Brands within the rapidly maturing outdoor markets looking for ways to grow through more deeply engaging your customers, this 3-part topic is for you. I’ll take you through priority areas to consider: (1) Retooling your brand, (2) Personalized Marketing and (3) Make a case for why the next era in storytelling – The Immersive Era – is such a natural fit for certain outdoor brands.
It’s not easy for small to medium sized businesses (SMB’s) or mid-market brands within the broader outdoor category (recreation, hunting, wildlife conservation, fishing, etc) to keep up with the rate of innovation across social, marketing and emerging technologies, much less invest in it. It may be hard to believe, but Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Big Data, IoT and Emerging Technologies (AR, VR, MR, XR) highlights a high-pace of innovation and change that still has a few gears left before things slow down. If they do at all.
Large chunks of businesses supporting the economic side of the equation for outdoor and conservation industries are largely a decade or more behind similarly sized businesses in comparable industries. If SMB’s grow in a modern online marketplace it means more people are buying the products and services the small to medium businesses provide.
However, just the opposite is happening. If fewer SMB’s exist for any reason, we’ll continue to see an erosion of participation and the associated revenue that comes with it. In other words, modernizing brands within the broad SMB outdoor industry is directly tied to the long-term access to National Forrest and Public Lands, not to mention the overall viability of hunting and fishing. We cannot expect one, without the other.
The small to medium businesses including guides, shops, outfitters, clothing, accessories, travel services and lodges are the SMB’s who need to modernize. Doing so, best positions SMB’s to survive and realize growth. When our SMB’s and mid-market brands within outdoor, conservation, hunting, fishing and motorsports grow, we all win. If SMB brands making up the aforementioned industries fail to modernize in this era of innovation, we will all slowly lose access to habitat, sport, rights, and tradition. If that happens, we all lose.
THREE MODERN APPROACHES OUTDOOR BRANDS SHOULD EXPLORE –
- Brand Retooling – Branding, Websites, Search, Marketing Automation, Video, Content Marketing.
- Personalized Marketing – Beacons, Location Based Marketing, Wearable Integration, Sample Campaign
- Integrate The Next Era in Storytelling – Uncharted Virtual Reality w/ Jim Shockey, Haptics and Immersion.
