Offering Product Support
I have spent the majority of the past two months down at Gunsite teaching handgun and shotgun classes as well as working with other entities in the larger firearms community.
The students — your clients, the consumers — are generally pretty awesome. When it comes to equipment, they want good gear. While they can recognize quality in their day-to-day life, there are times when they need some help with it in our context. Making sure they have the knowledge to make good decisions when buying gear could certainly help you out and help your business’s bottom line.
For example, a few days ago I talked with an acquaintance who is a West Coast rep from an East Coast-based gear business. After the main topic of the call was taken care of, he started asking about retail businesses geographically close to me. He wanted to know which ones were carrying his company’s products. Why? Good question. He told me he wanted to visit them and ensure their staff had the necessary information to answer customer questions about the individual products and how the customer could best use them.
That is solid. Yes, they are selling a product. Got it. But they are focusing on ensuring those products can be used to their full capability by the purchaser. Now, I have been buying and using their items since the mid-2000s. I have used them as a deployed service member, I have used them as a deputy sheriff and I still use them in articles as well as while teaching.
It’s gratifying a company in our industry is committed to ensuring their clients can access this level of information. Ian, thank you for asking that question and sharing the “why” behind it.
The firearms community is a good-sized chunk of people. Thankfully it is not a monolithic block. Two smaller components with some overlap are the military and law enforcement components. I bring this up because those two groups have somewhat different concerns and needs from the rest of the community. Notice the space on the SHOT Show floors focusing on the two communities.
With AmericanCOP or any other publication that addresses those two groups, you might consider advertising specifically to them, including the variety of the products you manufacture, rep or sell they can use. While I have not seen any specific data, both communities have ample segments that buy much of their equipment. It just might take a bit different focus in your ad campaigns.
It’s gratifying a company in our industry is committed to ensuring their clients can access this level of information. Ian, thank you for asking that question and sharing the “why” behind it.
The firearms community is a good-sized chunk of people. Thankfully it is not a monolithic block. Two smaller components with some overlap are the military and law enforcement components. I bring this up because those two groups have somewhat different concerns and needs from the rest of the community. Notice the space on the SHOT Show floors focusing on the two communities.
With AmericanCOP or any other publication that addresses those two groups, you might consider advertising specifically to them, including the variety of the products you manufacture, rep or sell they can use. While I have not seen any specific data, both communities have ample segments that buy much of their equipment. It just might take a bit different focus in your ad campaigns.
CLICK HERE for more May 2023 FMG Inside News
