Summer is a hectic time for many outdoor brands. But with the right marketing strategy, you can make the most of the season and ensure your brand stands out from the rest. Today, we’ll talk about some of our favorite ways to market your outdoor brand effectively (in any season) to get the sales and results you want!
7 Ways to Market Your Outdoor Brand
Here are seven ways to market your outdoor brand effectively.
Start With a Strong Foundation
Begin by ensuring your brand has a strong foundation. This means getting clear about your brand identity, mission, and values.
To do this, start by asking yourself some key questions:
- What does your brand stand for?
- What are its core values?
- What sets it apart from other brands in the market?
Once you understand your brand well, you can begin to craft marketing messages that reflect these qualities. This makes your marketing more effective and helps you connect easily with your target audience.
Develop a Plan to Market Your Outdoor Brand
The next step is to develop a comprehensive marketing plan. This should include your overall marketing goals, strategies, and tactics.
To get started, answer these questions:
- Who is your target market?
- What needs does your target market have that your product or service can address?
- What are your marketing goals?
- What strategies will you use to reach your target market and achieve your goals?
- What tactics will you use to execute these strategies?
You can begin to develop a plan of action with answers to these questions. This helps you focus your efforts and ensure your marketing is more strategic and influential.
Reach Your Target Audience Where They Are
If you’re not reaching your target audience, what’s the point? First, it’s vital to determine where your target market is spending their time. This could be online, in specific stores, or at certain events.
For example, suppose you’re targeting young adults who are into hiking and camping. In that case, you might want to market your brand on popular hiking and camping forums or sponsor a major hiking event.
With that in mind, it’s time to dive into the sales funnel! The funnel involves several steps, including your customer researching your brand, comparing it with others, deciding to purchase your product, and finally, achieving your brand’s ultimate goal of them becoming lifelong customers.
Here’s a closer look at nailing each of those steps from your customers’ perspective:
The Research Phase
Becoming aware of your brand
Your customers need to be aware that your brand exists before they can decide to purchase from you.
There are a few ways to increase brand awareness, including:
- Sponsoring events or groups related to your target market
- Advertising in publications read by your target market
- Creating informative blog content that will show up in search engine results
Learning about your brand
Once your target market is aware of your existence, they’ll start to learn more about you. So, it’s essential to ensure the information they’re finding is accurate and reflects well on your company.
Some ways to do this include:
- Creating a solid social media presence
- Creating an informative website
- Make sure your online reviews are positive
The Comparison Phase
Once your target market has researched and learned about your brand, they’ll compare you with similar companies. Therefore, it’s essential to make sure you’re offering a competitive product at a fair price and communicating this effectively.
You can do this by:
- Offering promotions and discounts
- Creating informative blog content that compares your products with those of your competitors
- Making it easy for customers to compare products on your website
The Purchase Phase
If you’ve made it through the research and comparison phases, congrats! Your customers are now ready to purchase from you. But before they do, there are a few things you can do to seal the deal, including:
- Making it easy to buy from your website
- Offering excellent customer service
- Make sure your product lives up to its promises
The Loyalty Phase
Once your customers have made their purchase, it’s time to turn them into lifelong fans.
This can be done by:
- Asking for feedback and reviews
- Following up after purchase
- Offering loyalty programs
- Creating a great customer experience
Use Content to Market Your Outdoor Brand
Next, let’s review the content considerations that will help you market your outdoor brand. Content marketing is a powerful asset for any brand, and it’s one you don’t want to miss out on.
Some things to keep in mind as you create content include:
- Your niche: It’s essential to focus on a specific niche within the outdoor market. This helps you create targeted content that resonates with your target market.
- Your audience: As we mentioned, ensuring you’re creating content for your target market is crucial. Write blog posts, create social media posts, and develop video content that appeals to them.
- Your goals: What are you hoping to achieve with your content marketing? Make sure your content aligns with your overall marketing goals.
Content Strategies to Market Your Outdoor Brand
Now that we’ve gone over some general tips, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of creating the content.
Here are some ideas to get you started.
Paid advertising with the right target audience
First, consider using paid advertising to help you target the right target audience with your content. For example, you can use platforms like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads to target people interested in the outdoors.
This will help ensure your content is seen by people who are already interested in your offer. It will also help you reach a larger audience than you would organically.
User-generated content
Another exciting strategy for outdoor brands is user-generated content (UGC). UGC is when customers or fans create content about your brand, which can be a great way to connect with your audience.
You can encourage UGC by hosting contests, using hashtags, or simply asking customers to share their photos and stories. Not only is UGC a great way to connect with your audience, but it’s also free marketing!
Use the beauty of the outdoors as a selling point when you market your outdoor brand
Next, consider using the beauty of the outdoors as a selling point for your brand. After all, outdoor brands have the opportunity to do this in an incredibly authentic way that speaks to their overarching brand message.
Some things you can do to market the beauty of the outdoors include:
- Creating beautiful visuals that highlight your products in action
- Showcasing customer photos and videos
- Writing blog posts about enjoying the outdoors
- Developing social media content that highlights the beauty of nature
There are endless possibilities when marketing the beauty of the outdoors, so get creative!
Answer important questions
People need to know how to use your products or services, whether you have an indoor or outdoor brand. But, of course, when it comes to outdoor products, safety is always a top concern. To address this concern, your audience needs access to all their top questions. Better yet, you’ll answer the questions they didn’t even know they had.
To do this, consider creating the following types of content:
- Tutorial videos
- Product manuals and instructions
- Blog posts that answer frequently asked questions
- Social media posts that answer customer questions in real-time
This content helps you market your brand and improve the customer experience simultaneously. People will be more likely to purchase from you if they feel confident in your products—this type of content can help give them that confidence.
How-to content
Providing “how-to” content can be incredibly effective when you market your outdoor brand. People love this content because it’s helpful, informative, and usually easy to consume. Not to mention, it can help you rank higher in search engines!
When creating how-to content, ensure you’re providing value and that your instructions are clear.
Utilize influencers to market your outdoor brand
Next, consider working with influencers to help market your outdoor brand. When done correctly, influencer marketing can be an incredibly effective way to reach a larger audience and improve brand awareness.
To find the right influencers to work with, consider using an influencer marketing platform like BuzzSumo or TRIBE. Then, once you’ve found some potential partners, reach out and see if they’re interested in collaborating.
Social Media to Market Your Outdoor Brand
We can’t talk about how to market your outdoor brand without including social media!
Make sure your brand has a solid social media presence on all major platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Along with images and content, we encourage you to explore video ads.
Video is one of the most powerful marketing tools available, and it’s especially well-suited for outdoor brands. Video ads let you showcase your products in action and tell a story that speaks to your brand message. However, regardless of what kind of ads you’re using, don’t overlook the importance of audience segmentation on Facebook and Instagram ads so you can be sure you’re reaching the right people.
Email Marketing
Now we come to email marketing. This is still one of the most powerful marketing channels available, so it’s important to make sure you’re taking advantage of it.
There are several types of email marketing you might employ, including
- Abandoned cart recovery: This email is sent to customers who have added items to their cart but haven’t completed the purchase.
- Transactional emails are emails triggered by a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
- Promotional emails: These are typically sent to customers to increase sales. They might include coupons, discounts, or other special offers.
- Content emails: Content emails are designed to keep your audience engaged and informed. They might include blog posts, videos, or other types of content that are relevant to your brand.
Build brand awareness without spamming
It’s critical to build brand awareness without spamming. Otherwise, you’ll lose customers and damage your reputation. To avoid this, segment lists and send relevant content to each group. You can also set up a preference center so customers can choose what emails they want to receive.
Use email automation with a tool like Klaviyo
To take some guesswork out of email marketing, consider using an email automation tool like Klaviyo. Klaviyo makes it easy to segment your lists, personalize your emails, and automate your email campaigns. Plus, it integrates seamlessly with Shopify, so you can start using it immediately.
Klaviyo also offers a wide range of customizable templates that make creating beautiful, compelling emails easy.
Personalization and Communication
Finally, let’s talk about personalization and communication. One of the best ways to effectively market your outdoor brand is to understand your target audience and what they’re looking for. Take some time to research your ideal customer and create buyer personas that represent them.
Once you understand who you’re marketing to, you can start creating content that speaks to their specific needs and pain points. You can also customize your communications so they’re more likely to resonate with your audience. To learn more about your audience’s pain points and how to address them, start by conducting market research. This involves surveying your target market, conducting interviews, and gathering data from other sources.
With all of this information on hand, you can start creating content that’s designed to address your audience’s specific needs. By doing this, you’ll be able to market your outdoor brand effectively and build strong relationships with your customers.
For example, suppose you know your target audience is interested in hiking. In that case, you might create a blog post about the ten best hiking trails in the area. Or, if you know they’re interested in fishing, you might create a video tutorial on how to tie the perfect fishing knot.
Conclusion: How to Market Your Outdoor Brand
Let’s do a quick recap of some of our favorite strategies for how to market your outdoor brand:
- First, get clear on your brand identity and what makes you unique.
- Develop a strong content strategy that focuses on creating valuable, relevant content.
- Finally, use social media to connect with your audience and build relationships.
- Email marketing can be a great way to reach your audience and promote your brand. Just ensure you’re segmenting your lists and only sending relevant information to each group.
- Finally, don’t forget the importance of personalization and communication. Take the time to understand your target market and what they’re looking for. Then, create content that addresses their specific needs and pain points.
There you have it! These are just a few of our favorite strategies for marketing an outdoor brand effectively.
If you want more hands-on help, reach out to the team at Blue Water Marketing today.
