benos Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 I've never run any ads for Slide-Glide. I don't know anything about marketing - never advertised for any of my products. So I was thinking of running an ad in Front Sight. Just try it out for a few months and see what happens In addition to "our guys" though, I'm wondering if I might reach a wider audience by advertising the Glide to a more general group of shooters. That just got me wondering... do shooters still subscribe to gun magazines? If anyone thinks advertising in a more general shooting magazine might be effective... Again, I'm completely clueless... Any idea on what magazine might be a good "(sales) bang for the (advertising) buck"? Any feedback will be appreciated. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Round_Gun_Shooter Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 Various shooting forums have banner ads. I have no idea how they work but it supports the forums. NRA magazines are a captive audience. Never looked, but do you sell through Brownell? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blind bat Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 There a little catalog that comes to my house every other day with a cute girl on the cover and a bunch of reloading stuff inside. Might want to give those guys a call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 Put it on amazon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 Just went over to uspsa.org and they are flashing an ad for frog lube. Sounds like a great place for slide glide. Send me a tub and I will put it in the safety area for shooters to try at my matches! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dranoel Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 (edited) Various shooting forums have banner ads. I have no idea how they work but it supports the forums. NRA magazines are a captive audience. Never looked, but do you sell through Brownell? This. Years ago I had subscriptions to G&A, Handgunner and a few others. but "innerwebzes" has so much information at the touch of a button and when I actually need it that I don't even look at magazines other than NRA. You might look into advertising on Youtube with all the shooting and smithing vids it might just catch some extra flies. Edited September 10, 2014 by Dranoel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meatsauce Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 +1 for advertising on forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkCO Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 I have 2 digital subscriptions, still get Front Sight, but print is slowly going into the weeds. There are like 1,000,000 of the bestest, tacticalist gun and product bloggers that you can send a tub to each and maybe sell 1,000 tubs. I absolutely despise Facebook, but it does seem to be the marketing focal point right now, for good or bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EEH Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 A lot but not all gun mags.are full of adds for things for sale,which I never look at.I use your slide glide both regular and light ( for my 9 mm ) I love it,started using after it being recommend by another shooter .Small tubes as prizes at matches,may work .But friends tell friends . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haraise Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 I fully recommend the small time approach. Send a tub to the firearm blog, modern service weapons, the truth about guns.... get reviews. Costs you essentially nothing. Same with Sarge's idea. If you can get it as the defacto lube at matches, well. That's how guns get popular in the sport, why not lube? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EEH Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 On the other hand if you do nothing no one knows about it!!! Do it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trgt Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 (edited) You have a good question which is the modern marketing person's dilemma - what's the best way to reach the folks I want to reach, at the point in time in which they are open to my message, open to learning about my product? ### Main marketing I suggest as a first step leveraging things you are good at - teaching and Internet - before you spend lots of money advertising - Set up a separate domain for the product, not a buried page in Eno's forum - Consider spending some of that advertising money on a gentle revamp of the look and feel of the page. - Put together some training material that shows how to use slide glide, printed (reference) and video - - Do a generic version of this first - - Then actually show how to lube each popular pistol - field strip, lube (where and how much, show me), and put together (1911, glock, CZ, M&P) - printed (HTML, PDF) and video (Internet, YouTube) - - Should I be using slide glide for shotgun or AR (3gun, other stuff....); - - Do a section for each class of race gun, production, limited, Open - what do I need to know about Slide Glide and what's going on with these guns - - Do a section for adverse conditions - hot, cold, rain, dust, mud - what would I do differently to lube - - Long term storage - we've heard about other lubes gunk-ing up over time, how should you use or not use slide glide for extended storage? - - Quick / Emergency tips - my guns start to run poorly, what I can do quickly w/o field stripping Think of it as similar to your competition reloading video, but in short bits, and now instead of the material as what you sold (video), this material about how to lube is on the Internet free, but it helps sell your lube. You don't even have to hard sell the slide glide. When folks trust what you are telling them about how to lube, they'll want to use your product. OK, why not just a generic video vs all the popular pistols and classes? Internet search! Each time someone gets a different type of pistol, or changes class, one things they'll think about, is 'How do I .... for that pistol or class'. You'll have a compilation of stuff that shows up in Internet search when someone says 'How do I lube my VP9', boom, there you are. And more than that. When someone comes to the forum here and many other places, and asks how do I lube, your fans will link to your stuff. ### Next Steps - Guerrilla Warfare You've got a huge base of avid fans here that all race, not to mention the ones that organize and run the matches. It would be very easy for them to spread the word if you made it easy for them, Sarge's suggestion an excellent example of that. Others there also and you haven't scratched the surface. I wouldn't necessarily copy what FrogLube does, they have $$, so easy for them to sponsor matches and shooters and get samples out there. (all costing money). So instead of asking the question 'should I advertise', maybe ask the question - 'how do I get the word out' (... to experience competitors, to new folks, to folks not in USPSA/IDPA/...), maybe one potential addressable target group at a time, get feedback, try stuff out, and the stuff that has high results to cost, you do more of that. ### and the influencers There is a small group of folks that answer a disproportionately high volume of questions online and off. Find them, keep them loaded up with discounted or free slide-glide. These are the folks you want to take care of, kind of like being a sponsored shooter, but instead of getting a logo on the top shooter shirt, you are getting product in the hands of the folks who are well connected and taking the time to help other folks. You can lock those folks up in a way that the commercial folks won't know how to, because they don't know who those folks are. In some cases it might be traditional journalists, but odds are its going to be the high post count folks here and on other gun related forums. ### Just some ideas, so short answer is I would not advertise in Front Sight Magazine before tackling some of the above, I think the return to effort/$$ will be higher with better online stuff than an ad in Frontsight, IMHO. Edited September 10, 2014 by trgt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trgt Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 Put it on amazon! It's there! That's the last place I bought it from :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aglifter Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 I think the dedicated page is a great idea - FB advertising may also be a good idea. Should be fairly cheap to try, at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 I've never run any ads for Slide-Glide. I don't know anything about marketing - never advertised for any of my products. So I was thinking of running an ad in Front Sight. Just try it out for a few months and see what happens In addition to "our guys" though, I'm wondering if I might reach a wider audience by advertising the Glide to a more general group of shooters. That just got me wondering... do shooters still subscribe to gun magazines? If anyone thinks advertising in a more general shooting magazine might be effective... Again, I'm completely clueless... Any idea on what magazine might be a good "(sales) bang for the (advertising) buck"? Any feedback will be appreciated. be I recall Handguns magazine actually has an online edition which is basically free so I would think that would get more eyeballs than a mag people have to buy. http://www.handgunsmag.com/ There are probably other online mags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 (edited) I've never run any ads for Slide-Glide. I don't know anything about marketing - never advertised for any of my products. To maximize sales, use the business model that drug companies use: try to come up with every possible use for it and advertise/market to all of them. Grease doesn't have to be used only on guns. DuPont actually used to put the exact same product which was a teflon laced silicone spray lube in two different cans with different labels and "target uses" to sell more of it. +1 on Youtube since it's free and the title of the video can be tailored to the product. Edited September 10, 2014 by bountyhunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 Another effective way to rime the pump is to give it away through available channels. FP-10 did that for a while, they gave away samples to anybody who replied. The thing is you need smaller volume containers because you obviously don't want to give away full size servings as samples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Smith Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 Sending samples out is good but I would think that there needs to be good a "how to" to go with it. Slide glide is good for some things but perhaps not so good for others. Giving "reviewers" a guide to how to use it would help keep them from mis-using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hi-Power Jack Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 I think Trgt hit it out of the park - good thinking, and thanks for sharing all those Great Ideas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted September 10, 2014 Author Share Posted September 10, 2014 I think Trgt hit it out of the park - good thinking, and thanks for sharing all those Great Ideas Indeed! My mind is now moving in new directions... Brownell's and Dillon both sell the Slide-Glide, and I do sell a surprising amount of it on amazon. Thanks "again" for all the details trgt - all good stuff to start working on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted September 10, 2014 Share Posted September 10, 2014 One small word of advice .. sell it in smaller quantities. The stuff just lasts for ever, my 2oz tub is years old now because I using sparingly and only on certain guns. Think like one use blisters, which would also be a good thing to give away at matches as samples, like 1/10oz or maybe even less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted September 11, 2014 Share Posted September 11, 2014 I think Trgt hit it out of the park - good thinking, and thanks for sharing all those Great Ideas Indeed! My mind is now moving in new directions... You might want to think automotive, as most grease sold is in that arena. MILITEC which also makes firearm lubes sells their grease in the standard size tubes. Auto grease comes in a standard form factor, a small tube for the hand pump and a larger tube for the pneumatic guns. http://militecusa.com/ Shows the tubes of grease on the front page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OscarMike Posted September 13, 2014 Share Posted September 13, 2014 Here's a thought... "stickman" (he's a huge firearms photographer) is doing a big giveaway and is advertising a lot of brands for the giveaway. Send him a tub or two of it to give away and you'll get some awesome advertising out of it. A LOT of people follow stickman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted September 13, 2014 Share Posted September 13, 2014 The shotgun news has online and paper based readers...it's more a "newspaper" than a magazine...97k subscribers, thrice monthly delivery... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpolans Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 For gun mags, I only get Front Sight and American Rifleman. All the other gun mags have decided to focus almost exclusively on the tacticool wannabe market. I miss Gun Games and what American Handgunner used to be. You might consider advertising on other internet forums like GlockTalk and others. Also, consider alternative uses and market it to those markets too (perhaps under a different name). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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