I took much of the advice from the other thread and started thinking through a new promotion campaign to invigorate local shooters to attend our AS events. Did a market survey of media outlets and identified the biggest general interest newspaper in the county with an outdoor column and sent an approach email to the person listed on the masthead as the story editor (Mike). We discussed it at the club and identified a few "hooks" that might appeal to their editorial board and influence whether they would cover our shoots. So far so good - I'll post our progress to see if there are lessons we can share for good or bad.
> "On September 4, 2015 at 11:44 AM Bruce wrote:
>
>
> Hi Mike,
> I'm the host for a rifle safety and marksmanship training program at
> the Jefferson County Isaac Walton League of America chapter
> at the Leetown Gun Club (http://iwlawv.org/). The Leetown Gun Club is
> the largest IWLA chapter in WV, with over 1,000 members from the
> surrounding towns and cities, (the IWLA National Executive Director is
> from WV, too), and we host several special events during the year to
> teach the Project Appleseed (http://appleseedinfo.org/) basic rifle
> safety and marksmanship program.
> There are two one-day events remaining in 2015, October 3rd and
> November 14th, and we'd like to invite Doug Humphreys to visit and
> observe one of these fun days with the students. (We will host more
> events in 2016 if he is unable to make the remaining 2015 dates.) I
> think he would appreciate the quality of the instruction and seeing how
> the shooters are taught to hit the bullseye. We think it would make an
> interesting and informative article about the shooting sports in
> Jefferson County.
> I have included my contact information, below, and look forward to an
> opportunity to discuss this story idea with you in greater detail.
> Thank you,
>
> Bruce
Response: Bruce - I'll definitely pass this along to David (owner/editor) and Doug (the columnist) to see if they can find some time and space for it. Many thanks! Mike"
Great work, Bruce. I think that similar promotion in the Winchester-Leesburg area of NoVA will also help as your club is closer to them than any of the other Virginia hosts.
O0 O0 O0 ^:)^