5 Unique Ways to Promote Archery (and Your Store) to Newcomers

How many customers have you added in the past year?

Do you dislike your answer? If so, how can you recruit more regulars?

Retailers often get comfortable (or stuck) marketing their products, classes and services with standard, repetitive promotions. It’s essential to promote those offerings, but it’s also important to vary your marketing strategies. What appeals to one customer might appall another, whether it’s taking classes or shooting the latest bows. To intrigue different customers, you must speak different languages.

It’s much like bowhunting. Do you hunt the same spot every time, year after year, if you don’t see deer? No. You scout new areas, look for fresh sign, and move treestands to better spots. Take that same approach when marketing your store to the community. If customers don’t respond to your website or social-media posts, try something else. Try to figure out what they like, and give them reasons to visit your shop.

Here are five ways to promote your business to different audiences and attract more customers.

1. Share What Makes Your Store/Business Special

Once people know you have products, classes and services, explain why those options are so much better at your business. Do you have a flexible product-return policy? Do your classes certify Level 3 National Training System coaches? Do they know you’ve been servicing archery equipment over 20 years? Are you dedicated to your customers’ success? Are you available at odd hours to handle last-minute bow issues? Do you have a customer-rewards program?

Identify what makes your business unique or different from your competitors. Share those features with your community.

2. Encourage Folks to Try Something New

School is out and kids are bursting with energy. Parents, meanwhile, are trying to channel that enthusiasm while entertaining them. Act now to encourage entire families to try archery. After all, it’s a family-friendly activity that gets everyone outside and invigorated. Pitch the fact that archery is fun, safe, challenging and rewarding.

Or tap into their adventurous side and explain how archery provides opportunities to travel the state or country. And don’t forget bowhunting, which engages folks in nature, inspires them to scout and hunt new areas.

Please note: Many archery groups and organizations canceled or postponed events to fight COVID-19. But the pandemic also sparked interest in bowhunting when commercial meat supplies shrank, and people searched for sustainable protein sources. Make the most of that mindset and momentum. For more information, read ATA’s article “Capitalize as Hunting Interest Surges After Pandemic.”

3. Share Archery’s Health Benefits

If fun, exciting activities aren’t enough for some people, they might like heart-healthy incentives. Archery and bowhunting offer it all. Both improve physical and mental health. Drawing a bow and shooting regularly strengthens your arms, core, hands, chest and shoulders. Plus, walking to retrieve arrows engages your lungs, heart and circulatory system; and being outside is healthy. It reduces stress and boosts your immune system, making archery ideal for health-conscious Americans. And if they bowhunt, they can also harvest lean, organic protein.