How to Pick an Outfitter

The Formula

Past Success + Future Potential = How to Pick an Outfitter. The Past = trophies, The Future = the ability to put clients in front of game. There are also some Intangibles, such as feel or confidence the outfitter portrays, customer service, amenities, trust. As a comparison, in the investments world, you often see the disclaimers for mutual funds something like "past performance does not necessarily predict future performance", or something to that effect. Put this in the outfitter world and a photo gallery full of trophies does not necessarily predict the future quality of trophies. What past performance does portray is the proven ability to achieve. Predicting future performance, in the investment world, has many factors, but one of the most critical is the fund manager. If the fund continues to be managed by the same fund manager, then potential is improved. In the outfitting and guiding world, you can draw a parallel, with a couple important differences. Future performance requires future potential, which means an experienced guide staff that knows the area, knows the wildlife, etc., plus the "surviving" members of the target species.  In big game hunting, this is the evidence on trail cams of future trophies, animals not killed during the previous hunting season.

Simplify the Formula

When you view the ads for investment companies, they are trying to comply with their legal departments ass covering policies. They are hedging against unpredictable conditions in the world, the economy, the political environment, etc. etc. Well, we think it's actually quite a bit simpler than that. We believe that Past Success + Future Potential = How to Pick an Outfitter, and the formula is pretty easy.  Past Success can be measured by the outfitter / lodge past ability to put their clients in prime positions to take quality big game, waterfowl, or fish. Trophy quality, and lots of it. Future Potential is a combination of the outfitter/lodge staff plus what they have leftover for game after the last hunting season. Indiscriminate killing of big game, poor management policies, incorrect fish handling, these all lead to reductions in Future Potential.

Turn the Formula into Marketing

Now let's convert this from what a hunter / angler / customer might be looking for, into how a hunting outfitter or fishing lodge might make this formula part of their marketing message. Before we go any deeper, lets realize that one of the goals of Marketing is convince your target market to do business with you instead of your competition. A dose of reality here helps.  Your competition, at least in Saskatchewan, has the much the same natural habitat and abundance of wildlife to work with. The opportunity is in both your hands.  How you manage your business will determine how you are able to build the Future Potential. How you ran your business is your opportunity to show off your Past Success. So let's take a bit about both, in Marketing terms.

Marketing Your Past Success

If your past success looks like every outfitters past success, then I think you can expect your leads, your website visitors, to view you much the same as any other other outfitter who hunts the same species. Outfitter A shows me some big Saskatchewan Black Bear trophies and Outfitter B shows me some big Saskatchewan Black Bear trophies and so on as they browse their search engine listings. Sure, you can show your differences in the amenities you offer, and yes, that can be a bid deal. But if the trophies of A look a lot like the trophies of B, then the next point of comparison is going to be price, and price is never where you want to have to make your final sales pitch. So you need to convince your next group of hunters or anglers that there is more to your business than your trophy gallery. An excellent way to do this is to give them an inside look at your customers, allow them to experience your business from your customers, not from your sales pitch.

When a customer sees a trophy, they think, "I want one of those". When a customer sees and hears your customers talk about the experience they had with you, the outfitter, and why it was what will bring them back again, now you have something more than a gallery of trophy pics. Your sales pitch, as sincere as you can possibly make it, is still a sales pitch, and your leads know you want to sell them something, you want some money from them. So there is always an element of  doubt, or mistrust.  But your current / past customers do not want money from them, their intentions are much more innocent, they want to share their story, and that story includes you, and it is very hard to deny it as the truth. So when a lead watches another hunter, or another angler, tell their story, their thoughts go from "I want one of those" to "I want an experience like that guy had", like the experience he is telling me about, like the experience this outfitter offers. It shift the perception from the trophy being a commodity that can be bought from any number of providers to an experience that must be had, from your outfitting business.

Need some help telling your story? Well that is what we at Netnotic Marketing have invested our resources into, what we have built our business upon.  We have the experience in digital marketing practices. We have the software to run analysis, to build campaigns, to record content, to produce finished content. We understand the value of a thought out marketing plan beyond a pile of disconnected activities. We know that to get the results for our clients (hunting outfitters and fishing lodges) we need to utilize our own past experiences in the outdoors and add the technical side of marketing to offer a service, an ability to tell your stories and your customer's stories, to your future customers.

Marketing Your Future Potential

Future Potential is all about how you leverage your Past Success plus how you invest in your business. Some of this happens operationally. As a big game hunting outfitter,  knowing how much you can harvest, and which animals to harvest, so that younger animals with good genetics, grow up to be the trophies that your hunters want. As a waterfowl outfitter, knowing that conservation of wetlands and relationships with land owners is vital for future hunting fields and flocks. Leaving the birds alone on the roost waters helps to instill a sense of safety and a likely return with the adult birds leading the juveniles back to the familiar roost waters along the familiar flight path. As a fishing lodge, knowing and stressing with all guides the proper handling of fish, releasing the trophies back to the waters to breed more trophies.   ., trail cams, conservation efforts, guide training, equipment investment, and communicating that to your leads. Communication builds interest, builds a rapport, builds a reputation, and makes the next step, the trip booking, easy when you are top of mind.

How you turn this into a Marketing advantage again comes down to your ability to communicate what you are doing to build the business, to manage the wildlife to participate in conservation efforts. For big game outfitters, trail cams are a source of proof, that giant trophies are still alive, and will be there come next hunting season.  Make use of your information and make sure to communicate your information to your past hunters and leads. Start a newsletter, begin with a quarterly update, then increase the frequency as you become more familiar with producing content. Have you participated in any local conservation efforts, have you provided guide training, made any significant equipment investment. Communication builds interest, builds a rapport, builds a reputation, and makes the next step, the trip booking, easy when you are top of mind.

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