Gun Blog Marketing
Greg, in a post entitled Para Has Balls, says:
There is clearly a need to make your company stand out in a field of glitzy advertising. Innovation isn’t enough to sell a product, and traditional PR thinking does not include embracing the “New Media”. Early adopters of a new medium are the real risk-takers, especially when it can mean the success or failure of a business. However the risk can pay off huge if it succeeds. Many companies are starting to “dip their toes in the water”, but Para is the first to do it big. The question now: was Para’s money well spent?
Seems to be the question of the day. Continuing:
In sponsoring this event, they are receiving positive press, and some un-paid endorsements. Sure, they paid for the some gun bloggers to attend this training, but if the ‘typical’ gun blogger is anything it is honest. When Joe Huffman found a potential bug in the hardware, he didn’t ignore it. He was and is critical of Para. It is that honesty that lends credibility to all of the claims made over the last week.
That, I think, is key. Show of hands: have you ever seen a negative review of a product in a gun magazine? I never have. Not once. Every thing in a gun mag is obviously the greatest thing ever.
Continuing to look at blog outreach effectiveness, Robb says:
I’d love nothing more than to be called on by a company such as Para USA to let me know of new product lines, even if it was just an email. I’d love to be able to blog about certain events like the ‘insiders’ can. But to do so is a dangerous proposition for any company. Bloggers might get a little ad revenue from Google Ads or whatever, but we don’t lose business from being negative about a product.
Para is taking a big risk here.
They are indeed. Thus far, I’ve seen blogger reviews that are generally positive of the products we tested. The few negatives seem to be about the LDA’s interaction with the safety and whether the safety is even needed. Otherwise, most reviews seem positive. Even if the LDA is not your cup of tea, the folks shooting the 9mm single action seemed to like it.
And Para has Balls. After all, Tam said Para Does Not Want Me. Now, Kerby could have said that was fine and not brought her along. He did not. He instead put his money where his mouth was and told her to come on down and give the product a fair shake. She did and she liked it. That’s some powerful advertisement, right there. Now the question gets to how much reach that advertisement has. Judging by comments, it seems her testimonial may result in some sales.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Your point about Gun Magazines is key. Consumer Reports entire brand has been built on credibility (whether that’s entirely deserved is besides the point, to a Marketing/Branding discussion).
This day and age, honesty and freshness stands out. Easiest way to do this is precisely what Para did.
And from a purely marketing-focused view, it really focused the budget on a well-qualified demographic. This should be a Harvard Business Review case study.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Are they actually making you pay for the guns, or just the FFL transfers? It seems to me that after all the other expense they should just throw the gun in.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Those of us who want to buy the gun are buying them. The are discounted a bit.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:49 am
The guns are discounted to a price that makes Dianne Feinstein crap her Depends™.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Para is selling them to us at cost.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:57 am
We actually talked about the potential for effectiveness for this last night on the show as well – Para is making what I see to be a pretty smart play by reaching out to the gun blogging community.
If you think about it, where do most semi-functional people go for actual information these days? The Internet, and usual to The Googles. If you do a google search for Para LTC 9mm, my review of it at Gun Nuts Radio Blog and Tam’s review are both near the top on the second page of results. If you do a different google search for International Cartridge Corporation, Sebastian’s review is the 4 result on the front page.
In addition to the above, Para is now presenting their product to the shooting community equivalent of “super-users”, people who don’t just buy a gun and leave in the sock drawer, but people who buy lots of guns, lots of BBs (thanks Todd), load their own ammo, buy lots of gear, etc.
And finally, there’s the “street cred” issue – which Para now has in spades. They took 11 people from a demographic that is notorious for doing whatever the hell it wants, and said “here are our guns, do your worst”. Para does have balls to do something like this, and I think that long term payoff for them, Blackhawk, and ICC will actually be pretty impressive.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:45 am
When I want honest, non-biased, and accurate reporting on guns, I pick up a copy of Gun Tests magazine. They don’t accept ads from gun makers, so they owe them nothing, which is clearly reflected in their reviews.
I’ve seen them rip into poor design features like no other magazine can or will.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
My problem is that I occasionally read articles by guys in Gun Tests Magazine who don’t have the technical knowledge to accurately assess a Super Soaker.
That, and they frequently confuse “Cheaper” and “Better”.
August 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
FWIW, SWAT Magazine famously lost Benelli as an advertiser after Louis Awerbuck panned the M4…
August 27th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“retro Says:
August 27th, 2008 at 11:45 am
When I want honest, non-biased, and accurate reporting on guns, I pick up a copy of Gun Tests magazine. They don’t accept ads from gun makers, so they owe them nothing, which is clearly reflected in their reviews.
I’ve seen them rip into poor design features like no other magazine can or will.”
I’ve read several Gun Tests magazines and canceled my subscription. The writing is poor, many of the “tests” are pure assumption and are not repeatable. I love the article on “affordable side-by-sides” only to see that they are talking about shotguns in the $2-3K arena. Much more science and repeatability in testing is needed in gun reviews. Theboxotruth.com ammo testing at least uses the same setup at the same distances for testing. It’s not white glove science, but it gives you needed usable info., unlike most glowing Gun mags.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Gun mags: I was reading in this month’s american rifleman about the XDM, and a fellow editor essentially equated the glock striker action and the springfield striker action.
Someone’s never futzed around with a glock with the slide off before. So easy to check too, sometimes I’m shocked stuff like that makes it to print.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Phenicks: exactly. Box’o’truth is a great example of what makes the internet a “better” source of good gun info than the big-name magazines. It isn’t that everything on the internet is “good info”… in fact, just the opposite. But the internet automatically vets BSers from the real smart folks. A reasonable human being can also condense knowledge from a dozen websites to come up with a good idea of what reality actually is. That’s the point of this whole “new media” thing. Its hard to quantify or metric, but it is the future whether some companies like that or not.
Here’s to a gun company having balls!
August 27th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
What excites me the most is that I live in NC. I am about 4 hours from Blackwater and only about a hour from where Para is moving their HQ to. I am involved in the shooting sports, so I am eagerly hoping that Para will reach out to the members of the community in their new home state. I would love to see Para sponsored events here, we are seriously lacking things like that on the west end of the state.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
The most honest gun magazine review I ever read was in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine. It went something like this: “Upon examining the Snakecharmer shotgun, we noticed that the firing pin protruded slightly from the breech face. We inserted a 410 shell with powder and shot removed and rapped the hammer with a mallet, which resulted in discharge of the primer. At that point, testing and evaluation of the Snakecharmer was discontinued.”