Main Line Armory: Breaking Down Barriers
Many women come to the shooting sports through family connections. For Katie Butler, co-owner of Main Line Armory in Malvern, Pa., her entry came through the military.
“I spent 10 years as an intelligence officer, deployed to Iraq,” she shared. “I carried a firearm during those years but never carried one as a civilian until much later.”
After her time in the military, Butler earned an MBA in marketing from Villanova University. She became a marketing executive for Johnson & Johnson. She still works for J&J full-time in its consumer healthcare business company, Kenvue.
With the start of COVID, life changed for Butler just as it did for all of us. For her, however, it meant a new business.
“We’d always had firearms at home and every once in a while, I’d join my husband on the range,” she said. “But about the time COVID happened, I started seeing girlfriends carrying firearms and looking for training.”
Upon this observation, Butler and her husband Greg started talking about opening a facility to provide the kind of training these women were looking for.
“I would always tell my husband, ‘I love going to the range and I enjoy shooting, but it’s not the most comfortable experience,’” she recalled. “And this is coming from a woman who spent a decade in the military and who is not afraid of firearms. Every time I would go into a range and they had G.I. Joe on the wall, I’d think if they wanted to cater to women, this wasn’t the right approach.”
Building The Business
Butler wanted to create a facility she could proudly recommend to a friend and would be very welcoming to women.
“My experience marketing to women really helped me develop Main Line Armory,” she noted.
The Butlers first had the idea to open a range in July of 2020, and finally opened their doors in January of 2023.
“It took us a while to find a location,” Butler said. “We closed on our location and started construction in May 2022.”
The focus of Main Line Armory is the range, but the couple has a retail presence in the Malvern area as well.
“We also have a 4,000 sq. ft. retail facility,” she shared. “About 40% of our revenue is retail related, but most of what we do is offer a range experience. Training is big for us; we took our time finding the right instructors. Most of them have a law enforcement background and some civilian instruction background. We spent a lot of time making sure we brought in high-caliber instructors who would really be able to cater to new shooters.”
More than 50% of Butler’s customer base is new to shooting.
“Many of them like the design and the layout and the space and tell us they just want to be a part of this,” she lends. “They tell us they’ve never owned or fired a gun, and some of them become members before they purchase their first firearm or take their first class. A lot of people are interested in firearms, and when you build something that entices them to come in and spend time, it makes it easier for them to actually take that step.”
Growing The Market
Part of what makes the Main Line Armory experience unique is the way in which they provide an upscale environment for clients.
“We ‘luxurize’ the entire experience,” Butler informed. “We designed it to be a premium range but not in a way that’s too modern. We wanted to make it homey, so it has components of luxury and some older elements. We used a lot of wood throughout the facility to make it more earthy and more welcoming to women.”
Part of the business model at Main Line Armory is to host a lot of events for patrons, such as ladies’ meet and greets.
“We usually have about 50 women who come out for these events,” Butler shared. “They’re free for members and there’s a small fee for anyone else who wants to come. There’s no shooting at those events; the entire thing is just about getting women introduced. We have a charcuterie, we have wine and the women meet instructors and other women.”
They often have one of these events after a training class, so the women who have just finished the class can talk to other women who might be considering taking a class.
“We do a lot of things like this to be sure we’re really removing all the barriers,” Butler added. “I know from my marketing experience the biggest way to grow is to grow the market. We’re not focused on stealing market share from our competitors or competing for customers. We’re looking at who are the potential customers not in the firearms industry today and ask why they’re not. How can we remove all the barriers keeping them from this industry?”
Reaching Untapped Segments
When a woman walks into the retail area at Main Line Armory, the first thing she sees is women’s bags.
“That’s very intentional,” Butler confirmed. “We want women to feel welcome from the moment they step in the door, and we want to take away all the factors that feel like any kind of intimidation.”
In other words, the Butlers are not just reaching out to women shooters, they are reaching out to women who don’t shoot and turning them into shooters.
“Right now, about 40% of our members and customers are women,” Butler stated. “But we also have a lot of families. We do a kids-only class. It really helps families feel like having a firearm is something they can safely do.”
Despite their focus on women and families, the Butlers don’t overlook experienced shooters.
“We have instructors who are competitive shooters and who offer more advanced training for people who are more experienced,” she said. “About 60% of the services we offer and the content and information we provide are geared toward growing the market and the other 40% is for shooters who are more experienced.”
A Lot Of Work To Do
Today, Butler takes care of financial matters and marketing for Main Line Armory, while still maintaining her full-time role at Kenvue. Recently, she brought her marketing experience into the firearms industry when she presented a seminar at the 2024 NSSF Range-Retailer Business Expo on the power of branding.
Butler acknowledged Main Line Armory still has a lot of room to grow.
“Long term, we would love to open another facility within the Philadelphia region and expand our business,” she stated. “Our goal is to take away the stigma associated with guns and shooting — which is what we do with the content we produce on social media and our website. Some Americans have an assumption of what they think a gun owner looks like. The more we can humanize what an actual gun owner looks like, the better. We want people to see that a gun owner can be your neighbor, grandparent or another family member. We want people to recognize a lot of people they may not have thought of as gun owners are really gravitating toward it.”
Personally, Butler wants to continue to empower women in all aspects of the firearms industry.
“When I look at the industry, I feel like women are an untapped market,” she concluded. “This includes products in the market where we’re just an afterthought. The more innovation we can see really focused on women, the more women will feel like there’s really a place for them here.”