Success Stories Archive • National Shooting Sports Month

There is the privilege of taking a first shooter to the shooting range, and then there’s the event organized by Mr. Kevin Dixie. To celebrate National Shooting Sports Month, Dixie, or “K.D.” as he is better known—took 17 inner-city youths and gave them one heck of a firearms education.

An Unparalleled Event

“I was absolutely honored to be working with the NSSF for the National Shooting Sports Month,” K.D. related, “as it allowed me to put together a great group of co-sponsors and show some kids—who may never had had this kind of opportunity—exactly how a firearm is built and then fired.”

K.D. had the perfect platform in place to launch such an event to celebrate 2018’s National Shooting Sports Month. He runs No Other Choice (NOC) firearms training, located in Olivette, Missouri. His program takes a sensible and unique approach to firearms training. While NOC offers advanced training for experienced students, its primary focus (K.D. refers to it as hyper-focus) is to help enlighten new shooters about the realities of being a concealed carry weapon holder, primarily, how to avoid the confrontation at all costs before resorting to deadly force.

K.D. has a colorful personality and is the kind of guy you feel immediately comfortable with, whether in person or on the phone. (Take a look at some of his videos and you’ll see why.). It’s a personality that’s leant itself well to teaching this sensitive subject.

It’s also one that excels at embracing opportunity, and that’s just what K.D. did when the idea of creating a totally unique opportunity for youths during last year’s National Shooting Sports Month. With K.D. driving the plan, No Other Choice and its sister project, Aiming for the Truth, partnered with rifle manufacturer CMMG and clothing and outerwear specialists Propper for a very special day.

“We got to take the kids to the CMMG facility to see how an AR-15 is engineered from the ground up. The kids met the engineers and designers, coming to the conclusion that these folks could make anything but decided to make high-end rifles,” Dixie explained.

“Propper did a great job providing the participants with custom shooting shirts, and seeing the children’s and parent’s faces while they learned how an AR-15 comes to life, and to see them gain a new respect for … ,” K.D. told me, clearly enjoying the memory. “And the best was yet to come.”

After the CMMG tour, the group headed to the Green Valley Rifle and Pistol Club in Columbia, Missouri, where the youths were given proper instruction in safety and firearms handling and then given the opportunity to shoot the guns at the firing line.

“Those smiles were priceless, as was my own as those kids became shooters that afternoon.”

Good Deed Gets Payback

“While No Other Choice enjoys many different business ventures, this opportunity to be featured in NSSF’s National Shooting Sports Month was a very special one. Just the NSSF name gave a different level of attention for my business,” said Dixied. No stranger to social media, with a presence on Facebook, Instagram and a YouTube channel to boot, K.D.’s promotion of his youth event during August proved to be a boom for his business.

“Our video about the youth day came out last August, during National Shooting Sports Month, and immediately the web traffic increased on my site, I’d say by roughly 40 percent. Of course, that particular video would have the potential for great numbers, but the residual effect was an overall increase in attention,” said Dixie.

It is those intangible connections, those relationships that are not necessarily quantified by internet hits or social media “likes,” that can be the one that will later show the irrefutable value of networking, especially in the firearms industry. K.D. indicated to me that though the numbers on his social media efforts definitely showed increased engagement, it was the intangibles that have made a definite difference to his bottom line.

Dixie is a huge proponent of the #LetsGoShooting marketing effort developed by NSSF and the signature hashtag of National Shooting Sports Month. He believes in promoting as many opportunities for people to go shooting and receive training as possible—especially those who’ve been raised in an inner-city environment. Our industry could certainly use more people like Dixie, who see the advantages National Shooting Sports Month provides not just in increased shooter participation, but exposure to those who only get sound bites about firearms from the evening news and paper headlines.

“When you have a business like mine, a business built around sharing not only knowledge but about sharing a mindset, you can quickly see the value of not just exposure but the right exposure,” Dixie told me. “We want to help people realign their attitude. We want to educate folks—including students, teachers and parents—on their Constitutional rights, and that requires both networking and exposure, which the NSSF brings to the table.”

In addition to NOC, Dixie is the developer of the “Truth” pistols, a pair of customized Heckler & Koch VP9 handguns with intelligent, highly useable options and accessories. An ergonomic design, the Truth handguns celebrate a pro-2^nd Amendment theme, with the larger pistol coming in a case highlighting Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street—where black businesses thrive—and the smaller gun embracing the Underground Railroad. Both themes are Dixie’s way of sharing the dangers of gun control through oppression, a topic about which he is both animated and adamant.

In the midst of the Des Moines metro area, the CrossRoads Shooting Sports gun shop and range allows many people to learn, practice, train and shop for the latest and greatest firearms and associated gear. At the helm of CrossRoads is Tom Hudson, a man who is much more than just a salesman, a man who takes a modern, open-minded approach to his store in order to best serve his wide variety of customers.

CrossRoads Shooting Sports has a contemporary 17-lane shooting bay, expansive retail store and offers a variety of gunsmithing services. A well-developed class curriculum is backed by a staff of instructors who can handle all levels of shooters.

“We absolutely love to embrace the community, listening to the needs of the customer rather than simply pushing what we enjoy,” Hudson said. “And with a store the size of ours—we have over 17,000 square feet—we have a lot to offer.” That sentiment extends particularly to its class offerings, he told me, saying, “Our instructional team focuses on CCW classes and home-defense situations, and with the 35,000-plus people we’ve had through the shop, I’m proud of our curriculum.”

A Perfect Fit for National Shooting Sports Month

Hudson takes a variety of approaches to bringing shooters into the store, and some are rather innovative.

“We started a Friday night ‘date night,’ where couples come in to enjoy shooting together, and it has worked out very well,” Hudson related. “We also routinely host family and corporate events centered around shooting.”

It was those functions that made CrossRoads a perfect fit for the NSSF’s^® National Shooting Sports Month^®. “We completely appreciate the NSSF, for both its gigantic presence and organizational skills. The organization is a valuable asset for shooters across the country.”

To help get that message out, last year Hudson launched his ‘Christmas in August,’ with a holiday shopping feel added to the CrossRoads shop.

“To help celebrate National Shooting Sports Month, we offered attractive discounts on certain items, as well as incentives on our gift cards and reduced-price lessons. Customers who would help with the social media push—such as hashtags and tagged photos to help promote National Shooting Sports Month—received further discounts. It made a huge difference in our social media presence.”

Social Media Returns Dividends

Hudson went on to explain that his already large social media following grew considerably as a result of pairing with NSSF for the month-long event.

“We saw a definite difference in the response to our other fall events,” he said.

Hudson keeps a close eye on his company’s image, as well as its presence in the social media world.

“I come from a background in analytics, so while not all responses to a social media push may be immediately evident, I can tell when the effects of exposure translate to customers through the door and seats filled in the classroom,” Hudson stated. “We love reaching people, as well as seeing more and more new faces wanting to learn firearms safety.”

Hudson went onto explain that CrossRoads Shooting Sports, being the first major shooting range in the Des Moines metro area, does all it can to maintain a positive presence among the Iowa State Legislature on the political end of things, as well as doing public events that highlights the fun and excitement of the shooting sports to the community at large.

“We work with a local radio station, WHO AM1040, where Ronald Reagan was once a broadcaster back in the 1930s, for events like a machine gun shoot, an we’ll use radio celebrities, anything to reach out to the community. CrossRoads is a Christian company, and our goal is to reach others in a positive way,” Hudson explained.

NSSF is Central to Outreach

He also credits NSSF for its outreach, especially with events like National Shooting Sports Month that get new people involved and lax shooters participating again, as well as its leadership in firearms safety.

“NSSF is a fantastic for reaching people, it’s just what they do, and I am happy to have CrossRoads Shooting Sports affiliated with it. Between National Shooting Sports Month and its other big programs like Project ChildSafe^®, I am proud to have CrossRoads Shooting Sports affiliated with such a prestigious organization. I am most definitely looking forward to August 2019, when we can get into the spirit of National Shooting Sports Month again. I’m not sure what Crossroads will do for this year, but we definitely are going to be involved,” Hudson emphatically stated.

“Last year we had a range day with Col. Allen West, featuring F1 Firearms and a ‘Try-Before-You-Buy’ day with Smith & Wesson,” says Will James, President of Defender Outdoors, LLC, as he begins unwrapping for me a hefty and impressive package of activities his indoor range, separate outdoor shotgun range, brick-and-mortar retailer and e-commerce entity did in 2017 for National Shooting Sports Month. Though finding out about National Shooting Sports Month at the very end of July last year left Defender Outdoors with only a short time to craft and promote unique events in time for August, it pulled it off. “Luckily, we had already planned some special community shooting events for August, so it was easy to co-brand,” he says. “We’ll be a lot more ready this year.”

In addition to the special appearance by Col. West, Defender Outdoors brought in Texas Republican state Senator Konni Burton (D10) for a special National Shooting Sports Month version of Defender Outdoors’ famous “Ladies Shoot ‘n’ Sip” that James says is “the perfect event to connect with other like-minded ladies, network, learn about firearms and, afterward, enjoy a glass or two of vino.”

Political dignitaries aside, James explains one of the most exciting events the facility had during the month was a weekend where one of the range’s friends, professional shooter Patrick Kelley, came in to meet shooting center members and give some special lessons. “We also launched a gun sweepstakes that month in a partnership with Savage Arms and Vista Outdoor,” he adds, noting that their strong relationships with manufacturers has those brands acting as ambassadors to amplify the range’s message.

Throughout the month, James says Defender Outdoors consistently used #LetsGoShooting to help raise awareness and set the stage for increased future turnout.

“In our blog and press release regarding National Shooting Sports Month,” he says, “we encouraged 250,000 readers to engage with Defender Outdoors and the NSSF using the branded hashtag.”

Defender Outdoors’ digital efforts extended beyond simply Facebook and Instagram, which are both big draws for them. “We also have our weekly emails we send out to members letting them know about upcoming events, and our blog sends out a weekly content newsletter that features more coverage of our events,” he explains. “Our Savage Arms gun giveaway was a massive success that grew our Instagram following substantially, while serving as a lead-generation tool for our web sales and local shooting range. This contest introduced Defender Outdoors to tens of thousands of new shooters, and, in turn, they were exposed to the NSSF program.”

Both the gun giveaway and live Facebook streaming of National Shooting Sports Month events brought considerable growth to their social media followings, says James. “We definitely saw the needle move. Our live stream of the women shooting during the Ladies Shoot ‘n’ Sip was our most watched live stream up to that point, with over 3,000 people tuning in. That was soon eclipsed by our Gen5 GLOCK Reveal live stream on the 26th, which got over 16,000 views. Before that, we were 750 max on our social media views.”

Unfortunately, pushback from Facebook would be an “understatement,” according to James. “We get a substantial amount of pushback from Facebook, but we keep hammering at it. It won’t allow us to advertise anymore, so we just generally push out good content on a regular basis. We try and strive to put out not only sales pitches, because there’s a lot of great information we put out through our training staff and upcoming events. We just really try to engage our customer base. By doing so, we lessen the impact Facebook in its trying to push down the shooting sports.

“We really want to knock National Shooting Sports Month out of the park in 2018,” he continued. “We’re starting much earlier this year and working with the NSSF to gain local and national exposure.”

Though he hasn’t completely outlined all the events for this August yet, James plans on some special range days where manufacturers bring new and interesting guns and allow people to try them out at the range. “Of course, we’ll continue with our very popular Full Auto Fridays in August, and we’ll be setting up some additional events as we near closer to National Shooting Sports Month,” he adds.

Beyond simply coming up with ideas for new activities, James and his team are brainstorming to come up with creative ideas to get word out and encourages their members and others in the community to bring friends to shoot for the first time and to reactivate shooters. Already he’s acknowledged that he can’t do the gun giveaway the same way as last year because Facebook has since flagged it and informed Defender Outdoors that it has been removed. “We have to be careful, because we depend on social media so much that we don’t want our page to disappear entirely. “Subscribe to our newsletter for more information,” he suggests.

“We have more time in 2018 to prepare for National Shooting Sports Month,” says James, “so we’ll be able to include the #LetsGoShooting hashtags in more of our social posts, have more supporting content and feature the National Shooting Sports Month logo on more of our event graphics and materials throughout the month.”

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Retailers and Ranges—Add Your Events to the National Shooting Sports Month Calendar

National Shooting Sports Month is all about getting people involved in the shooting sports and providing ways to better connect with the ranges and firearms retail stores in their communities. One of the best ways to do that during the month of August is to post your events and promotions here on shootingsportsmonth.org. All events you list there will be cross-positioned on our StepOutside.org and LetsGoShooting.org sites, which are designed specifically for consumer viewing and use. Bonus!—List your events here and we’ll send you a supply of National Shooting Sports hats, T-shirts and other materials to help boost your promotions throughout the month.

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“The whole month and the events here, they were just all successful,” says Ed Strickland, Shooting Pavilion Manager and Event Coordinator for Deep River Sporting Clays and Shooting School in Sanford, North Carolina, of last year’s inaugural National Shooting Sports Month. “We couldn’t ask for any more than that—and that’s our goal again this year, to try and make it successful and live the mission to bring #LetsGoShooting to the forefront in this area.”

While there are other ranges nearby, Strickland attributes Deep River’s success in part to its involvement with NSSF. “We’re diligent in promoting the principles that the NSSF puts forth,” he says.

Events That Drive Participation

No doubt, a lot of the range’s success is also attributable to Strickland’s southern hospitality and the events he plans. Those events for National Shooting Sports Month last year included everything from a charity shoot that raised almost $36,000 for the Kay Yaw Cancer Fund to a “Shooter Social.” Of the latter he said, “It’s not a competition, it’s not about the score, it’s just simply what the name represents—it’s a social event where we get shotgun shooters in for the clays course,” says Strickland, adding that the charity shoot saw 32 teams of five shooters participate.

Other NSSM events included First Shots programs for handgun and shotgun, a registered Sporting Clays shoot and a ladies’ day with reduced pricing.

First Shots and Radio Scored Big

To get the word out, Deep River uses a lot of radio advertising. Though he advertises on at least six stations, he focused National Shooting Sports Month spots on two targeted stations where he thought he’d get the best representation.

“We have a very strong social media platform,” he adds. “Between Facebook and Instagram, there was a lot of promotion put through them as well.”

In addition to advertising, Strickland believes the biggest thing he can do to promote shooting is to get folks to the range, talk with them and give them an opportunity to understand more about the sport.

“We’re a recreational facility and trying to get people to understand and see what good can be done and how much fun can be had is a part. The First Shots events are always good. We may not have big numbers, but they’re quality numbers.”

Ultimately, Strickland was happy with the results of all the National Shooting Sports Month efforts.

“We always wished it would be more, considering what we had to work with in the time frame,” he said. “This coming year we’re excited because we’ve got six months to really put together good programs and make sure that we do have the advertising out. We’ll make sure we get the spots out and draw attention to it. That’s our goal for this coming year, to really capitalize on the efforts for the #LetsGoShooting month.”

Planning Starts Now

Soon, Strickland will put pen to paper and plan events for 2018’s National Shooting Sports Month. He insists the range is going to focus on recruiting female and young shooters but added that new activities were also being considered.

“We hold IDPA matches here. We’re probably going to try and incorporate that, as we didn’t last year.” Deep River hosts IDPA matches the fourth Saturday of each month, and tying August’s match in with National Shooting Sports Month will give him more handgun event opportunities.

“One of the biggest things we’ll do is we’ll run more radio spots,” he says. One of the stations Deep River recently started advertising with is geared toward the Millennial generation, and Strickland hopes it will pull in young shooters. “We’ve had a couple of their radio personalities out and have taken them around. That’s a demographic we really feel like we can address in August. Through these promotions, we’ll probably hold some giveaways with our ‘Try it Out’ package and things of that nature throughout that month.”

Overall, Strickland is very optimistic about the potential of National Shooting Sports Month. “It just gives us an opportunity to promote shooting sports, and it’s what we do every day. I mean, that’s what we’re here for,” he says.

“We want younger people. We’re always trying to figure out how we can involve new shooters, young shooters, different demographics, different ethnicities, everybody. All of our whole existence is to try and figure out how to enhance our effort there.”

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Retailers and Ranges—Add Your Events to the National Shooting Sports Month Calendar

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About the Author
Warren Berg is a 25-year veteran of the shooting, hunting and outdoors industry. He has penned hundreds of articles under many names for American Rifleman and Field & Stream, and has produced award-winning television programs on firearms-related subject matter.

The title of this piece is what’s called a “double entendre,” i.e., it has two interpretations. The one is obvious, “Let’s go shooting and break a clay” means exactly what it says. The other meaning reflects the great opportunity ranges have to combine NSSF’s #LetsGoShooting campaign with USA Youth Education in Shooting Sports’ (USAYESS) “Break-A-Clay Day” events.

Each is worthy on its own merits, but these things combined ascend to a new level that range owners can parlay into not only a fun event for National Shooting Sports Month, but one that attracts young shooters, adults and business leaders from their communities who might not otherwise be involved in the shooting sports. They also promote the range locally while at the same time help shooting teams raise needed money for both themselves and local charities.

Break-A-Clay Day is the brainchild of USAYESS, which supports state foundations and associations that use hands-on events to introduce and educate youth and their families about safe firearm handling, the shooting sports, conservation and other outdoor activities. Break-A-Clay Day is one of its fun fundraising programs, and it’s designed to create excitement and awareness in youth competitive shooting sports. The program has been tested and proven to be both fun and rewarding for all involved—teams, communities and organizations—and this year USAYESS plans to promote it as an ideal event for ranges to host during NSSM.

“I think that it’s a good match, because we tie it in with our teams, and having the teams on the same page on Break-A-Clay Day would time perfectly with what the NSSF is doing,” says Mike Borg, President of USAYESS.

Break-A-Clay Day events are based off the walk-a-thons in which participants get a dollar amount per mile. The whole concept reminded me of the American Heart Association’s “Jump Rope For Heart” program I did 70 pounds ago in junior high school, only instead of Break-A-Clay sponsors paying for time jumping rope, they pay per target busted, and instead of the charitable amount going to one national organization, it goes to a local one.

With this program, youth shooting team members go out into their communities and ask people and businesses to sponsor them for the event. Each individual shooter uses the money they raise to support his or her shooting, but 10 percent of what they raise also goes to a local charity of their choice.

“They shoot 100 targets and their donation form has their average on it,” explains Borg. “It’s per target broken—10 cents, 20 cents, 30 cents or they get a flat fee, though they like to get the per-target because the more targets they break the more money they make. That goes to help them with their travel, team uniforms, ammunition and entry fees.”

Over the years, Borg has seen what works and what doesn’t.

“When we do these,” he says, “it’s a community-involvement thing. Parents, grandparents, friends, businesses. There’s maybe a BBQ. We get the community involved. They come, they cheer, they boo. It’s a fun environment and it brings more people to the gun club.”

Borg says Break-A-Clay Day events have proven themselves effective as fundraisers.

“It brings people who never knew this range was here, so they join the gun club or they come up and shoot and, over time, some of them purchase a firearm,” explains Borg.

Because the young shooters are essentially acting as ambassadors to the shooting sports and the range hosting the event, Borg says USAYESS guides them on how to approach donors.

“We tell them how to address the donor, introduce themselves, let them know what the cause is, what the program is, what they’re going to do with the money and how much money gets put back into the charity they pick, so that the public knows that they’re not only asking for a donation for themselves, they’re also letting their donor know or letting their sponsor know that some of the money that they earn they’re returning back to the community—and it’s been huge. It’s been awesome.”

Ranges interested in holding a Break-A-Clay Day during National Shooting Sports Month can find information, including a detailed model of the program and donation forms, on the usayess.org website. Borg says there are about 200 teams currently participating in Break-A-Clay Day, and he’d like to see a 10 percent increase in that number.

“USAYESS is all-inclusive,” he says. “We have tournaments, and they’re open to anyone who wants to shoot who is in the 12th grade and below. Everybody is welcome, members of USAYESS or not.”

Ultimately, Borg sees the gist of tying Break-A-Clay Day to National Shooting Sports Month is to get more kids shooting.

“If they break a target, great. They’re going to have fun, and they’re going to do it more.”

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Retailers and Ranges—Add Your Events to the National Shooting Sports Month Calendar

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“Because we studied what we did last year,” Jeff Wait, owner of Okeechobee Shooting Sports (OSS), is optimistic about the new approach he’s taking for 2018’s National Shooting Sports Month. August is the hottest, muggiest month of the year in Okeechobee, Florida, not to mention it’s also peak hurricane season, making attracting shooters to Wait’s nearly 100-acre outdoor range something of a challenge during the #LetsGoShooting month.

“We’re located in a rural area. Ninety-seven percent of our customers drive over an hour to get to us. Most are driving an hour and a half. Only three percent of our business is local, so we’re not a place where they pop in after work. We’re a destination range, so they’ve made a big effort to come here,” he adds.

Shooting Sports Events for Everyone

For last year’s National Shooting Sports Month, Wait tells me they held IDPA, Steel Challenge and First Shots events, as well as some regularly scheduled matches billed as events for the special month. This year Wait says he is going to focus on engaging new shooters and reactivating those who haven’t been shooting in a while. To do that, he is gearing things more toward introductory events with fun shooting contests and prizes.

“Skeet was found to be intimidating to [potentially new shooters], so if we said we have an “Intro to the Clay Shooting Sports,” people who didn’t even think about being a gun owner before, well, that sounded fun to them. We noticed the growth in those sports when we brought people into them and explained why they might also want to shoot IDPA or Steel Challenge or Rimfire Challenge,” he adds.

Celebrity Draw

Wait is also seeking manufacturer support for events that get people to come out and try new products and, if his expansive campground is done in time, will hold an RV show as well. To help draw in new shooters, he’s also recruiting social media personalities who have a large following.

“We’re inviting them here to do meet-and-greets with their fans. Some of them have a million fans or better,” he remarks. In addition to the meet-and-greets, Wait plans on these personalities doing product reviews and demos during National Shooting Sports Month. To him, “It’s a face-to-face event that pulls people into the range who probably wouldn’t have been here, but they’re following one of these personalities from the internet.”

Ambassador Program

Getting word out is a challenge, and the social media personalities are a good work-around to make social media work for Wait.

“Facebook, until recently, has been pretty good, but it has really been ratcheting down what it will let people see,” says Wait, expressing the frustrations of industry members about restrictions on online advertising. So, instead of channels like that, Wait uses weekly emails, but says that for him, “By far the most effective way [to get word out] has been getting current happy customers to reach out to the others.” To that end, he has developed what he calls an “Ambassador Program” that incentivizes and rewards people who bring either new or inactive shooters to the range. “We either give them reduced or free range fees for binging someone else,” says Wait. “We also have a point system, so the more people they bring, the more they can save up those points up for purchasing products, range passes or memberships.”

With the Ambassador Program, the remoteness of OSS actually works in Wait’s favor. He explains that because he’s not just a “pop-in” kind of place, bringing a guest takes time, convincing and planning. Not only have his ambassadors had the conversation about heading to the range with a potential guest long before they actually bring them, they’re telling the guest about OSS on the long drive. Wait estimates that new customers have heard good things about OSS for as much as two hours before coming. “It’s hard to buy that,” he quips.

Is it working for OSS?

“We’re not an indoor air-conditioned range, so we’re trying to talk everyone into coming outside in the worst month of the year,” says Wait. “The surprising thing is that there are still a lot of people who do that. They’re still willing. They like the idea of shooting enough to brave the heat or the rain or the humidity—whatever it is—to still come out and enjoy it.”

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Retailers and Ranges—Add Your Events to the National Shooting Sports Month Calendar

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“Last year we did a variety of things,” says Jacquelyn Clark, owner of Bristlecone Shooting, Training & Retail Center as she recalls the events the center hosted for last year’s National Shooting Sports Month. “For us, it was all about the family aspect of sport shooting and introducing newer people to the sport, something that would give them a lifelong activity or something that they could do together.”

Discounts for New-Shooter Classes

To achieve those goals, Clark used a combination of discounting and incentivizing existing shooters to bring someone new to the range. One effort was a 10-percent discount on all introductory classes for the entire month. Clark reasoned that if they made the price less of an obstacle to entry, more people would come through the door.

“The intro class promotion seemed to be the best thing we did,” says Clark, who noted that by giving someone a break on their first educational experience, they were much more likely to take follow-up classes and become regular customers. “I think introducing them through an educational avenue really worked in creating lifelong customers. These people came back, they have taken additional classes, they’ve been shopping in the store, they’ve been to the range and some of them have joined as members.”

Clark also ran a new-shooter referral program. “That was a ‘Give 10/Get 10’ deal: Bring a friend who has never been to Bristlecone to shoot on the range and the new shooter gets either $10 off their tab for the day or a $10 gift card,” Clark says, adding that the referring customer got the same deal. “Again, that was to encourage people to bring a friend or somebody who has never been shooting before to try it.”

Keeping with the new shooter theme, for National Shooting Sports Month Bristlecone also held a sale throughout the month on new-shooter kits consisting of a range bag, eye and ear protection, cleaning kit and range pass.

Family Day Draws a Crowd

“Probably the biggest thing we did was we had a big family day,” says Clark. “Last year it was on Saturday, August 19.” She remembers the day well because it was bright and sunny and the mercury hit 95 degrees—conditions she calls “unusual” for Colorado and ones in which people didn’t really want to do anything outside that day.

Despite being what she calls a “victim of the weather,” and having only a “moderate turnout,” Clark called the family day a “great promotion” and a success. Young children filled the two bounce-houses, a food truck sold meals and the local police had a variety of activities for those who attended. “We’re going to do it again this year,” she says, though this time she’s going to keep in mind that kids in Colorado go back to school mid-August, and she’s going to have more indoor activities as a backup in case it’s sweltering hot again.

Spreading the Word

This year Clark is looking forward to having all summer to promote National Shooting Sports Month. “It was really nice having the NSSF support something like this for the entire month at the individual retailer and range level,” says Clark. She’s already decided to do some things differently for 2018, though she will not put pen to paper until late April. “I don’t want to run the same activities again,” she says, adding that she will probably run a new membership special this year.

To get the word out, Clark will rely on a combination of radio spots, e-blasts and social media.

“We have a much bigger radio presence this year than we had last year and so those commercials we will probably customize toward National Shooting Sports Month and the NSSF-supported promotions,” says Clark. She plans to begin airing the spots in July on two different FM stations and four different AM/FM talk radio programs.

Targeted e-blasts about the different events and promotions will be rolled out leading up to the associated dates to her list of 16,000 subscribers, and Clark will use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as well.

“We have a private group on Facebook,” says Clark who, like much of our industry, has had trouble getting her content seen. “We still maintain the business page, the fan page,” she explains, “but Facebook doesn’t show our posts to many people at all. We have a post pinned to the top of that page, and we have a slider on the webpage that directs people directly to the private group. We post the same content there, but we’re just more confident that 100 percent of the people see it.”

“This year, since we have a lot longer to plan and prepare and promote at the local level,” she says. “There’s a lot of new things we put into place, and when we have all summer to talk about it, the turnout is going to be incredible.”

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Retailers and Ranges—Add Your Events to the National Shooting Sports Month Calendar

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