened before.

Looking for quality stock photo agencies or photographers? Here is a list of our favorites:

For websites who’ve been awarded the “best use of photography” checkout the Webby Awards.

In conclusion, when quality copy, dynamic design, and good photography work together, your brand image is more credible, engaging, creates a favorable first impression and aligns and appeals to your customer’s outdoor lifestyle. We highly recommend a sizeable photography budget when advising clients on their outdoor, hunting and shooting marketing endeavors.

Joshua Claflin

1. A Character

2. Has a Problem

3. Meets a Guide Who Understands Them

4. Who gives them a Plan

5. And Calls them to Action

6. That Helps Them Avoid Failure

7. Or Ends in Success

1. People don’t read websites, they scan them.

2. Customer’s buy products or services based on internal problems, not external problems.

3. Your product/service should show how the customer will transform into something better.

Email Marketing: The Key to E-commerce Success

Benefits of Email Marketing for E-Commerce

Segment your email list for better engagement.

Nurture your email list and provide value to subscribers.

Follow the anatomy of a good email

Optimize transactional emails.

Ensuring email deliverability

Wrap Up

1. You leave marketing to a designer

2. You’re not addressing your customer’s problems

3. You are not the hero, they are

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