Do you find it hard to gain customers as a firearms retailer?
Before, getting people to buy guns was an easy task. Getting access to the general public was easy through the newspapers and radio was easy. Also, it wasn’t hard to make up slogans to convince potential customers that they needed guns.
However, with the year’s recent surge of gun control laws, it’s harder to place an ad for your store through the usual means. Mediums like them are still a bit touchy on how to put gun ads, so you should consider looking at other marketing alternatives instead. For instance, you can try out launching an online marketing campaign.
Many firearm manufacturers have established an online presence early. You will notice they’re the ones doing well with business right now. Find out how they’re doing it by reading what we’ve prepared for you below.
1. Marketing Through Social Media
Social media is the most visited type of website on the internet today. This is because it’s normalized into the lives of some people, especially the younger generation. You can expect them to be on any kind of social media platform for the better part of the day.
For this reason, you shouldn’t ignore big platforms like Facebook and Twitter when you’re thinking of alternatives to marketing your online firearms sales. It’s even easy to generate buzz through your posts. All you need to do is make your post some eye-catching and engaging.
Twitter also allows you to spread the word of your posts quicker than Facebook does. This is because of how it’s designed, making it easy to view public posts and easier to share a certain post. If you want to get the word out faster than you expect, Twitter is the place to go to.
With all that said, you should take note that social media platforms still don’t support paid ads about firearms. You need to rely on organic social media sharing be effective in social media marketing for now.
2. Inbound Marketing
This kind of marketing is like a mishmash of different marketing tactics. It uses the different aspects of SEO to help you target which people will like what you are selling. This all ends up to you sending them different forms of engagement to entice them further on your offer.
Another great aspect of inbound marketing is that it’s cheaper than most alternatives. In fact, the only time you spend on something is to gain the analytical data you need to look for an audience. This makes it a wise choice for any business who finds their purse strings a little tight for a budget.
What makes this such an amazing marketing tactic though is that it’s trackable. This means that you can check on and see how effective your approach is to your customers here. This allows you to either strengthen your strategy or change it up.
3. Utilizing User-Generated Content
What better way to gain customers than by using your existing ones as a marketing medium? This is the essence of marketing through user-generated content (USG) and it’s been an effective one for as long as it’s been around.
This kind of marketing involves you making a sort of event your customers can participate in. The online event also includes your product, of course, as it’s the other essential part of USG marketing. What happens now is they make a post that involves a gimmick with your product.
A great example of how this works and how successful it can be is Coca Cola’s #ShareACoke campaign. They had their users snap a photo of them with one of their products which they then posted on Instagram. The twist was their products had different names on them and users tagged their friends with the same name to promote both the trend and Coca Cola’s product.
That’s the general gist of USG campaigns. How you do it and what your gimmick is all comes down to you and your decision.
4. Launching an Online Store
Have you ever considered opening a gun store online?
Opting for e-commerce choice is a great way to market your products online. The great thing is you can do it in one of 2 ways, too.
The first choice you have is to partner up with an existing online store. This method can help your products reach the demographic faster. Choosing a good store also means you only need to worry about the presentation of your products.
For the most part, online stores like these take care of the other aspects of running an e-commerce store. Things like shipping and paying shipping fees are all handled by your host. The drawback is they take a percentage of your sales.
The other option is to run your own e-commerce store. Yes, it’s true you have to worry about shipping and customer services. Those should be small prices to pay compared to the benefits you can get by doing this.
You get more return when you sell from your own site. This makes it easier to return any investments made for your business.
You also have more control over how your website works. For example, you can make a separate page for specific products much like Spikes Tactical.
5. Blogging/Vlogging
Setting up a blogging/vlogging website allows you to build the trust of your customers. This is also a quick and easy way to engage with your customers through the internet. Blogging means you get to take advantage of a demographic of active readers on the internet.
Though small, they consume a lot of content on a regular basis. Most of the time, they’re also active commenters. This allows you to engage with them to talk with them and such.
Meanwhile, vlogging is an even better engagement tool. This allows you to add a more personal touch by talking and answering queries in a video. Also, videos get the attention of viewers faster, so that’s another advantage in vlogging.
6. Influencer Marketing
An influencer is someone with the expertise in talking something up. They’re an effective marketing strategy because of how persuasive they are. Combined with their often large audience, this can mean a great surge of business for you.
All you need to do is pay them a small fee for their services. Then, they will take care of the rest by spreading the influence they have. Often, their influence even goes past their regular audience.
This happens because of how much attention their stories get. Opting for a famous influencer is often getting more than you bargained for.
7. Boosting Marketing Through Google My Business
Google My Business is a way for you to put your business on top of search engine results. This is a must-have for any business for various reasons. For one, this allows your physical store to become pinned on Google’s map.
This allows customers to visit your store if they’re close to the area. Another reason GMB is great is that it allows you to gain more authority on web domain. Gaining authority on domains is important because of how Google’s algorithm changes.
When a change happens, websites tend to have trouble ranking high on search engines again. With domain authority though, it becomes a non-existent problem. Your website will always be easy to rank by search engines, making marketing easier.
This also allows your Google posts to appear on top more often. Content marketing also becomes easier as a side effect.
8. SEO Marketing
General SEO means getting a high rank on search engines for the most part. This makes it easier for potential customers to discover you when they search up firearms companies on different search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
What makes this a great marketing tactic is that it’s easy to learn. It may be hard to understand at first, but with some research, you will get the basics of SEO. More often than not, that’s all you need to launch an effective SEO marketing campaign.
There are also many ways you can increase your SEO. For example, you can build links with other relevant websites. This makes your website links have more weight in the future, enticing others to link to yours as well.
Another way is by building a functional website. Search engines love websites with next to no problems. Doing this can get you a high rank on its own.
The point is that you can increase your SEO through ways you’re effective in. This makes SEO marketing a tactic that improves certain skills as well.
9. Affiliate Marketing
This is another great process where you leave sales in the hands of capable individuals. In affiliate marketing, you partner up with either your customers or similar businesses. How this works is first, you give them a special link that’s an essential part of the process.
They then talk your business up to other people in any way they can. When the others become convinced, your affiliates then give the link to your page. Each link you give out is unique to each affiliate.
It allows you to figure out who was successful in referring you to others. They do all this in exchange for a small fee. For the most part, though, the fee is small compared to the sales you make.
10. Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the best forms of marketing available today. This is due to the fact it does a lot of wonders for your business. It can increase your brand’s recognition, SEO score, and client trust.
Also, there are many ways you can create content for marketing. Content can be anything as long as it’s relevant to your business. This means you can play to your strengths and create content you know will turn out great.
Try Out These 10 Awesome Marketing Alternatives Today
It’s getting harder and harder to market firearms in today’s market. Try out these marketing alternatives to increase sales today!
While you’re looking for a new marketing tactic, why not expand your service options as well? For example, having a delivery service will reduce security risks and accidents while handling firearms. Check out this article about the key characteristics of delivery services to learn more.
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