Good to Great Event Marketing! Elevate your game by making it memorable and tangible.

Plan your marketing events to deliver the desired outcome among your prospects. What do you want them to think, feel, remember, do and, or buy. Plan a methodology for measuring these results and your after action reports will be much more fact driven and quantitative.

Marketing Event: I recently participated in a well-organized event. There were many informative and entertaining aspects to it. All marketeers are looking to build “communities” of enthusiastic brand champions/users. I still have a smile on my face because this event was well designed, executed, not rushed. There was time, patience, learning, food and fellowship. I believe they could have made the event significantly more “sticky”, quantifiable, and ROI impactful by adding just a few minor touches. Please read below and let me know if you agree with my suggestions.  

Background: A local Orlando firearms retailer, called the Armories, has been organizing and hosting a number of events, either in-store or at local firing ranges, where customers, and potential customers, can get theoretical, or theoretical plus hands-on, advanced firearms instruction and information from a variety of industry experts.  

The Armories is a clean, modern gun store where coffee is free, the staff is knowledgeable, helpful, and everyone is welcome. They email their opted-in list of customers, regularly, with holiday specials, deals, birthday greetings and news of events. I received an email about a long-range class and was happy to pay $80 to polish my skills. (Note: most ranges in the US are 50 or 100 yards max; and long-range shooting, of 1000 yards and more, is currently sky rocketing in popularity) 

Event: The event was a 200 Yard Instructional Shoot. 50 Attendees would be exposed to the mathematical and practical, theories associated with accurately sending small projectiles, at very high rates of speed, to impact desired targets despite the vagaries of wind, temperature, barometric pressure and the rotation of the earth. After a thorough briefing on safe gun handling, trigger squeeze, wind reading, and converting scope reticle markings into milliradians or into minutes of angle (necessary for making point of aim adjustments for distance and wind), attendees were coached through a number of firing positions and observed until they had mastered the available rifles. 

Course of Fire: Employees from Spikes Tactical, Dark Concepts, Leupold Optics and The Armories Gun Store were available every step of the way for coaching, spotting, and for safety. We students started at 100 yards with a Spike’s Tactical AR-15 rifle, chambered in 5.56mm topped with traditional iron sights. Upon demonstrating safety, competency and accuracy with the small rifle, attendees were then promoted to a 200-yard position, one with a Spike’s Tactical 5.56 AR-15, this one topped with a Leupold magnified scope. 

After succeeding at 200 yard line, the attendees proceeded to a station featuring a beefy Spike’s Tactical Rifle, chambered in NATO 7.62 x 51 (.308) with a high-end Leupold Scope. Students got to understand the difference the wind makes as 55 grain projectile fly down-range (3,000 feet per second) versus a 165 grain projectile’s path. The theories we had learned started to become clear.  

Once dialed in at 200 yard line, with the .308 rifle, we graduated to the next position, a high-end Spike’s Tactical AR-styled rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmore cartridge. 6.5 Creedmore is currently "trendy", the fastest, hardest hitting, sexiest cartridge among America’s shooting community. The same methodical and mathematical marksmanship drills were executed. The correct body position, reading of the distance and wind in the scope, combined with proper aiming, breathing and trigger squeezing were intimately coached; and yielded success among the students. Smiles of achievement on most faces, it was then off to a catered lunch.  

Wrap up: After shooting, everyone meandered off to the Jimmy Bear’s Barbecue tent to enjoy a delicious lunch and some chit chat with fellow firearms aficionados. The afternoon group started to arrive and we watched them get their safety and theory briefing as we chatted and perused the tents from Spike’s Tactical, Leupold and the Armories, the sponsors and organizers of the event. Then we left with some wonderful memories and some new knowledge. 

Estimated Results: The 45 men and 5 women shooters (18-65) were already customers of the Armories. This was definitely an effective loyalty building event and I suspect that these 50 customers will all spend at least an extra $500-1000/year with the Armories versus Wallyworld or some random sporting goods store because they feel they are part of the family. This will be hard to measure. 

Leupold Optics, Spike’s Tactical Rifles and Jimmy Bear’s Barbecue may all gain a customer, or even 3; but it will be really difficult to measure. 

My Recommendations: As an event marketer extraordinaire, I’ve had the pleasure to sponsor and organize beauty contests, major league soccer games and dental congresses in, in addition to giving away a house, in Vietnam. I organized surfing, bikini and martial arts competitions in Ecuador as well as road rallies and car races. I’ve also done many political events in the US.   

As such, WIFME, or what’s in it for me, and Bragging Rights, are always critical. To add additional value and tracking ability I would have supplied each participant with the following: 

1) A digital photo/video of each attendee achieving 200-yard shots and firing the machine gun on Instagram, FB, Twitter, Linked-in and on the manufacturer/retailer websites. Together with these photos should be discount codes for purchasing specific products within 7, 14, 21 and 30 days. (Afterglow period) 

2) A group photo of all attendees with time date and all the sponsors’ names on it. This photo is the anchor of the Class’s on-line community. In the future, members of the class of January 13, 2020 will be eligible for X, Y, and Z on the 6, 9 and 12 month anniversaries of their class. 

3) A downloadable diploma, suitable for framing, with name, date and achievement listed, as well as all the sponsor data. The download of this diploma triggers quarterly marketing activities. 

4) A goody bag with a hat, t-shirt and an instructional booklet which is chock full of coupons, a calendar of upcoming events and contact information for all the vendors. 

5) A raffle ticket. Everyone loves a raffle. This ticket should be for a big prize the day of the event, a big prize at the next event, plus many, many discounts for the next event. Note: The next event must be signed up for within 30 days if the ticket is to be valued. 

6) Today Only Deals- Each of the sponsors tents should have had some deals allowing attendees to purchase the rifles, optics and ammo used today as well as some additional training from Dark Concepts. Hats and T-shirts would have been an easy sell, or give away as well. 

Conclusion: It is my belief and experience, that if the sponsors had undertaken a number of these activities, that they would enjoy much more measurable ROI out of this type of event. What do you think? What 2 or 3 things would you do differently. Please share any suggestions you have. I will aggregate all the best thoughts and then share them with the sponsors. (Note: I still cherish my certificates from Lucid Optics' 1 Mile Marksmanship School and for having on the deck and taken off from the USS Constellation! I bet you would too.) Make marketing fun and memorable! That is how to go from good to GREAT!