Hello all. I have been working with a gun shop that is fairly new to the area (open about 6 months) who has shown a lot of interest in using radio, but he will not pull the trigger. With all of the gun regulations that are being brought up, he can't keep anything on the shelves (especially AR's, AK's, etc.)
They have a website, but it doesn't really offer much. They are into Facebook and constantly post when they get a new shipment of firearms in. He will buy, sell, and trade almost anything and people seem very receptive to it.
His objection right now is, "I can't keep guns in stock with everyone buying right now, and we are opening up a shooting range in September so I am trying to save money."
Any thoughts on how I can get him to move forward and establish himself in my community of listeners?
The customer is right. If he has little or no inventory an aggressive radio schedule yields him no results. That's what I would tell him.
Then I would suggest he do an informational segment with your station to establish himself as the "gun expert" in the area. This might be AM/PM drive M-F with a different message each day. If he can't do 5 days a week, shoot for 3 or 2. Then, start working on an aggressive schedule for his shooting range and get him signed in the next 90 days.
Kyle -
I host a syndicated outdoors show and have both a network and local sponsor who are gun shop owners. Both are in the same boat as your prospective client. With the current political climate, it is very hard to get inventory to stock the store with. In addition to that, customers are actively seeking out gun shops without the need of advertising right now for hard to find guns and ammo. Therefore, it will be difficult to get this prospect to advertise his business from that point of view.
On the other hand......Approaching him about the shooting range is a whole different animal. He will want to get the word out about that and that could provide the "in" you need to land a contract later this summer. Once the gun shop owner sees the value of that advertising (and things return to normal in the gun and ammo market), you should be able to transition to a normal advertising campaign for his shop for the fall hunting season and then Christmas!
Hope that helps. One more thing - If you have an outdoors show, or conservative talk shows, try to sell an ad package that runs his ads during those time slots. It is (pardon the pun) very targeted advertising.
Hope that helps -
John Kruse
Northwestern Outdoors Radio
