Coming up with creative marketing for your shooting range can be difficult, especially when you’re focused on managing the business and making sure customers feel comfortable and confident in your facility. It gets even trickier when your goal is to attract younger enthusiasts looking for a modern, engaging experience and a safe learning environment. These six marketing techniques will help fill your shooting range with new customers and loyal members.
1. Market your shooting range to gun buyers
Offer incentives with gun purchases to target ideal customers for your shooting range. If you don’t sell firearms at your facility, you can pair up with local retailers. Try offering gun buyers special same-day promotions, including:
- Free shooting range passes
- Discounted premium memberships
- Free membership initiation
To take this a step further, create a special package deal that includes discounted shooting range membership, free initiation, branded merchandise, and a bonus guest pass.
2. Host classes and training workshops
Many of your future customers are new to shooting and gun ownership. Offering introductory courses on gun safety, personal defense, and shooting techniques to provide a fun, safe way for them to learn about your business while building skills. Once you’ve established a relationship with these budding enthusiasts, it will be easier to convert them to frequent customers and gun club members.
3. Attract new audiences with special events
Special events are a vital part of marketing for your shooting range for two reasons:
- Events are a fun, easy way for new people to get to know your business and community
- Events can be an independent revenue stream that fuels other marketing and business activities
When thinking about the types of events to host at your shooting range, consider what will interest your existing customers and new ones. Organizing a tournament is a great way to engage seasoned target experts while a more fun event that involves shooting playing cards to create the best poker hand may appeal to a new, younger audience.
4. Stay connected with email marketing, social media, and a mobile app
Attracting new customers is only the first stage of your shooting range marketing. Once you’ve made an initial connection, you’ll need to engage potential customers through email, social media, and mobile apps.
Tracking prospects through your shooting range software will allow you to communicate regularly via email and SMS text messaging. In addition to these communication basics, shooting ranges should consider adding another tool to their marketing arsenal: a mobile app.
Once prospects download your app, they’ll get notifications about upcoming events, class schedules, social media updates, and special offers. And with users spending 18 times more time on mobile apps than websites, it’s no surprise that your app users become your most loyal customers.
5. Build a loyal customer base
While you should always think about ways to attract new customers to your shooting range, it’s important to devote marketing resources to your existing clientele, too. Because members and regulars are your main source of revenue, their happiness is what ultimately determines your success.
Use social media marketing to recognize member achievements, ask for feedback, and create a sense of community among gun club members. Make sure that staff are knowledgeable, prioritize safety, and go above and beyond to make every experience positive.
Keep in mind that while a happy customer will act as an ambassador for your business, the opposite is also true. An unhappy customer can spoil even the best marketing plans.
6. Ask for referrals
If you’ve done a good job building a loyal following, you can leverage these relationships to ask for referrals. When it comes to increasing referral leads, there are two main rules:
- If you want more referrals, you have to ask for them
- The best time to ask for a referral is right after your customer has a positive experience with your shooting range
One of the biggest mistakes shooting range owners make is forgetting to include referrals as a formal part of their marketing strategy. Identify opportunities to request referrals and make a plan for how you’ll ask for them. Not sure where to start? Try these ideas:
- After a home defense course, ask participants to provide the name of one person they think would enjoy the class in exchange for free merchandise
- Offer new participants a free guest pass after their first visit
- Give friends of members 25% off an upcoming event
Does Your Shooting Range Marketing Hit the Target?
Now that you know these six essential marketing strategies, it’s time to put them into action. This means scheduling your marketing efforts and choosing the right software tools and technology to help you get it done. To learn more about how EZFacility helps gun clubs and shooting ranges with their marketing, chat with us today.