Planning Mix:

In an industry that is censored on digital and network platforms, if your marketing plan doesn’t include print advertising or non-network channels – you are losing out on awareness.

The Federal Communications Commission and digital platform guidelines, constrain the firearms industry, creating unique challenges that prevent typical digital awareness campaigns from success.

Many new marketers or agencies miss this. Instead, over-prioritizing social and digital advertising gets algorithmically discarded. It’s important to have a healthy mix – of digital and traditional elements in firearms branding building and marketing. Having an agency partner that understands the tactics Apple, Porsche, Nike, and energy drinks take to marketing and brand building, isn’t the strategy everyone should take. 

Digital Expertise:

Many agencies claim to be able to build websites or create ads for print, but their expertise may lay elsewhere – like video. The challenges that these mediums present in execution are nuanced enough, it only becomes immediately clear after an expensive retainer is signed, if companies are paying for the right agency for the job.

Agency designers that don’t account for gutters, flyleaves, or hanmen can cause long-term impacts on launches. Over setting type, and not accounting for BLACK settings in the color separation that happens at the printers. (Most designers elect to select “BLACK” presets in InDesign, which dumps 100% of all four CMYK channels onto the page, causing readability issues. Instead, it’s best to create a C:30 M:30 Y:30 K:100 color for rich, vibrant blacks. Saving ink, and the eyes on the page)

It’s always good to vet the teams before you find yourself in Round 6 at Week 6 of an ad review, and burning up a retainer that could be spent on meaningful marketing.