Category: Site Map

Camp-Cations Proposal

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Content Marketing Pitch to Large Outdoor Retailer

According to the Outdoor Industry Association, research shows that during economically difficult times, people budget by taking vacations closer to home.

“A renewed interest in economical, close-to-home vacations helped fuel sales of camping-related items in specialty stores this year. Sales of items such as tents (+2%), sleeping bags (+3%), camp stoves(+4%) , climbing gear (+3%), water purification (+11%), mattresses (+2%) and miscellaneous camp accessories (tent accessories +28%, sleeping  bag accessories +7%, pack accessories +4%) all benefited, each outpacing 2007 dollar sales.” Outdoor Industry Association® WebNews, Feb. 17, 2009.

The Outdoor Industry Foundation coined this idea as “Staycations.” I propose Cabela’s create a web experience on cabelas.com named Stay-cations for presenting informational articles (how to/buyer’s guides, etc.), resource links and vacation ideas that customers can reasonably commit to within a few-hour radius from home.

The google meta description could read, “Families that vacation together stay together. Here’s a list of budget-friendly stay-cation ideas that promote family fun without the economic hardship.”

This them could extend into other hard-good categories including:

  • Camping
  • Winter sports (snowshoeing)
  • Kayaking/canoeing
  • Biking

“How-to” And Feature Article Ideas

The idea is to provide the customer with useful info, and in turn that will …

  • reinforce the Cabela’s brand as an outdoor partner and expert
  • present the audience with an ever-evolving, lively website that attracts return visitors
  • promote the products that fit within each article/activity idea
  • offer the right mix of products based on the customer’s needs (making for a better customer experience) rather than creating category pages based on merchant categories (the typical way of presenting categories today)

Informational Content

Feature and how-to articles will include printer-friendly PDFs of gear recommend for each activity (e.g. family camping, backcountry, family canoe trip, bike outings, etc.) that consumers can print out and have in hand as a resource when shopping at their local Cabela’s retailer.*

*(Note: this idea was proposed before the invention of equipment and checklist apps, notes and reminders).

The Stay-Cations landing page will include sidebars and/or thumbnails of products that link to their corresponding product offer display (POD) and related items. Informational linking can include hard goods, soft goods and proprietary products like Cabela’s-exclusive books, topographical and fishfinder GPS maps, guidebooks, etc.).

Article Ideas: How-To … 

… rent a motor home for a weekend trip: Topics would include information on the rental process, how much you’ll save in comparison with traditional travel expenses like airfare and hotel costs, plus reference links to RV destinations and campsites.

… ride a ferry to an island (e.g. Madeline or Cumberland Island) for a family camping trip: Topics could extend into day trips while on the island, like a family kayak outing, or what equipment you’ll need to fish on the island.

 … outfit yourself for an overnight canoe trip with a family of four: Information would include how to pack the gear necessary for two adults and two kids, food proportions for each family member for two days, lightweight freeze-dried food options and more.

… pack for a snowshoe outing: The article would cover typical snowshoe gear items required for this kind of outing, like backpacks, toe warmers, gloves, boots, snowpants, poles, etc. Topics could also cover what is hypothermia and how to layer clothing to thwart against hypothermia.

… get ready for a bicycle/camp outing: Article would include suggestions on how to pack lightly, info on bike navigation maps, and suggestions for lightweight camping essentials, like backpack stove, lightweight one-person tent and more.

 Extending The Theme: Other Post Ideas

  • Feature a new destination each week with information on fishing hot spots, campgrounds, canoe areas, scenic byways, bike paths, lakes to paddle, etc. For example, one week we could feature attractions in the Black Hills. Since the terrain is varied enough, we could save on research time by encompassing multiple outdoor categories within one city.
  • Urban camping trip ideas that can be done on the cheap since it won’t include airfare and hotel costs. This could include RV parks or campsites near areas of interest, like historical monuments, theme parks, museums, etc. The topic could extend to urban canoeing destinations, urban biking destinations, etc.
  • Family RV road trip ideas with links to destinations, gear list, etc.
  • Kayak fishing destinations throughout the U.S.

Promotional Ideas

  • Use the Outdoors Industry Retail Kit (note: original link no longer exists) to promote national parks in select retail stores. Host a movie screening of “The National Parks,” a film by Ken Burns. Invite a local expert to talk about area camping, paddling, bike paths, equipment needed, park trailhead information, etc.
  • Coordinate with KOA campgrounds nearest to select Cabela’s retail stores and host a dry run family camping outing. Part I of the event could start at a Cabela’s retailer where retail outfitters could present product ideas for the camp outing. Part II of the event could include a dry run at a nearby KOA, so families can get a feel for the camping experience, but are close enough to revisit the Cabela’s retail store to purchase other required gear. It also gets the family familiar with their newly purchased gear—and the ability to ask the retailer questions if they don’t know how to use the gear.
  • Create a U.S. map on cabelas.com with select KOA destinations and links that direct customers to the specified KOA home page. Cabela’s could collect a click-through percentage of reservation referrals.

Affiliate Links And Co-Op Ideas

The broad-stroke idea is to either develop a co-op marketing effort with the following organizations (or others like them), or create our own blog posts inspired by these types of topics:

FAMILY CAMPING DESTINANTION IDEAS

NATIONAL PARK INFO BY STATE

HIKING CLUBS AND ASSOCIATIONS BY STATE

BIKING RELATED INFO

BIKE SELECTION GUIDE

KAYAK LAUNCH POINTS 

WOMEN IN THE OUTDOORS

Posted on Posted in Brand Positioning, Site MapTagged

Concept: Leverage Cabela’s Women’s Pro-Staff Members

One of my greatest passions as an outdoor writer is leveraging the under-served women’s market. Yes, there are plenty of options to choose from in terms of casual wear and accessories, but for those who choose to hunt and fish … the market hasn’t quite caught up. 

As an added-value service to our internal purchasers, I keep abreast of marketing numbers to prove the need to service this market. I am happy to declare that I am seeing positive growth in the population, and available gear to outdoors women. That being said, there is still work to be done. 

One positive step toward reaching this goal was this concept of leveraging the impressive outdoor resume of Cabela’s pro-staff representatives. Six women were featured in our clothing catalog as examples of what can be achieved despite a couple minor roadblocks. 

Because each of these women has an impressive outdoor résumé, and each is well respected in their circles, I did due diligence in making sure the biographies highlighted their accomplishments with stories that matched their ambitions.

WOMEN’S CATALOG CONCEPT INTRO:

CABELA’S PRO-STAFF MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES

(click thumbnail to view each biography)
Vicki Cianciarulo
Corey Cogdell Thumb
Jennifer Broome thumb
Jodi Clark thumb
Beth Ann Amico thumb
Karen McQuoid thumb

Camp-Cations

Posted on Posted in Content Strategy, Site MapLeave a comment

Content marketing strategy that increased sales for camping category despite the economic slowdown. See my concept proposal here. Camping landing pages included four types of campers: Family Campers, Weekend Camper, Backpacker and Adventurer. Product assortment is specific to each type of camper.

Camping Landing Pages

See PDF portfolio of Camp-Cations concepts and executions, including four category landing pages

Is creative thinking rewarded in today’s business climate?

Posted on Posted in Fleeting Thoughts, Site MapLeave a comment

Being one who makes a paycheck as a creative professional, the concept of measuring creativity is often on my mind. Today, I’m pondering a few questions pertaining to creativity, the ability to measure that creativity — and the possible financial rewards for both the creative contributor and the company’s bottom line:

Creativity Questions:

  1. Does creative thinking reap financial rewards in today’s typical business model?
  2. How do I prove that my creative contributions increased the bottom line; especially considering most creative departments don’t even know how to measure that creativity?
  3. How does a company culture foster or alienate its creative contributors; and how does that positively or negatively impact its bottom line?

Creativity Defined

The University of Minnesota’s alumni magazine “Reach” explores creativity and its benefits in the article titled, “Creativity and the Agile Mind.” According to the article, creativity requires an agile mind that must “move smoothly back and forth through levels of controlled (highly deliberate) and automatic (intuitive) thinking.”

The article further states that creativity and improvisation are about “allowing your brain to be more integrative and to pick up on conceptual and physical opportunities that you didn’t ‘know’ were there. But it doesn’t mean that you go completely off course. You will have a goal, but it is how you hold on to the goal that makes all the difference. You hold on to your goal with a permissive or less-tight ‘grip.”

I find the concept of continual flow between big-picture and details to be fascinating. I know I do that daily while working on projects, but it’s often hard to explain to a non-creative how your mind is fluctuating between big-picture and details when it’s become almost an automatic response through years of experience.

The Reach article further states that “for a mind to be agile, therefore, it must slide effortlessly between abstraction and detail, finding the appropriate level at the moment when it is most helpful. But this aspect of agile thinking pertains only to the content of thought. Agile thinking also requires that the processes by which thought occurs be fluid.” This sentence confirms my belief that somewhere in-between that gridlocked data on a spreadsheet and the “big picture” concept provided by the creative professional is the perfect middle ground; the common sense reason (a.k.a. strategy) for what you’re both trying to achieve? How do you measure that? And what does success look like for us both?

Creativity Unmeasured

Unfortunately, creativity is not easily measurable. Yes, we can often come to a consensus on what traits make up a creative individual, but linking a company’s success back to the creative individual’s contribution is a lot more difficult to do, or so I’ve been told by multiple creative managers.

Since creative success is difficult for most creative managers to measure, I can infer that the creative contributor may not be fully rewarded for their successes. It seems that those who have direct access to the data (the marketing managers, data analysts, back-end technicians, statisticians, merchandisers, etc.) are more readily able to document their successes based on concrete sales margins, YTD sales numbers, etc. And having this direct correlation between their business role and success backed by that data often means being rewarded financially or otherwise.

Drawing the correlation between the creative professional’s contribution is a more difficult and abstract concept. Because of that, the creative professional may be overlooked for professional advancement opportunities that might otherwise be extended to others who are more adept at working with data and spreadsheets.

Despite most employee handbooks and company mission statements stating its desire of innovation, the reality is, creative and abstract thinking are not widely accepted. In her study, A Bias against Quirky? Why Creative People Can Lose Out on Leadership Positions, Wharton management professor Jennifer Mueller has found that creative professionals were perceived as having less leadership potential than their peers. Since there is a direct correlation between leadership potential and salary in most professions, the study proves that the stigmas attached to creativity (e.g. quirky, abstract thinking, different clothing styles, etc.) might be holding some creative professionals back from earning larger paychecks. Yet, that’s despite most companies touting the value placed on innovative thinking and creative problem solving within the company culture.

But just saying it doesn’t make it so. In fact, it’s been my overall experience that novel thinking turns off the more analytical thinker. I’ve even changed how I pitch new ideas. I have found more success in pitching concepts to team members building on the concepts slowly over time over pitching the grandiose idea all at once. This way, the non-creative professional can warm up to the idea little by little, which makes it more familiar over time. And the more familiar the idea becomes to them, the safer and more acceptable it becomes to act on the idea.

The Million Dollar Question

So here’s my biggest question. If most corporations tout innovation and creative thinking, yet most creative contributors are penalized for thinking outside the box, then how is a creative professional going to climb that corporate ladder and boost their earning potential? The question is an important one. And it demonstrates the need for performance metrics that align creativity to increased profits. Doing so would give creative professionals the same earning potential as their data-driven counterparts.

For now, this argument may merely be food for fodder for the creative professional looking for advancement. But for me, it has laid the foundation of what I’m looking for in a company culture. I’d like to work in an organization that values both the creative professional AND the data-driven expert. I’d be happy as a clam to partner with those research and spreadsheet experts to create winning formulas that reward our shared goals and outcomes. But until that day, here are more articles that attempt to measure creativity:

Measuring Creativity

Measuring Creativity: We Have the Technology