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June 27, 2024
Time to Reload Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Digital marketing is a pivotal aspect of business promotion that allows for dynamic messaging, tracking the effectiveness of the tools used and garnering important data on customers’ interests, desires and interactions with your marketing efforts.
It’s not, however, as simple as making a few social media posts each month. A potent strategy incorporates a well-thought-out email plan using service providers such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, display ad and banner marketing, video initiatives, written content, third-party marketing and social media.
On top of all that, you must know how to use your digital tools in a way that allows your messages to get through all the rules and regulations placed on firearms businesses in the online marketplace.
Sound daunting? It can be. However, you have an opportunity to garner a blueprint for success and assess how a digital marketing strategy can fit into your business plan at the NSSF’s Range-Retailer Business ExpoTM.
Your Blueprint for Success
NSSF’s Range-Retailer Business ExpoTM is scheduled for July 10-11, 2024, in West Palm Beach, FL. It is designed to provide retailers and range operators with the equipment, strategies and inspiration essential for success. It’s the perfect event to reconsider sales strategies, reload inventories and meet with leading manufacturers to have big conversations in a small setting. Plus, the education program addresses your operational challenges head-on.
Will Altherr, a digital marketing specialist and Senior Marketing Manager at Guns.com, will spearhead one of those educational programs and share his expertise during his “Time to Reload Your Digital Marketing Strategy” session on July 10, 2024, at 1:45 p.m.
“This session is for folks who aren’t sure what direction to go in with their digital marketing strategies, are wondering where to start on certain aspects of digital marketing, require assistance setting priorities and focus, or simply need someone they can lean on to help leverage their marketing efforts,” Altherr says.
Altherr’s foray into digital marketing occurred right out of college in 2005. After a baker’s dozen years working in e-commerce, he was recognized as a player in the digital marketing segment. In 2018, Guns.com found Altherr on LinkedIn and connected to see how the company could use Altherr’s skills to build a digital marketing program that would grow the business and augment its stature in the industry, better connect with customers in ways that served the customer’s and company’s needs; and track the effectiveness of the strategies being implemented.
Altherr was up for the challenge and taking on the unique obstacles firearms industry retailers face when trying to use digital marketing to get their messages out to the public and making those efforts pay dividends. Since his hire at Guns.com, Altherr has assisted in growing the platform’s reputation as a premier firearms network player and a true partner to Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) retailers. From offering you ways to sell beyond their store walls on the Guns.com platform to helping you navigate digital marketing, Altherr and Guns.com are committed to your business.
Perhaps you’ve already watched the first part of Altherr’s session on the NSSF’s SHOT University onlineTM. This second installment will take you to a higher level of understanding the importance of digital marketing, show how it fits into your current marketing plan and provide you with an actionable blueprint for success.
Topics that will be covered during the “Time to Reload Your Digital Marketing Strategy” session on July 10, 2024, at 1:45 p.m.
- Robust websites that allow you to not only sell products and serve customers but also meet your digital marketing goals and track your progress. It’s an integral part of the marketing program blueprint.
- Staff bandwidth, an assessment of your staff and how to fit digital marketing into your company’s sales and marketing repertoire.
- Email list building and marketing utilizing segmented emails to garner increased views, clicks and website and store traffic. He’ll discuss how to build your email lists and use mass, segmented and automated emails to reach current and potential customers.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to help ensure your website and business are readily found by Google. Altherr will cover setting up your business profile on Google and the long-haul game that is SEO. He’ll offer tips to help you move your company up the search engine listing ladder.
- Display media marketing using platforms that place your company ads/banners before millions of shooting sports-specific customers on websites that won’t get you shut down.
- Third-party marketing through partnerships with other companies and local micro-influencers by utilizing cross-marketing tactics that benefit all partners.
- A-B testing of messaging and advertising to determine what’s working and what’s not. Something as simple as a banner ad’s background color can make a big difference to potential customer interaction. Testing is a key part of the process.
- Social media content and marketing and how to avoid the dreaded shutdown of accounts due to your business being related to the firearms industry. He’ll also give you a solution to a shutdown by Meta (Facebook and Instagram).
- Web analytics and how you can benchmark and grow your metrics.
When you leave this session, you’ll have a digital marketing strategy roadmap to follow, whether you’re new to the game or simply need to take your digital marketing to the next level. Best of all, you’ll be connected to Altherr who is also available to you, beyond the session, if you need additional help. Guns.com and Altherr will also have a booth at the expo, so be sure to drop by and connect. Register for NSSF’s Range-Retailer Business Expo and plan to refresh the way you operate your business.
About the Author
Laurie Lee Dovey, is an award-winning writer and photographer, media consultant and owner of LLD INK, LLDInk.com. Also find her on Facebook and LinkedIn @lldovey
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