With a steady decline in the number of shooters on the line at our events in Sacramento, California, it was time to stop 'doing the same thing and hoping for different results'.
Phase 1: Follow the Florida example and get published in the newspaper.
Phase 2: Put up an Appleseed booth at the Rifle range.
Phase 3: Get Appleseed articles in gun club newsletters.
News releases went to all daily or weekly publications in the several surrounding counties 10 days pre Appleseed. Will be followed by a short 'what happened at the Appleseed' article for those publications that prefer to report on the people side of things.
Ask and ye shall receive: The range approved a booth Thursday night, so I whipped one up on Friday morning before heading to the range. We set it up in the parking lot on the main road into the registration office. (see photos)
Ask and ye shall receive: The club newsletter editor notified us that we could do a writeup for the newsletter. (note: when we thought of this idea it was a 'duh' moment, as we wondered why we had not considered the option previously.)
reserved for photos
And more photos
O0 O0 O0
Keep us posted.
Hoorah. Nice booth. Love the garand there.
Things learned from the outdoor booth:
1. Females are more likely to pay attention to the Appleseed Girl banner.
2. Males are more likely to pay attention to the M1 Garand on the shooting mat, or the text only banner.
(Both banner observations were not what I expected)
3. Females walking by were more likely to stop and engage another female in the booth.
4. Males were likely to engage a booth worker of either gender.
5. A significant percentage of those who stopped knew 'something' about Appleseed. Approximately 20% of those 'knew that Appleseed was a program for kids' :(
6. Booth visitors were mostly one of two groups:
a. Family group where one parent guided the family to our booth.
b. Solo males.
c. Solo females and groups of males both tended to look straight ahead and avoid the booth.
7. M1 Garand generated significant CMP interest and I wish I was on commission with CMP.
8. CMP discussion was easily wrapped back into a 'Attend an Appleseed and we'll get you the certificate you need'.
9. Rifles: The display contained the M1 Garand, a Ruger 10/22 Carbine with scope, and an AR-10 with scope. This permitted a discussion of suitable rifles, a discussion of calibers permitted, and more important it got rid of the 'you can't use a scope, can you?'.
10. "25 yards? That's easy, anybody can do it!" We placed an AQT and a set of squares at 82 feet from the front corner of the easy up canopy. Anyone who discussed this issue was brought over to that corner and walked thru the two transition stages after being shown the squares 'our goal is to place 5 rounds inside the black square from prone, no shooting bench, no bipod.' Universally the result was 'oh... that is a lot tougher than I expected'.
Great job Eaglescouter and thanks for posting it!
O0
Eaglescouter,
Great job sir! O0
It took Heather a couple years to get the level of traction we now enjoy. She always send the releases out about 4 weeks in advance to make sure they are there in time for publication schedule. I keep a file on every item she gets published in print or on line and it is a huge list at this point. Is it the end-all / be-all of promo - no, but it is a fine tool in the box and so glad to see you making use of it. Your fellow CA cadre is in your debt for your efforts sir.
Heather has been very generous in assisting people in other states if you have any questions. One thing she does that improves her long-term success is to send a thank you to any entity that publishes a release - she says it is important to build a relationship to assure continued publishing and from what I can see - she's spot on.
So glad to see you doing this. ^:)^
PH
PS: Man do I feel yer pain on this one :wb::
QuoteM1 Garand generated significant CMP interest and I wish I was on commission with CMP.
Hi EagleScouter,
This is a great post and thank you so much first for taking this on, and second for reporting your experiences back to us. :bow: This is VERY helpful.
DrRichP
Another thing we do in Florida is try to have a somewhat continuous presence at gun shows. We tag along with the local gun club booth, at least when there is not an Appleseed shoot the same weekend. We make contact nearly monthly, and attendees get to know AS instructors. The payback in terms of getting them out to an AS shoot is about 3 months. We also tell the Shingle shot story of the 2 sets of brothers. We also have some KD slides on the table, mentioning that we teach KD AS about once a year. That way, we get past their mistaken belief we only teach kids
We also vary the table contents monthly
A Garand helps make the point about CMP certificates. I even made some Revolutionary War lead toy soldiers and painted them. Anything to grab a moment to chat! It all works. We usually have filled or nearly filled AS shoots!
--gb
Nice going, ES.
Quote from: eaglescouter on February 17, 2015, 02:18:40 PM
...Approximately 20% of those 'knew that Appleseed was a program for kids' :(
This is not necessarily a :( - it means
80% don't associate us with being "for the kids".
Plus, if many of the 20% thinking we are a kid's program are looking for a kid's program, we're sweet.
It's only that unknown percentage of the 20% who think we are a kid's program and who are not looking for a kid's program and will not come to a kid's program which we need to lament...
Eaglescouter,
As Heather (woman who does our PRs here in FL) is very interested in any successes in sending press releases, I told her of your efforts and she responded:
Quote
I sent out press releases twice to the newspapers in NC for this RBC.... Once around Dec. 29th... and again on Feb. 17th. ... which equates to about 3 months prior and 6 weeks prior to the event.
This is in regards to an upcoming RBC at Ramseur for March 29. She has gotten a load of releases published and we already have 13 signed up as students, eight of which are paid adults. A print article just got published and I am hoping that will add more students. It takes a lot of patience and persistence to get the kind of results she has obtained. Here is a short list of some of what she has gotten published for the March RBC at Ramseur:
http://www.thetimesnews.com/lifestyles/lifestyles-home/target-in-sight-project-appleseed-lets-its-campers-hone-rifle-marksmanship-skills-1.446471
http://www.shootingwire.com/archived/2015-01-05_sw.html
http://www.shootingwire.com/story/335933
http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/01/12/project-appleseeds-rifle-marksmanship-program/
http://www.ammoland.com/2014/12/project-appleseed-rifleman-boot-camp-marksmanship-clinic-offered-north-carolina/#axzz3S8pcIKPA
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Youth-Shooting-Sports-Alliance/109466916213
http://static.villagesoup.com/Mountaineer/Beacon/combined%202.26.pdf
http://courier-tribune.com/get/do/return-revolutionary-war-rifleman-boot-camp
http://courier-tribune.com/news/rifleman-boot-camp-offered-ramseur
http://thefamilyshootershub.com/2015/01/05/press-release-project-appleseed-weeklong-rifleman-boot-camp-marksmanship-clinic-offered-in-ramseur-nc-march-29-april-3-2015/
http://www.thetimesnews.com/lifestyles/lifestyles-home/target-in-sight-project-appleseed-lets-its-campers-hone-rifle-marksmanship-skills-1.446471
http://www.americantowns.com/nc/asheboro/news/lsquorifleman-boot-camprsquo-offered-in-ramseur-22199808
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hernando-Sportsmans-Club/181824431850883
https://www.facebook.com/FloridaAppleseed
https://www.facebook.com/GAappleseed
https://www.facebook.com/NorthCarolinaProjectAppleseed
To my mind, printed releases are best, but all promo is good. O0 Print media is going, at least to some extent, the way of the buggie whip and more people are turning to on line sources for news and info, so as time passes, on line will become more effective presumably.
Happy hunting sir.
PH
Quote from: Fred on March 09, 2015, 03:16:30 PM
Nice going, ES.
Quote from: eaglescouter on February 17, 2015, 02:18:40 PM
...Approximately 20% of those 'knew that Appleseed was a program for kids' :(
This is not necessarily a :( - it means 80% don't associate us with being "for the kids".
Plus, if many of the 20% thinking we are a kid's program are looking for a kid's program, we're sweet.
It's only that unknown percentage of the 20% who think we are a kid's program and who are not looking for a kid's program and will not come to a kid's program which we need to lament...
Sadly the case is that these potential customers IGNORE US because we are a 'just a kids program' (insert negative connotation).
Quote from: eaglescouter
Sadly the case is that these potential customers IGNORE US because we are a 'just a kids program' (insert negative connotation).
In Florida, I likewise found no one interested among out of perhaps 300+ gun show attendees thinking we were a shooting program for kids out of 1500+ attendees until I put out some slides for KD ranging, and mentioned the CMP certificate! That was around the 3rd time I had seen them at subsequent gun shows. Then, with the content on ranging using front posts and scopes, I started seeing them sign up and come out to an AS. It is only when I added content on the booth table that was obviously not kid oriented that we caught their attention!
Heather and PHenry have also helped immensely with press releases, too.
The key is having multiple and many means of attracting folks.
--gb
QuoteThe key is having multiple and many means of attracting folks.
O0