See the Changes
She has seen me changing
It ain’t easy rearranging
And it gets harder as you get older,
Farther away as you get closer.
Words and Music by Stephen Stills
I’ve had people contact me about what “Selling to Ourselves” means. So I thought I would elaborate as it pertains to the outdoor recreational industry, and then address the changes that are necessary.
Selling to ourselves means:
- Manufacturers selling to the same retailers in the distribution system.
- Retailers buying from the same larger brands as a safety net during a recession.
- Brands employing the same marketing tools to reach the same outdoor enthusiasts.
- Retailers marketing to their tried and true set of customers.
What happens then?
- No new retailers (brick-mortar & online) entering the outdoor recreational space.
- Fewer new innovative small manufacturers. Money is hard to get, expensive and tough when the market isn’t growing.
- New consumers are not attracted to the market because it is shrinking
- Interested new consumers have fewer places to buy.
- New consumers have less choice when they do shop.
And the consequences?
- Ever accelerating decrease of sales for manufacturers and retailers. (Once you start circling the drain, its tough to stay out.)
And the solution?
- More grass-roots local events to get communities involved in hiking, snowshoeing, boarding, skiing, etc. Take the sports to the people. Make it local. Make it family. Make it authentic.
- Build a new media marketing program that loads smart relevent content into the blogsphere so influencers and consumers can learn, become intrigued, and react.
- Build relationships with influencers so they take your brand to their consumers.
- Make all marketing programs interactive.
In the spirit of this article being a short-read, I’ll need to stop here. However, the point is that companies can employ grass-roots event marketing to cost-effectively engage new consumers. (Do it where they live.) And companies can engage new media to carry powerful brand and product content onto America’s home computers, causing conversations in a much bigger consumer market.
How does it all start?
- By listening to what’s out there now.
Paul Kirwin, Founder and CEO of Channel Signal
