• Skip to content

Red Stag Media

  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Clients
  • Blog
  • Careers
  • Contact

Why pigeon shooting is a lot like marketing

July 12, 2016 By Nick Glaves

Marketing is a bit like pigeon shooting. Okay, bear with me on this one – it’s not just an excuse I use when I fancy a day in the hide rather than a day in the office. Although that’s something I often do fancy, sadly, it rarely comes to pass. But I digress.

You see, anyone can sit in a hide all day and take pot shots at passing pigeons, and, often out of range, the pesky crop munchers fail even to notice you save for some irritating background noise of your gun. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, one might swoop down in range of your hide and not see you, giving you an easy shot. You might bag it and good luck to you, but that isn’t going to put much food on the table. You’re not going to get rich that way.

What you need is something to pull the pigeons in, and this is where a communications strategy comes into play.

For the humble pigeon shooter this means decoys. Throw a few decoys out in shooting distance of your hide and suddenly passing pigeons will begin to notice and look in your direction. Seeing something of interest, one or two might even come down to investigate, so as long as you don’t get over excited and spring up from your hide too early, sending them wheeling off in the opposite direction, you’ve got the beginnings of a decent day’s sport.

But even this isn’t enough to pull in the really big bags. Like successful marketing, successful pigeon shooting is a combination of a lot of factors – research, intuition, judgement, experimentation, authenticity, learning from more experienced people, practice, persistence, finding creative solutions, and – ultimately – time spent in the field.

So much in your environment effects the success of your efforts – flight lines, wind direction, weather, time of day, time of year, crop type and growth, position of your decoys, hide position, and so much more, that the pigeon shooter, like the marketeer, must weigh up all of these and be adaptable to get the results he or she is looking for.

OK, there comes a point where the analogy breaks down. After all, we don’t want to do to our customers what we’re trying to do to the pigeons. As well as attracting new customers, we want the same ones to return time and again. If the same pigeons return time and again then they are stupid and you need shooting lessons! But you take my point.

So if you feel your marketing could be working harder to pull potential customers into range then do please get in touch. Or if you just fancy a day’s pigeon shooting get in touch too, after all, with such similarities between the two disciplines, time in the hide could have your bottom line soaring!

 

Filed Under: Countrysports, PR & Marketing Tagged With: agency, countrysports, hunting, media relations, pigeon shooting, pr and marketing, shooting, social media

Copyright © 2022 · Red Stag Media Ltd. UK Registered Company No: 12023339. This website uses cookies.

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience. You can select your preferences by clicking the cookie settings link.
Cookie settingsACCEPTREAD MORE
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.