Reception to our complimentary media campaign contest at the Summer Outdoor Retailer  show was outstanding.  No less than 87 companies submitted their cards in the hopes of winning a campaign across our Outdoor Channel.

In case you missed me, I was the one walking around the conference with the uber cool vinyl bag that I grabbed the weekend before from Bailey Works out of Portsmouth, NH.  I picked out the bag in part because of its bold design, but more in part because it was time to retire my 6 yr old Baily Bag and drive the message home that I felt was so prevalent at the show....save what is left, recycle where you can and support dealers who support the environment.  Bailey snatched up its own landfill destined vinyl from The Design Trust in NYC, so not only was I getting to save some scrap material from the trash heap, but I was doing so from a charity with a cool mission:

"Design Trust projects bring together neighborhoods, public agencies, and design professionals to find innovative opportunities for change, making the city more beautiful, sustainable"

The network of outdoor enthusiast sites at NameMedia all contain forums, where users post up to 30,000 messages a day.  What in the world are they all talking about?  GEAR....routes....travel plans...you name it.  But if you dig a little deeper into this, what you will find is that these people are also looking for the opinions of other fellow outdoor enthusiasts.  Its their opinion that counts most.   As a marketer for your outdoor brand, understanding this and positioning your company in the thick of these conversations is some of the best use of advertising budget you can make.

Want proof?An interesting article came out earlier in the month from Nielsen titled, "Global Advertising: Consumers Trust Real Friends and Virtual Strangers the Most"
It's a long read, but here is one quick point to walk away with:

- Ninety percent or consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.

It's important to note that branded websites hold down a 70% factor as well when it comes to reaching the outdoor enthusiast.  But what is easier?  Tossing some banners out on a network and hoping some people click on the ad and then get to your site....or advertising in the areas of the web where people are already discussing your product, already engaged with your brand, and seconds away from hitting REI ( our top exit point) and making a purchase?

I'm not sure about you, but when I come home at night and check the mail, there are easily 2-3 new magazines in there or catalogs.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy flipping through them to see what's new and what certain writers have to say (and to also see which brands are copying who).  

But as far as time goes, I'm lucky if I can sit down for more 15 minutes at night and catch up before I fall asleep.  So much for the 16 magazines by the bed that I have to still flip through.  I went to REI last week and grabbed three mags on Kayaking and have barely made it half way through one.

But at work.  Totally different ball game.  I have blogs I read, forums to scroll through, and of course I am always researching new gear (still hunting for the ocean Kayak...Valley or Seda).  Now where you do think Seda is placing their ads?  Yup, you guessed it.  In the trade journals that are beside my bed that I haven't read yet.

And of course if I'm reading Outside magazine, how would Seda know that I was in there hoping to find an article titled " 10 mistakes to avoid when buying your first ocean kayak"

I think you get my point.  You need to be in areas where you know your customers are....as well as they areas they might be.  Online advertising can show you this, in real time.  We've worked with a few recent outdoor brands where sure, they knew exactly the types of enthusiasts they were trying to reach so they allocated a large portion of their media buy to our Fishing sites.  But what we also did for them was run a few more impressions across our outdoor network to help them uncover new markets.  Turned out the biking and hiking crowd was pretty excited about their product as well.

To give you an idea of the type of people in our network of enthusiast sites, here is your typical activity breakdown for the Alpha Outdoor Consumer in our channel:



OUTDOOR SPORTS & ACTIVITIES

Running  50%
Fitness Walking  67%
Backpacking  42%
Hiking  68%
Camping  64%
Fly Fishing  14%
Mountaineering    9%
Kayaking  17%
Canoeing  28%
Surfing    9%
Yoga  22%
Scuba Dive  14.5%
Fly Fishing  11%
Cycling  40%
Mountain Biking     35%


Does anyone out there in the outdoor space have a product that does not fit with the above demographic?  I'd love to hear from someone who has an example!

Sometimes the results on our network of sites amaze me.  Sometimes I am floored.  But the funny thing is, I can call over to these companies and explain to them how their banners are performing at 10x the national average, and they still ask, "....so is this good?"

I love it when we can bring on a smaller advertister and blow their socks off with performance.  The key thing here is that we are both working towards the same goal.....making sure the ads are placed in areas of the sites where they are getting the most value.  Here is an example of a client that came on last week and their related CTR performance:

Report Metrics     Ad Slot Size Zone Name Impressions Delivered Clicks Recorded Click Rate 160x600 nme.dropzone/homepage 446 10 2.24%
160x600 nme.dropzone/forums 2580 24 0.93%
160x600 nme.dropzone/misc 907 17 1.87%
160x600 nme.dropzone/calendar 20 1 5%
160x600 nme.dropzone/videos 52 2 3.85%
160x600 nme.dropzone/photos 44 1 2.27%
160x600 nme.dropzone/homepage 474 5 1.05%

This may not seem like much on the surface, but consider this.  When marketers try to go for the "broad shotgun" approach and target a network, the network will say to them that a CTR rate of .08 - .15 will be a "very" good showing.

Take that same ad, and run it across a closed-network of enthusiast sites (targeting in this case Skydivers) and that rate of .15% skyrockets to as high as 5%.  The client above is averaging, overall across the entire network, a .72% CTR.

The next step in this campaign will be to optimize the placement for the client.  Once they hit 100,000 impressions, we will turn off the areas that are not performing and then move the related volume into areas that are performing. 

I suspect that this client is going to end up with a campaign that is well over 1% CTR.  10x the national average.  So the answer is yes.....it does pay to target your customers.
 

When I was in charge of advertising for a kitesurfing store, I started out on the wrong path.  There were three very good print pulications on the market, each of them 100% focused on the kitesurfing culture.  Here is what I learned:

-Your next customer has already been influenced by your competition if you are  advertising in the same magazine as them...especially if your ad budget is smaller.

-Savvy customers who read niche print magazines are very keen on price.  They don't need as much customer service and are less willing to pay a premium to a retailer for it.

-By advertising in a niche publication, you are basically telling the customer to call you  and everyone in the magazine so they can hunt down the best price.

So what did I do?  I started to survey the people who walked in the door as to what they were doing before they discovered kitesurfing.  What I found was that a large majority of them were pilots, many of them used to get very serious about R/C planes and cars, and many of them had a lot of disposable income.

So I stopped advertising with the kite magazines and started to target R/C magazines, pilot magazines, and the affluent online journals in New England.  The results were simply amazing.  Not only was I advertising where my competition was not, but I was doing so cheaper, with more reach and to the right market.

Reaching the right outdoor enthusiast for your product may not be in the one magazine that targets your industry.  Finding something more broad, or something where you have a good mix of enthusiasts is the best way to distance yourself from the wolf pack.

You never know where your next customer may come from, so don't limit your focus on finding them!