We are developing a close ongoing relationship with Valkyrie Combat. In addition to our CEO being the CTO of Valkyrie Combat, we deeply respect the work they are doing. In the shop and on social media supporting 2A and in firearms rights in general. They always promote a respectful and professional relationship with firearms and advocate for training. All things we at Telos Alpha hold in very high regard.
This is our latest video promotion for them. Shot during SHOT Show 2018 at the Pro Gun Club just outside Boulder Nevada.
Often as firearms marketers, our clients are looking for the silver bullet, the one thing we can do to take sales to the next level. Just as often, I get this question from companies that haven’t done the basics yet. This series of articles is going to give you an overview of the online marketing landscape, where you can get started fast for the least money, and just how far you can take it.
This is like someone just starting out in the bodybuilding world taking tons of supplements and potions from day one. When you are getting started you don’t need all the fancy stuff. Just get lifting and when (if) you actually get to a point of diminishing returns, then you can start looking for the high testosterone marketing angles.
The irony that the same day we post Part One of our review of Facebook as a marketing medium for firearms companies, something like this happens.
Duluth Pack, a well established company that has been making bags, and CCW bag options for years, announces a new CCW bag, made in a CCW state, where it is LEGAL to CCW, and out of nowhere the sensitive left starts posting how they are going to abandon Duluth Pack and never buy from them again.
We, as firearms businesses on Facebook or as companies that might even be RELATED to the firearms business, expect this kind of reaction. The internet exposes everyone to everything. We get it.
But how long do you think it will be before the offended start one-star rating this poor company because they make a bag for people that choose to CWW LEGALLY? Is this what marginalized companies in the firearms sector can expect from Facebook?
In this multi-part article, we are going to investigate why you are marketing on Facebook in the first place, why you should think about marketing elsewhere, and later on, some strategies to effectively diversify your marketing efforts on other social media channels.
Firearms companies haven’t been able to advertise via Facebook’s built-in ad platform since mid-2015. Ads are often rejected but official policy says that posts about legal gun sales (by businesses only) are OK. So ad-based marketing is toast, but you can still get organic traction, right? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The firearms “stigma” trickles over into other places.
One of our friends who manufactures rescue tools (Kurt Delia over at www.deliatactical.com) recently had his ad for their RAPTOR Rescue tool rejected, and rejected again on appeal, as the tool sits on a site that houses his other offerings (who can sell “One SKU Vasily, one SKU only”?) and some of them are knives. I also have NO doubt that the “tactical” in his site’s domain name is what the ad bot caught first.
So as a firearms company owner, or someone in the “tactical” vertical, that might sell everything from knives to guns to camping gear, what do you do?
In Part One of this investigation, we will explore if Facebook is even a practical marketing medium for the firearms small business anymore, and get some insight into why we keep bashing our heads against the wall trying to reconcile our marketing with Facebook’s rules. Read more
