Angling Trade Magazine December 2007

the buzz on the flyfishing biz SM

TRADE

Inside

The Media Issue

The Video Boom/ The TV Bust/ All About the Internet/ Grassroots Marketing/ Work with the Press/ Blogging/ Good Websites/ The Skinny on MSRP December2007AnglingTrade.com

the buzz on the flyfishing biz

CONTENTS

SM

TRADE

Features

Departments

Editor

Kirk Deeter kirk@anglingtrade.com Managing Editor

18 All About Online Marketing Lessons on being E-savvy; from the basics of website design to search engine optimization, to driving traffic.

By Marshall Cutchin

26 Max Marketing If you

don’t have a fortune to spend on your marketing efforts, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t market at all. Instead, focus on these basic tips to increase your exposure. By Ben Romans

34 Why Books in Your Shop?

Because they sell. And teach. And impact other sales in the shop. But there’s a right way to approach the book buisness. By Greg Thomas

6 Editor’s Column The Media Issue ... It’s no longer about press releases and print ads. If you aren’t current on blogs, video, and the new media, you will be. Read on ...

8 Currents What’s Going on the in the Flyfishing Market? More buzz on the hot products, environmental news, issues, and winners that impact this business.

22 Opinion Editorial Blogging for the Specialty Retailer The weblog (or “blog”) is your electronic pulpit.

Whether or not you can spark an electronic dialogue may have bottom line sales impact. By Andrew Steketee

38 Time to Speak and Be your competition in the newspaper? Well, they’re doing things you’re not, and that starts with picking up the phone.

By Bennett Mintz

If ever there were a “golden age” of outdoors television, particularly flyfishing television, this isn’t it.

By Monte Burke

43 Video Killed the (Lame Cable Fishing Show) Star

What’s the deal with the video boom?

Packed ballrooms at FFR, lines around theaters ... is it the content, the medium, or both that makes us ready for more? By Will Rice

Editor-at-Large

Charlie Meyers charlie@anglingtrade.com Copy Editors

Sarah Warner, Mabon Childs Contributing Editors

Tom Bie Ben Romans Andrew Steketee Contributors

Monte Burke, Ellie Childs, Ben Romans, Will Rice, Greg Thomas Art Director

Tara Brouwer tara@brouwerdesign.com brouwerdesign.com Photos unless noted by Tim Romano

Heard Tired of only reading about

40 Reflections on “Fly TV”

Tim Romano tim@anglingtrade.com

24 Recommended Reading The Cult of the Amateur; How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture by Andrew Keen

32 Hot Issue The Elephant in the Room: MSRP What’s the deal with selling below retail?

Dirty pool or the future? The answers might be spelled out clearer than you think. By Charlie Meyers

46 Backcast

Printed in the U.S.A. Advertising Contact: Tim Romano Telephone: 303-495-3967 Fax: 303-495-2454 tim@anglingtrade.com Mail Address: PO Box 17487 Boulder, CO 80308 Street Address: 3055 24th Street Boulder, CO 80304 AnglingTrade.com

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AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Charlie Meyers believes that, whether you’re a retailer or a manufacturer, it doesn’t matter how media-smart you are if your approach doesn’t start with service.

Angling Trade is published four times a year by Angling Trade, LLC. Author and photographic submissions should be sent electronically to editor@anglingtrade.com.

Angling Trade is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts and/or photo submissions.

We ask that contributors send formal queries in advance of submissions. For editorial guidelines and calendar, please contact the editor via E-mail.

CONTRIBUTORS

Marshall Cutchin

is the publisher of MidCurrent.com. He has been the online marketing manager for RPM International’s Rust-Oleum, DAP, Tremco and Zinsser brands, and V.P. of Technology for IEntertainment. From 1985 until 1997 he was a fishing guide in Key West, Florida.

Greg Thomas

is the author of five flyfishing books and he serves as Big Sky Journal’s managing editor.

He lives in Ennis, Montana, with his wife, Becky, and daughters Tate and Myka.

Ben Romans

is a contributing editor for Angling Trade who is working on a Montana guidebook. Our policy is to run photos of first-time contributors only, but Ben got a re-do because his first grip n’grin portrait made him look like a “moe.”

Will Rice

is another repeat contributor who didn’t like his first portrait, so we gave him half a re-do. His work has appeared in the Denver Post, The Drake and elsewhere.

Andrew Steketee

is the author of two books, and the publisher of Gillraker (millionwordproject.com), one of the edgiest and most entertaining weblogs on flyfishing. His day job is in the high-tech marketing world. A former guide and industry sales representative, he lives in Colorado.

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AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Bennett Mintz

is a long-time fly fishing industry insider, and a consultant who works with a select list of clients on communications campaigns. Over the years, he has become one of our favorite contacts because he understands the golden rule of PR ... he shoots straight, and makes our jobs easier.

EDITOR’S COLUMN

I come from a “media family.”

Granted, not the Murdochs or Turners … but when my family sits at the Sunday dinner table,

we talk about news cycles and the influence of the Internet on real-time reporting, just like farming families talk over dinner about corn prices, and doctor families collectively fret about socialized medicine.

My parents own a PR and advertising agency in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. My brother works with them. I’m the black sheep, the magazine editor. We all agree— and what family really ever reaches consensus over pot roast?—that the media world has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. It used to be about press releases, fourcolor print ads, and 30-second spots. Now, it’s as much— or more—about YouTube, blogs, and keywords on Google.

That’s the reason for this “media” issue of Angling Trade.

If you, the retailer (or manufacturer), want to promote your business to bottom line effect, you now have no choice but to get a handle on the changing currents of the media world. If you don’t, you’ll be dead in the water.

The good news is that this media world is your oyster, and you have more avenues than ever before to spread the good news about you, your products, and your services. The bad news is that you’re a BB in a boxcar now.

It’s harder than ever to wade through the clutter to earn a spotlight that has real effect.

Well, Angling Trade is here to help. We’ll start by dealing with the “what is” scenario. I have some opinions on media, some of which you’ll agree with, others you might dismiss.

With regard to the flyfishing world, I’ll say the following:

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

The market is oversaturated with “vertical” flyfishing magazines. All but the standards have become the equivalents of black Labs for suburban yuppies—in-bred, not terribly bright, and, more often than not, those dogs don’t hunt. But like the Labrador retriever, they’re mighty cute to look at, especially when they’re pups.

Video is alive; cable television is dead. Well, not physically dead, just intellectually dead. After all, my seven-year-old son regularly begs me to turn on “Man vs. Wild” … you know, that show “where the man squeezes elephant poop, eats frogs, and drinks his own pee.”

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Then there’s the Internet. I’ll admit I’m still getting comfortable in my own “blog skin.” The same month I was made an editor-at-large for Field & Stream, the most respected outdoors media brand in the world, I found myself writing E-stories about plastic turd lures and breast implants. On the flipside, whenever the light bulb goes off, I’m instantly dialed into a sizeable audience, and that’s cool, I guess.

With regard to both the Internet and video, there’s a glut of amateur product out there. But, truth is, there’s a time and a place for everything. I don’t think you can retreat to a single medium anymore—your own website, a darling magazine, video production, blogging, or direct mail— and win. Even on the grassroots level, you have to do it all, or in the very least understand it all. Whether you like it or not, “filtering” is now part of your job description.

We brought in an A-list of writers to cover the media mosaic in this issue. Marshall Cutchin, mastermind behind MidCurrent (a shining light of integrity, and the definitive überblog for flyfishing), eloquently demystifies online marketing. Ben Romans offers up a “Max Marketing” story on bumping sales and exposure without spending a ton. Will Rice delves into the video boom with special effect. Greg Thomas writes about the book as a last bastion of integrity and sales opportunity. Ben Mintz will make you a publicist in 1,000 words. Andrew Steketee jumps in with his Web 2.0 perspectives. Charlie Meyers serves up a revealing perspective on MSRP, as well as his customary “Backcast” column. And then there’s Monte Burke … I won’t spoil it, just read.

One last note: I’m very happy to say that initial response to Angling Trade is over-the-top positive. When you get unsolicited congratulatory E-mails from the likes of Lefty Kreh and Mike Lawson, you know you’re onto something. By and large, our readers really like our edge and our focus. We did get a few criticisms on our use of a sans-serif font in a trade publication … Well, “presto” … there you go. We made that switch.

Does Angling Trade listen to our readers? You bet. And that should be news to nobody. at - Kirk Deeter, Editor

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

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CURRENTS

The Product Buzz Sage and Scott Out to Kick Bass The approach is slightly different, the dream the same. If what Scott and Sage envision for their new tournament-legal bass fly rods comes true, the result could be a bonanza for the entire flyfishing industry.

“It’s our hope that someday under the right conditions some wellknown bass pro will pull out a fly rod and clean up,” said Scott president Jim Bartschi, his voice rising at the prospect. “We want to open eyes as to how truly effective it can be.”

Naturally, Bartschi desires that rod will be from his new Warmwater Series, but it might just as well be one of the equally fresh Sage Bass models. The rest of the industry doesn’t much care which, just so it happens.

The stakes could be enormous.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

At the September Fly Tackle Dealer Expo, the rivals each unveiled a magic wand for transforming the dross that has been that longdormant bass potential into a very large pot of gold. When that tournament breakthrough ultimately occurs­—one hopes at a major event with the cameras whirring­— the results should echo to millions of everyday bass fishermen.

To meet the bass tournament stricture against rods longer than 8 feet, both Sage and Scott produced models measuring 7-11 and change. Serendipitously, this also is a length that best delivers large, wind-resistant flies under tight cast8

ing conditions. The fact that they fit snugly into all those bass boats doesn’t hurt, either.

For Scott, a series that will be offered in 6-, 8- and 10-weights is the culmination of several years of experimentation with similar designs for snook and baby tarpon in dense mangroves. It has a firm tip to move large flies, but also a soft mid-section that promotes a larger loop, keeping those big bugs above the rod and tender body parts.

“I wanted people to see it the second they walk into the shop,” Siem said.

“Besides, bass fishing is a more colorful sport.”

- Charlie Meyers

Simms Adds a Specialty Angle

Bartschi projects a broader use for a variety of warmwater species, like pike, panfish, and carp. “It extends traditional flyfishing seasons and opens up real possibilities among anglers who never considered flyfishing.”

The 3-piece rod fits a 26-inch case to qualify as a travel rod. Suggested retail is $625.

Sage design chief Jerry Siem concepted his 4-piece bass rod for rapid loading to eliminate false casting for repetitive bass bugging.

“It makes a great streamer rod for that same reason,” Siem declared. “It also helps with two basic hurdles for people learning to fly cast, which is the double haul and line management.”

Sage embraced a marketing concept that eliminates line weight categories that might confuse the bass crowd, instead making a single separation for a heavier duty largemouth rod and a lighter duty for smallmouth. The real divergence here is that each rod comes with a matched Sage performance line and carrying case. Only the reel is absent. It’s priced at $350.

Siem added another twist: a striking yellow color with red wraps.

By launching an exclusive custom shop program, Simms Fishing Products hopes to further leverage its Montanabased production facility to the benefit of specialty retailers. Simms offers a custom stockingfoot program, which includes stockingfeet from a women’s 6-7 to a men’s 16-17 that will fit on every wader except the Blackfoot and the Kid’s Stockingfoot. As such, customers no longer must settle on an ill-fitting wader because they bought “a size 13 foot on a medium short body.” (Added cost: $50) An extensive custom bootfoot program allows most wader styles to be customized with a Muck Wetland Boot. Waterproof, comfortable and light, this boot is ideal for fishing and can withstand temperatures as cold as 20 degrees (F) below zero. (Add $100) Simms also jumped its size offering from one style in “large sizes” in 2007 to three styles in men’s waders and continued on next page ...

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CURRENTS

additional “short and tall sizes” in the new Women’s GORE-TEX wader for 2008. It’s also added 4XL in the G4 Guide, G4 Pro and G3 Guide waders.

Through the Custom Shop, Simms offers 25 sizes in men’s wader models and an unprecedented 19 sizes in women’s waders. (Add $50-$100) The company is also offering add-ons like a Super-Fly Patch ($20), Retractor Docking Station ($20), Tippet Tender Interior Pocket ($30) or G3 Hand Warmer Pocket ($50). For more information on the Simms custom shop retailers should contact Simms Customer Service at 866-585-3575.

Kaenon Fills the Scrip

don’t experience the “blinder-effect.”

The glasses are apparently far more comfortable to wear than traditional bifocals or standard progressives. The key, according to Kaenon, is they build the prescription by digitally surfacing the backside of the lens, which brings the prescription closer to the eye, facilitating perfect vision up close, mid-range, and far away. A customer can fit the Freestyle Progressive lens into Kaenon Polarized branded frames or any other branded or non-branded frame of choice—in any power correction requirement.

As with all Kaenon lenses, they are impact resistant and carry a lifetime guarantee against delamination, and lens cracking or splitting. Kaenon also claims to be the only company making progressive polarized sunglasses. See www.kaenon.com for details.

that people could spell, a name with youthful energy and attitude. We found that combination with the logo and brand.”

Most models will bear familiar names and fits to help retailers through the transition, including the Bora, Churada and Whirlwind in the SPF (Seal Protection Factor) 100 collection, and the Taku, Zephyr, Vortex and Gale in the SPF75 series. SPF100 provides 100 percent protection with the patented Orbital Seal eyecup and SPF75 delivers 75 percent coverage through an EVA foam air dam. MSRP’s for the collections run from $125 to $250 for SPF100 styles and from $75 to $175 for SPF75 styles.

Nautilus Adds a Hot Number

Panoptx Has a New Look

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

If you’re still looking for a solution to the enigma of finding good polarized prescription lenses that don’t restrict your field of view, Kaenon has an answer. So good, in fact, that the company is now the only consumer brand wholesaling its lens technology to optical labs for prescriptions.

Using its patented SR-91 lens material, Kaenon offers single vision prescriptions, and has now added what it calls the “Freestyle Progressive Rx” lens technology, to any customer requiring vision correction: single vision for near/far correction and progessive for gradient lens prescriptions (bifocals). Not only is Freestyle Rx polarized, but it allows for a wider field of view in the lenses, so active anglers

In another note from the eyewear front, Panoptx announced that, effective January 2008, it will launch a new logo, a stylized numeral 7 tied to a new brand called 7EYE. The company says the new name reflects an emphasis on targeting the next generation of consumers looking for performance combined with style that easily transitions from the rigors of outdoor activity to stylish everyday use. Products bearing the new logo will be available at retail beginning in January.

Explaining the rationale behind the new name, Panoptx president and CEO Bob Hall noted: “We wanted a name with instant recognition, a logo that would stand out, a domain name

Nautilus recently added a new member to the Nautilus NV family of reels, the NV 6/7. It features the same CCF drag system as its larger 8/9 and 10/11 siblings. The company calls the NV 6/7 “the lightest fighting class reel for a 6 or 7- weight outfit available in the market today.”

Weighing in at a mere 6.5 oz. in its large arbor configuration (the diameter is 3.75”), the NV 6/7 delivers the near zero start-up inertia expected from the CCF family of reels, even at its maximum drag setting of 15 lbs of dead lift. MSRP is $545, and the reel is available in Black or Brushed silver anodizing. Best of all, it has been, as Nautilus proudly proclaims “Tested on Animals!” (We love that.)

The FLyBOOK Opened As one of the most recent warriors in the Internet revolution, The FLyBOOK has a consuming goal: To become so lovable, so irresistible, that no guide service owner can refuse its service.

“We try to price ourselves at a point where the shop can’t afford to say no,” said Craig Langer (langer@ theflybook.net), the innovator who added this fresh wrinkle to the way a guide operation books, serves and communicates with its customers.

Langer claims his company is the first to facilitate both sides of the guide equation—client access to the reservation apparatus plus company control of schedules and finances.

“The client simply connects with a link on the website, then chooses precisely which trip and duration he wants,” Langer explained. “He also can book rentals or purchase flies or other equipment prior to arriving.”

As a continuation of the customer service component, the system also initiates targeted E-mails that serve as welcome messages, trip reminders or payment requests. The system also allows the transmission of photos or other enticements to hype an upcoming trip.

It’s the business side of the equation that really shines. Among the features, you can: • Arrange work schedules for an infinite number of guides and other employees.

• Establish an account for each guide, who can correspond directly with his clients.

• Track every transaction or partial transaction.

• Maintain an active client database.

• Evaluate customer satisfaction and rate the guides. continued on next page ...

CURRENTS

Cost of the service is determined by volume, average booking price and growth potential of the affiliation. There’s no setup cost, no long-term contract.

“If this doesn’t work out, then delete us,” Langer said. “We feel we only should be paid for the things we earn.” See www.theflybook.com.

Factoid: According

to the latest Outdoor Industry Foundation study, 28 million women went fishing in 2005.

While this number doubtlessly includes many who simply made a few casts at a family picnic, it does indicate they were willing to give it a try.

ing season, but not to be overlooked is the new Battenkill Large Arbor trout reel. Steve Hemkens, who played a key role for Orvis in its development, likens it to a fine watch: “Sure, you can get a cheapie at the corner store for $10 bucks … but there is something magical about a finely crafted timepiece.” Like a good watch does more than tell time, the new BLA is a statement: It does more than hold a fly line.

It features lightweight large arbor performance with a silk-smooth and dependable drag. No hiccups or coughs in our river tests, whatsoever. But the real hook is its classy aesthetics and feel. Machined from 6061 aircraft barstock, it is lightweight and durable, with all the classic touches. Best of all, it seems virtually bomb-proof by way of durability. It can be customengraved. MSRP is $179-$198.

See www.orvis.com.

Nomad Makes Utilitarian Splash

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Field Tested ... the Editors’ Picks: Orvis Cranks with New Reel

The folks in Vermont are on a roll, as far as we’re concerned.

First, the ZG Helios rod line, which we think will no doubt make big waves in the 2008 sell12

In every issue of this magazine, the editors will look outside the normal realm of flyfishing to find products that can bring instant value to both fly anglers, and especially retailers.

Our pick this issue is the “Nomad,” a portable, pressurized water sprayer that we’ve been using throughout the

fall to spray down boots, equipment, boats, and occasionally other anglers who poached our favorite dry-fly runs.

It’s remarkably simple in its concept: Fill the 3.5-gallon tank with water, plug the portable 12-volt power source into your vehicle, and tap into the powerful spray, anywhere, anytime. Different settings range from mist to jet, and can shoot 30 feet. It’s manufactured by TTI North America, the company that makes Dirt Devil, Royal, and Hoover vaccum products. And in our opinion, it is perfect for spraying down the drift boat at the ramp.

Nomad retails for $169.99.

See www.nomad2go.com.

Update The Denver Show Flap Last June AFFTA announced plans to produce and promote its first consumer show in Denver, Colorado—one that directly competes with Chuck Furimsky’s annual event held the first weekend of January 2008. The decision kick-started a controversy within the flyfishing industry. And while some applauded AFFTA for being pro-active, just as many jeered, contesting it created division within the sport. The dust has since settled, and while some manufacturers and retailers are still on the fence on which venue to attend, AFFTA and Furimsky are hard at work planning, promoting, and booking exhibitors.

Robert Ramsay, president of AFFTA, says things are on track for that show and, as of press time, all but a few spaces on the floor plan were booked. He credits this to the fact that AFFTA diversified the use of

Angling Trade:angling trade

floor space to encourage exhibitors leery about attending. For example, part of the floor plan is labeled “Destination Colorado” and reserved for in-state lodges, resorts, and outfitters wanting to promote their businesses and locations.

“We’re trying to offer something to old and new anglers alike,” Ramsay said. “One example is the byproduct of some talks we had with the Boy Scouts of America. We decided to construct a learning center where young people can learn about knots, fly tying, and casting. It’s sponsored

by Umpqua and though it’s open to anyone, it helps Boy Scouts work toward their flyfishing badge.”

Furimsky is equally optimistic and says space reservations for his annual show at the Denver Mart are on par with past years’ statistics and this summer’s conflict inspired him to plan what he’s calling his best Denver show yet.

10/26/07

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Investor Group Acquires Abel A small group of private investors has acquired Abel Automatics, Inc., maker of reels and fishing accessories. New York-based Abel Holdings LLC assumed control of the company November 9th.

Financial terms of the private acquisition were not announced.

Don R. Swanson, with Abel in various capacities since 1994, will continue to run the company dayto-day and assumes the title of president and chief operating officer.

Representing Abel Holdings LLC, Andrew Madoff will be the CEO. Glen Krapff, chief designer, was named vice president; with Jeff Patterson director of sales. As a part of the transaction, both Swanson and Krapff became shareholders.

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“The situation with AFFTA really lit a fire under my butt,” Furimsky says. “This year we’ve added more presenters, personalities, feature tyers, and events. Montana Fly Company is sponsoring a “Fly Tying Theatre” where some of their fly designers will explain new patterns and materials for Colorado waters.

We’ve even partnered with TU and FFF and organized a Saturday night banquet to raise funds for the Healing Waters program.”

-Ben Romans 13

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

For more information on AFFTA’s show or to reserve space visit www. affta.com. For more on Furimsky’s event or information on reserving space visit www.flyfishingshowwest. com or call 866-481-2393.

CURRENTS

updated board, and most of all, for venturing into the realm of offering Spey clinics to what will surely be a growing group of converts to this style in western Michigan.

Coming Soon to Your Shop?

The “Undercover Angler” Congratulations to the Great Lakes Fly Fishing Company and owner Glen Blackwood for earning an “A” grade in the second installment of “The Undercover Angler.”

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

This time, the undercover angler was Kirk Deeter, the editor of this magazine (who thought he’d throw you all off by saying his spy was already on the job.)

The shop itself is a great example of flexibility and diversity ... In Rockford, Michigan, it’s a little out of range from the Grand Rapids city shoppers; but it’s right by the Rogue River. The effect is credibility, and those in the know will make the 20-minute drive.

When they get here, they find diversity on 2,500 feet of floor space: Sage, Scott, Filson, Patagonia, Rio, Scientific Anglers and so much more. A great book display. But what won me over was the honesty of the staff. I asked about steelheading on the Muskegon River. (I knew damn well that current conditions were poor for steelheading on the Muskegon.) I didn’t get a line of bull ... I was told within 30 seconds that the steelhead conditions on that river, well, sucked. Bravo for candor. And bravo, also, for the deep fly selection, the clean displays, the

Hess, Randy Hamilton and Poff, have been named G.Loomis’ “Rep Group of the Year.” The award is based on the largest percentage increase compared to all other U.S. sales territories. Along with Unfortunately, the Michigan econo- the states handled by Poff, H&H my is such that this shop must do Sales also covers Alabama, Florida, everything right just to hold its own Georgia, North Carolina, South in a very soft market. Managing Carolina and Virginia. inventory to avoid being overextended has been key to survival.

They’re playing all the best conTravis Morris Joins Brooks sumer angles also, from warmwater Montgomery to steelhead. If you want to do a Brooks Montgood deed, send somebody in your gomery Sales home area to Michigan for fish& Marketing ing, any month, and tell them to announced look up the Great Lakes Fly Fishthat Traing Company (www.troutmoor.net). vis Morris They won’t be disappointed. of Bozeman, Montana, has joined the company as an associate sales representative. Travis began work October 2, 2007. For the past ten years, Morris has been the manager of the Bozeman Angler. He is currently vice-president & banquet G.Loomis Announces 2007 chairman for the Madison-Gallatin chapter of Trout Unlimited, a FFF Sales Awards certified casting instructor, and a fly G.Loomis’ annual sales awards, tying instructor. given in recognition of 20062007 efforts, went to: Long-time Brooks Montgomery Sales & MarG.Loomis rep Mike Perusse, keting, based in Salmon, Idaho, is principal for Sumner, Washingtona manufacturer’s sales team that based Mike Perusse Marketing. concentrates on specialty fishHe received the “Top Preseason Sales” award for his dollar increase ing and outdoor sports. Brooks Montgomery’s territory covers the compared to last year’s sales. northern Rockies: Idaho, Montana, Covering the states of Kentucky, and Wyoming.

Tennessee and West Virginia for H&H Sales, Johnny Poff, from Hendersonville, Tenn., was honored The company, represents: 3M/ with the “Top Percentage Increase” Scientific Anglers, St. Croix Rods, Waterworks-Lamson, Rainy’s Flies, award. For the second year in a and Korkers, among other brands. row, H&H Sales, including Rick

People News

The Skinny on FFR The buzz on the show floor was that the Fly Fishing Retailer World Expo was bigger and better than last year.

Attendance statistics back that up: This year saw a 33% jump in total attendees, an 18.5% increase in total buyers, and a modest 4.5% increase in total storefronts.

Angling Trade’s take on FFR was that the overall show tone and tenor was indeed much more energized. The “mojo” was good. We were hearing, however, from some of our rep contacts that a good percentage of the show energy came from regional attendees; many reps who had more distant territories still noted fairly light attendance.

The lesson: The FFR show is trending in the right direction. New product energy was strong, as was participation from Colorado retailers. But there’s still a high hurdle to leap in drawing stronger participation from some of the most depressed flyfishing markets in the country, including the Midwest and the Northeast. For a full report, see http://flyfishingretailer.blogspot.com/2007/10/postshow-wrap-up.html

Factoid

Business Builders Five Attributes of a Great Website 1. Content. This is the most important part of a website. Users come to your site in search of information and it’s your job to give them what they want. Good writing is a must, but it’s also important to note that people don’t read web pages—they scan them. So, adopt a web-friendly style of writing: • Use bulleted lists.

• Highlight keywords.

• Be concise, clear and to the point.

• Lose the jargon.

2. Usability. Experts say that users spend 30 seconds reviewing a home page. Identify the main reason(s) a user will visit your site and make those things extremely easy to find.

3. Visual Design. Good visuals establish credibility. Quality graphics, photography and writing are imperative. Don’t get carried away. Bloated designs with large graphics can slow down the speed of your site causing users to become frustrated and leave… never to return.

4. Speed. Get it through your head—people won’t be happy to wait for better design. Keep page sizes small so they download quickly. Minimize the use of large graphics and employ

flash and other multimedia effects only when they actually enhance the user’s understanding of the information.

5. Content. Yes, it’s that important.

Successful sites have content that’s fresh, unique and even addictive. Update your content often so people have a reason to come back. Let your users contribute via reviews, comments, shared stories, etc. User-generated content renders the site publisher credibility and helps keep the content fresh.

Oh, and never make someone pay for information. The most successful sites (think Google), give you all the information you want… for free.

- Ellie Childs is a project manager for Boulder, Colorado-based Insight Designs Web Solutions; www.insightdesigns.com

Recipe for Print Ad Success: “Based on my experience the keys to great print advertising are: 1. Visual impact … the ad must grab attention.

2. Clarity of message(s) … the ad must make its point(s) early.

3. Call to action … the ad must require something of the audience.

4. Appropriate placement ... the ad needs to be in the right place(s) at the right time(s).

5. Frequency of delivery … targets must be given sufficient opportunity to see/hear and then think about the message(s). Unless an ad can be run enough to work its way through the clutter of other ads, you are better served finding another tactic.”

- Bill Deeter, principal, Deeter Strategic Public Relations and Advertising, www.deeterusa.com

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Despite competition from video games and other similar activities and increased urbanization, recreational angling remains one of the largest outdoor recreational activities in the nation as well as one of the most solid indus-

tries in the United States.

Annually, nearly 40 million anglers generate over $45 billion in retail sales with a $125 billion impact on the nation’s economy creating employment for over one million people.

CURRENTS

Environment/ Conservation President Protects Stripers and Redfish On October 20, 2007, President Bush signed an executive order establishing gamefish status for striped bass and red drum in federal waters, effectively boosting efforts to preserve and protect two of the most popular game fish in the United States.

“This executive order has the full support of the sportfishing industry. By signing the order, the President sends the right message about the need to ensure that striped bass and red drum endure as a species and as sport fish to be enjoyed by anglers now and for generations to come,” said Mike Nussman, American Sportfishing Association (ASA) president and CEO. “We have been working with a number of organizations for years to see that this critical conservation measure came to be, and we applaud the President for his action.”

auction with all proceeds going to the Wild Steelhead Coalition.

Over harvest, habitat degradation, poor hatchery practices, construction of impassable barriers to migration and misguided management strategies have contributed significantly to the decline, and in some cases extinction, of wild fish runs. The Wild Steelhead Coalition is an organization dedicated to increasing the return of wild steelhead to the waters and rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

Simms Fishing Products and The Drake thanked the following photographers: Andy Anderson, Dan Armstrong, R. Valentine Atkinson, Barry and Cathy Beck, Kevin Birznieks, Tosh Brown, Denver Bryan, Pat Ford, Brian Grossenbacher, Jason Jagger, Mark Lance, Paolo Marchesi, Tom Montgomery, Brian O’Keefe, Tim Pask, Tim Romano, Daniel Root, John Sherman, Liz Steketee and Ken Takata.

A Package for Alaska Salmon

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Simms Fishing Products & Raise Money for Wild Steelhead Coalition Simms Fishing Products and The Drake magazine, who presented the inaugural Flyfishing Photo Gallery at the 2007 Fly Fishing Retailer World Trade Expo, raised nearly $5,000 for the Wild Steelhead Coalition. The effort was made possible through the generous donation of works by professional photographers from across the country. Photos were auctioned off to individuals and companies through a silent

16

The threat of a massive hard rock and open pit mining district in Bristol Bay has sparked three of the most recognizable names in flyfishing to come together for a fundraiser on behalf of Trout Unlimited Alaska. Sage Manufacturing, Redington Tackle & Appar-

el, and RIO Products International are creating a special ready-to-fish outfit that will be released by April 2008. Only 300 limited edition outfits will be produced.

The outfit will come with a Sage Z-Axis 9-foot 8-weight rod and a Redington moss-colored CD 7/8 reel pre-spooled with RIO Gold fly line. A case will also be included, which will be embroidered with a unique graphical slogan, “More Precious Than Gold – Save Bristol Bay.” Purchased separately, this outfit would retail for more than $875. The companies plan to retail this special outfit for $600. It will be available to purchase directly from Sage, through Redington.com, and through the companies’ authorized dealer network.

From each outfit sold, Sage, Redington and RIO will donate $200 to Trout Unlimited Alaska. Through a special dealer program, any authorized dealer will have the opportunity to match the corporate donation.

Total anticipated donation, which will be earmarked for campaign activities dealing with the Bristol Bay mining district as well as production, marketing and distribution of the film Red Gold, will be between $60,000-$120,000.

To date, Sage, Redington and RIO have donated more than $10,000 for public and media awareness and the production of the documentary Red Gold.

(Editor’s note: Angling Trade has selected TU Alaska as the recipient of its 1% For the Planet involvement; we think this is the most important and pressing worldwide environmental

issue related to the flyfishing industy, and we strongly urge your support and involvement on any level.

Please see www.tu.org/bristolbay.)

Anglers and Hunters Sweat Global Warming

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Hear cottfl s | 8 .720 .728 | 800 1 0 o 814 lorad e, Co s o r t Mon Way, Park r i A 2355

HunterSurvey.com and AnglerSurvey.com are monthly online surveys providing industry and policymakers with information on fishing and hunting market trends. For more information, visit www.SouthwickAssociates.com.

ROB PARKINS

Most anglers and hunters are concerned about global warming.

According to a national poll of 2,602 sportsmen and women conducted by AnglerSurvey.com and HunterSurvey.com in July 2007, 58 percent of hunters and 66 percent of anglers reported they consider global warming to be threat. Of these, two-thirds think global warming is a natural cycle that is accelerating as a result of human activities. At the other end, nearly a quarter of hunters and 16 percent of anglers felt global warming was not an issue but is being made into an issue by others.

The specific results were (see graph below):

e r e h ’re

...

Hunters

Anglers

Global warming is a threat and is primarily a natural cycle not accelerated by human activities

38.1%

46.1%

Global warming is a threat and is fully caused by human activities

13.5%

10.1%

Global warming is not an issue. It is being made into an issue by others

10.2%

6.6%

I am uncertain if global warming is really happening or not

16.1%

24.0%

no opinion

17.5%

17.8% 17

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Statement

feature

All About Online Marketing Written by Marshall Cutchin

Good News: No website will ever replace the local fly shop.

Bad News: If you don’t have a good online marketing plan, you are wasting money.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Components of Good Online Marketing In the good old days, advertising was something “you had to do.” The only way for someone to learn about you or your shop was from an ad in the local paper, the Yellow Pages, or, if you were big enough, in a national magazine. Radio and television were out of reach for the vast majority. For the most part, you advertised without knowing whether or why your ad worked, except for noticing a bump in sales when it appeared. That all changed in February 2002, when Google linked a search advertising network into its powerful search engine. Marketing changed almost overnight. Suddenly, there was a form of advertising that reached an enormous audience and gave advertisers the ability to reach potential buyers at low–and completely measurable–cost. While a television show or a magazine, for example, was putting your message in front of anyone with interest 18

in any aspect of flyfishing, an ad linked to search results or matching Web page content almost guaranteed an audience that was highly focused on what you had to sell.

Since 2003, online advertising hasn’t changed much, except to give marketers even more tools and ways to reach out and touch potential buyers. The last five years have also proven, however, that even small retailers can compete for potential buyers at the national, and even international, level. The playing field has been leveled, as they say, “the new big is small.” How can you take advantage of this opportunity? While there are a few key steps to making it all work, it has only gotten easier to do online marketing. And why should you try it? Because properly managed online marketing can produce more sales and at lower cost than any other type of marketing you’ve tried.

The First Step: An Intelligently Designed Website What’s the first component of an effective, low-cost online marketing plan? A website. Not just any website, but a site that is well-organized, search-engine friendly, and explains the value of your services. It doesn’t have to be knockyour-pants-off beautiful. In fact many websites are over-designed, ignoring the importance of information delivery and search engine spiderability. If you are not sure what an ugly website looks like, the most important thing you can spend your money on is hiring a designer to give you a good, clean design. This is where you are going to be directing the attention of all of your online marketing, so be sure it explains who you are and how easy you are to contact, above all else.

One thing I’ve heard fairly often when talking to fly shop owners is that websites are too expensive. But most of those who once considered spending $500 on a basic website too expensive are trying to find talented developers to spend $3,000 or more to catch up, and many are spending much more money than that redesigning their current sites so that they are more effective drivers of sales. The reality is that your website is as much of a business asset as your signage, your counters, and your hardwood floor. What’s more, it is an asset that effectively doesn’t depreciate in value.

So if you want to do online sales, and you think that spending $5,000 - $10,000 to get a well-designed shopping cart and attractive interface that is search-engine-optimized is too much money, steer clear of online sales and consider your website a fancy business card that enables someone to retrieve your contact information online.

But get a website, or if you already have one, be sure it is inoffensively designed and contains your online and offline contact information and physical address.

Search Engine Optimization is Not a Black Art Here are a few words of advice that can save you thousands of dollars on search engine optimization services. Despite what the many E-mails and phone solicitations may say to the contrary, there is no magic bullet for search engine placement. The primary determinants of where your website lands in search results are: how long your website has been online, how many inbound links there are from other highly ranked sites, how closely matched to search phrases your title tags and page content is, and how much text content related to search results exists on your site, in more or less that order. Some of the most highly placed websites are poorly optimized for search, and some of the best websites are poorly ranked. Rankings are established by software, and software is impersonal and imperfect. Trust that in order for Google to make money, they will return relevant results to users. With that in mind, the most important thing you can do is to be sure that when someone searches for product in your area of specialty or geographic location, it will be included. If you own, for example, a fly shop in Big Sky, Montana, and have a page on your site that sells waders, be sure the title tag starts with the following phrases: Fly Fishing, Big Sky, Montana, and Waders. If it says “Bright Waters Angling Supplies,” no one will ever find it.

Step Two: Use Your E-mail E-mail is cheap, much cheaper than verbal communication with customers, because anyone can answer it at any time. Slow times at the shop were made for E-mail. But E-mail serves a much more important purpose than simple customer relations: It is your best vehicle for customer growth and off-season/off-peak sales. continued on next page ...

19

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Most current studies of website visitor behavior show that 20-40 percent of brick-and-mortar purchases are initiated online. In other words, even if you decided not to engage in E-commerce beyond accepting orders via E-mail, your online marketing can have a direct impact on your in-store sales. The key is providing information about your prod-

uct selection in a way that makes it easy for someone to come close to completing their product selection online. Photographs, product detail, price and testimonials all work well.

feature

Almost every web host will give you E-mail accounts that use your domain name as part of your package. The second thing you should do after building a basic website is to begin collecting E-mail addresses by offering to send an E-mail newsletter. Collecting addresses in your store is not a bad idea either, from a customer-loyalty perspective, but it won’t give you access to all of the prospective customers who find your site through online search.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

The newsletter doesn’t have to be fancy. First and foremost it is something you are giving to customers or potential customers in exchange for the privilege of mailing to them (the catch-phrase was “one-to-one marketing” back in the early days of the Internet). Once you have a list of names worth mailing to–and this can be 10,000 or 50 depending on what you consider a viable number of prospects–you want to send E-mails that provide something of value to the list on a regular basis, even if it is only four times per year. When you think about what to include in your first E-mail, think of how you started your retail business: you invested in a retail storefront, in display space and personnel that helped potential customers decide what products they needed. An E-mail should do the same thing–it needs to provide some up-front value to a prospective customer. Fishing reports, tackle and gear tests, new product info, discounted items, advice and tips, personal insights, relevant third-party content–they all make sense. Your goal, of course, is to get potential customers to reply directly to your E-mail address or visit your highly effective website, where their visit becomes a sale.

Before you jump headlong into E-mail marketing though, seriously consider using a third-party E-mail service provider such as ConstantContact.com to help manage your list and send your actual mailings. The reasons for doing this are many, but the key one is that you want a high percentage of your list to receive and open your E-mails. The only way to ensure this–and to be sure your own E-mail domain is not blacklisted by anti-SPAM services–is to use a service provider who has a high-level compliance relationship with the ISP’s who permit or block E-mails. As long as your list is under 5,000 names, you should expect to pay only $50 or so per month for a top-quality service. Moreover, your list is usually more secure and less likely to get lost when managed by a password-protected service.

20

Step Three: Driving Traffic with Online Advertising Online advertising, whether in the form of search engine advertising or display ads, has the same purpose as any other form of advertising: getting your message out to the largest number of potential customers and generating the highest number of sales at the lowest cost possible. It’s all about reach (how many people see your ad), response (how many are convinced by your ad to click on it or come to your store), and conversion (how many of those clicks or views of your ad result in a sale).

There are two basic forms of advertising online, each with its distinct advantages. The first, display advertising on websites, is probably easiest to understand since it is similar to other forms of advertising you may have done for print. A web display ad is placed on a thirdparty website and has your website as its click target.

It is graphic and can display product pictures, fishing photos, logos–whatever you feel helps capture the interest of visitors.

It can also be used to build awareness and compel action in ways–for example through providing more information–that plain text ads cannot.

If you are considering a publisher’s website for online display advertising, you should be looking at three key measures of viability: the total monthly unique visitors count (its reach), the “environment” in which your ad will be placed, and the cost, typically measured in Cost Per Thousand page impressions, or CPM. Here’s a breakdown of how to consider each: Total Monthly Unique Visitors–This number represents the total number of unique visitors (that is, nonrepeat visitors) who came to the site over the course of one month. The reason to look at this by month is that your campaign will likely run monthly, and you care about how many different sets of eyeballs are likely to see your ad over that period. Some websites have a very large number of page views, but only a small number of people generating those views, which means your response rate is going to be very low. This is why looking at “hits” or “page views” or “visits” is a rather meaningless way to measure traffic, except in a very broad sense. This number is also, unfortunately, very

hard for you to confirm unless the publisher is willing to share stats from an independent measurement service (e.g. Google Analytics).

The Environment–Another prime determinant of response and conversion rate is the “environment” in which your ad is placed: its likely audience, its relevancy, and its physical location on the webpage. Websites that have high credibility tend to have high conversion rates, because the advertiser shares in the trust the publisher has created. Similarly, if you place your ad in content that matches the type of product you are selling, conversion rates will jump. (Some websites offer “content targeting” of this type for a higher price.)

Finally, just as in magazine advertising, positioning strongly influences response. An ad that crosses the top of a Web page is going to get seen more often than an ad “below the fold,” where a user has to scroll to see it. The wise publisher adjusts rates accordingly, however, so don’t always assume that a less visible spot is going to have a lower ROI. Cost Per Thousand (CPM)–Like magazines, websites often use Cost Per Thousand as a way to establish rates.

In the print world, the key factor is the rate base, or the number of copies delivered to paying or requesting subscribers. Online, it’s the number of times anyone requests a page containing your ad and views it in their browser. For example, a magazine may charge $3,500 per month for a 1/3 page ad. If the magazine has a paid subscriber base of 50,000, the CPM is $70 ($70 per thousand ads delivered). If a website delivers 10,000 page views of an ad for $350, the CPM is $35.

In most cases, you will find that the CPM for online advertising is about half of what it is for print.

Whether CPC or CPM based, remember that the quality of the advertisement itself is the biggest determinant in response rate. Try testing different ad creatives with different messages and offers until you find one that works well. What is a successful response from an online display ad? One-half of one percent click-thru rates are considered average, while an ad that pulls two percent would be considered highly successful. In CPC advertising, response rates are often similar or slightly higher, but you are paying only for individual clicks, not for total number of times the ad was delivered. What you care about there is identifying ads and campaigns that have the highest conversion rates, not those for which you are necessarily paying less per click.

Reach and Response No matter how you choose to design an online marketing plan, the goal is to get your word out to the largest number of potential customers at the lowest cost per successful conversion. You can do it using all the tools available, or you can try them one at a time. You probably have the source material for online display ads already available. And the learning curve for doing search advertising is mercifully flat, with a very low cost of entry, especially if you are just trying the idea out. But remember that without an effective Web presence, the most creative online advertising has little more to offer than other forms of marketing. Also, take advantage of the fact that E-mail mailing service providers are now incredibly affordable. Ask customers and potential customers to “opt in” to receive your E-mails, and communicate with them every month or every quarter. If you’re like most of the businesses that I’ve consulted with over the past several years, you’ll soon be asking yourself why you didn’t try it sooner. at Reference http://www.retail-blog.com/2007/06/the_results_are_in_internet_re.html 21

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

The second common form of online advertising–search advertising–utilizes the systems put in place by Google, Yahoo, MSN and others to deliver ads within search results.

Briefly, they work like this: after creating an account with a credit card, you define a list of “keywords” and “key phrases” with which you want your ad to appear. You create a short text ad that details your offer or message. Then you establish an upper limit on what you will pay for any click on that ad, plus a daily budget that limits the amount of times that ad can be clicked before it is removed from circulation. On some services, such as Google’s Adwords, you can also set various limits on when and how the ad is displayed. For example, you ensure that your ad is shown only to people in your ZIP code–a good idea if you are, for example, advertising a product that you expect to close the sale on at your shop.

Being CPC, or Cost-Per-Click, based gives search advertising some clear advantages over display advertising. For one thing, it is highly controllable: you can turn it off and on, adjust your bids, raise or lower your budgets, and change your creative on an hourly basis if you like. Second, and perhaps most importantly, it ensure that your ad is delivered to a highly qualified set of prospective buyers. Third, at typical cost per click-thru of $0.15 to $0.50, it is one of the cheapest ways to advertise online. It won’t give you the impact, message space, or brand influence that display ads will, but it will give you yet another way to reach your target audience.

OPINION EDITORIAL

Blogging for the Specialty Retailer Written by Andrew Steketee If you have haven’t noticed on the Internet lately: A lot of people are blogging. A blog, or weblog, is an online journal where anyone—individuals to corporations—can share their ideas and media (photographs, videos, podcasts, etc.) in personalized formats, and have untold numbers of users read and respond.

multi-layered, online channel to communicate your business, brand, story, and/or revenue opportunities, just about everything.

Jeff Galbraith, editor and publisher of Frequency: The Snowboarder’s Journal and The Ski Journal, is very bullish on blogs, but also offers caution.

“Small business should communicate their story, growth, and connection to their community on a regular basis, but the key is what you don’t communicate. Blogging has a lot of potential for the smaller player to communicate on a larger playing field, and yet it’s also become the high school yearbook of mass communication.” Galbraith’s marching orders: Have a point, be compelling, and stay connected.

According to others, the Internet has become the Wal-Mart of intellectual property. In The Cult of the Amateur, author Andrew Keen explains T.H. Huxley’s “infinite monkey theorem,” where if you

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Popular publishing platforms like WordPress, TypePad, and Blogger claim hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of users.

Technorati, a blog search engine, is tracking 93.8 million blogs throughout the dense cyber-forest. On current pace, there will be 500,000,000 blogs by 2010.

Why all the buzz? It’s really very simple: Blogs have become technologically savvy, simple to execute (set up and maintain), and often free personal publishing platforms that anyone with a computer and high-speed connection can utilize. They have given creative, passionate individuals the ability to disseminate opinions and ideas, but more importantly, opportunities to engage targeted conversations with like-minded readers.

What does any of this have to do with your fly shop tucked away on the banks of a quiet, blue ribbon river? Well, if you’re planning on creating a viable, 22

provide “infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, some monkey, somewhere will eventually create a masterpiece.” So it is with the Internet where “Millions of exuberant monkeys–many with no more talent in the creative arts than our primate cousins– are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity.”

The lesson: Your blog challenge is to stand apart from a very large crowd.

The takeaways here for the specialty retailer are many: The blogosphere offers unique and creative opportunities to create authority and credibility within a niche, a simple, low-cost alternative to creating a web presence (without having to know html or pay web designers), and a compelling avenue toward customer communication and loyalty, but you must be original and you must be good.

Blogs can be excellent opportunities for small businesses to share their expertise and knowledge with larger audiences, but the good ones also take time, effort, and planning.

The first step is to investigate common blogging platforms to find out what you like and dislike–theoretically, you could be utilizing the platforms for years. Surf the web and bookmark blog ideas and looks that catch your eye—these might be blueprints for custom design down the road. Find out if any of your employees are closet writers, photographers, or web geeks— you might have content and IT support right under your nose. And if this all becomes too overwhelming, you might hire a consultant to get your feet on the ground—it’s not the end of the world. Having someone to help create a vision, implement a plan, and get you blogging, will more than pay for itself when balanced against your time and frustration.

Your customers will like…

All Tilley Hats are guaranteed for life against wearing out, tie on in the wind, float and won’t shrink or mildew. They are washable, packable, come with a four-page owner’s manual and FREE insurance against theft or loss. All Tilley Hats have been certified to an Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) of 50+, the maximum rating given.

You will like: Our sell’em or return ‘em policy, great margins and free effective in-store POP. Contact us for all the details.

1-800-555-2160 • uswhsale@tilley.com • www.tilley.com 23

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

And remember, like most things in life, having fun and enjoying yourself often evaporates the perception of messy, time-consuming minutiae over time.

My son, who’s nine, helps me blog, and we have fun together. As I’m fond of telling other prospective bloggers, if a third-grader who’s primarily flying paper airplanes and chasing butterflies can do it … well, I think you get the picture. Get on the computer, open your mind, and get blogging—there’s a story to tell, and your customers are waiting. at

The best, most practical Fishing outdoor hats in the world™

RECOMMENDED READING

Written by Andrew Keen, $22.95 in hardback (Currency Doubleday, 2007) Written by Kirk Deeter

Sadly, there is little, if any, accountability in the Web realm. In the print world, editors get fired, sued, and sometimes go to jail for printing the wrong stuff (not having their facts together). In the E-world, there are few rules; rumor, gossip and intentional misinformation are all part of the mix.

The Good

You think you have it rough, trying to run a profitable fly shop in the face of big box competition? Imagine the predicament of a writer or editor; our big box competitor is the Internet.

At least that’s what author Andrew Keen suggests in his poignant book The Cult of the Amateur. Here’s his point: The Internet revolution has given a voice to millions of people—essentially anyone with an opinion and a computer. On many levels, that’s a very good thing. But the Web 2.0 boom also is rife with consequences—most specifically a glut of self-published entertainment and information (and misinformation), the majority of which is, well … pure garbage.

While I agree with 95 percent of Keen’s arguments in this book, I ultimately believe that, as with anything, you must take the bad with the good. And in the context of the E-revolution, there are plenty of both.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

The Bad Consider that a Hartlepool, England, man was just sentenced to prison for urinating, kicking and spraying shaving cream on a learning- and physically-disabled woman who had collapsed on the street.

Instead of assisting her, he performed his antics as a crowd of giddy onlookers reportedly shouted, “This is YouTube material!” The woman died.

And with the muddy talent pool, what are the chances now, Keen asks, of finding another musician like Bob Dylan (or even an outdoor writer like John Merwin)? Not good. At least not as good as they were years ago.

24

On the other hand, you’ve never had a better opportunity to be heard; if you can perform, people will inevitably find you. In the context of our little flyfishing world, Web 2.0 could not have happened at a better time. If you want to know what’s happening on the Bighorn in the second week of April, you get instant answers (right and wrong) by surfing the Internet.

There might be no better endorsement for amateur content production than The Drake magazine video awards. If you were at the packed-house event held in conjunction with FFR in Denver, you saw, point-blank, how this industry thirsts, desperately, for amateur, grassroots expression.

Internet pressure is forcing the top dogs to up their games. If a writer/ editor wants to play big-league ball in this day and age, he/she had better bring his/her A game to stand above the fray.

So What?

Why should the flyfishing industry pro care about any of this? Two key reasons. As a flyfishing “insider,” when you go to post information—a fishing report, a gear review, whatever—you should accept the onus to be sure your story

is right. Be accurate. Be honest. Be timely. Or shut up and get out of the way. What you say matters more now than ever. And whether you’re a pro or an amateur, there’s an army of E-critics who will call you out on your mistakes.

As a consumer (of information) and seller (of products), your job may actually be harder and more important. You are now the “filter.” It’s your job to carry the bullshit meter, and decide what is fact and what is fiction. The better you are as filter, the more valuable your role will be in serving the information needs of your customers. In this day and age, a good filter may be more important than the source itself.

The lesson: Consider the source. Reading this book will help you do that.

Bonus Pick If You Didn’t Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat?

by Bill Heavey, $23 in hardback, (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007) Probably the best collection of outdoor writing on various topics produced in the last 30 years. Heavey is the Rick Reilly of the woods, lakes and rivers, only better. He’s funny, eloquent, and always brutally honest; put this book on your holiday wish list. at

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

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feature

MAX Marketing Written by Ben Romans

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Proven Strategies for Promoting Your Business on a Budget

Most flyshop budgets are stretched so tight the idea of having a percentage earmarked for advertising or marketing is laughable. The desire to be in front of prospective customers is there, but the cost of traditional forms—like full-color display ads in magazines for example— is completely out of the average retailer’s reach. That’s why 26

messages every minute of the day and it’s tough to capture anyone’s attention for even a second.

Think about it—you’re competing against iPods, HD televisions, and YouTube segments that help pass time at work. The sport’s demographics are changing as well, and if you want to target tomorrow’s 18- to 34-year-old generation, you won’t reach them with five-line classifieds.

One solution is a grassroots marketing approach—it’s simple, fueled by your own vision and vigor, and doesn’t cost an arm-and-a-leg to implement. It’s about building stronger relationships with your current customers, using the functions and events in your community to foster local interaction, and doing everything you can so each person walks away from your shop satisfied. The bottom line here is making consumers happy—they are your best collective marketing tool and if you’re able to get them excited about any aspect of your business whether it’s service, product selection, or value, you’ve created a living billboard willing to recommend your shop to every angler they meet.

Like anything else there is no one-size-fits-all idea when it comes to marketing and what works for another shop may not work for you it’s important to get creative and and vice-versa. Experiment with diversify not only the amount of ideas, you may stumble on somemarketing dollars spent, but the thing innovative even though it’s a manner in which they’re spent far cry from your original concept. as well.

If you’re having trouble conjuring something unique, do some probWith the exception of well-orgaing and uncover an idea you can nized campaigns, print ads and other modify—the Internet and booktraditional forms of marketing aren’t stores are full of resources tailored always as effective as they once were. to help small businesses extend their The fact is, we are inundated with marketing dollars.

To help jumpstart your thinking, here are 15 ideas intended to drive traffic through your shop without breaking your bottom line.

1. Be Nice First and foremost, no amount of advertising, PR work, or promotions will help your business if you or your staff make customers feel unwelcome. The flyfishing industry is a close-knit family and the effects of a bad reputation can haunt a business despite staff changes or relocations. Referral business from satisfied customers on the other hand is the type of marketing you simply can’t buy—these are people walking through your door ready to buy something on the advice of someone they trust. Don’t disappoint them.

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is remembering there’s no such thing as a dumb question. If a customer is new to the sport, unfamiliar with the lingo, or maybe just too arrogant to admit they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about—making them feel three inches tall is a sure way to lose a sale and send the bad-buzz train down the track.

they eventually found what they were looking for—which coincidentally was neither pink, a scud, or a stonefly—but that’s not the point. If Kelly treated them like fools he wouldn’t have made a sale and probably sent two potential repeat customers out the door possibly soured on the sport for good.

2. Work the PR Angle I’m not a strong believer in karma but I think there’s some truth to the phrase ‘do good things and good things will happen to you.’ Of course it never hurts to toot your own horn now and again.

project, or a kid’s fishing day—ask the newspaper to promote or cover the event. Publicity like this instantly creates a common connection between you and the community.

The same goes for donations to events like Trout Unlimited banquets or other local charities and fundraisers in need of auction items. Donate something from the shop or a half-day of guided fishing to a local chapter. Groups appreciate the support and anyone attending the event will remember your generosity the next time they need to replace weathered waders.

3. Schools & Seminars

The idea here is if your shop, guides, staff, etc. are participating in a community service or organizing some sort of selfless act—like an annual river cleanup day, a habitat for humanity

Despite declining fishing and hunting license sales, there are people hungry for an outdoors experience—they just lack the connection to anyone that can

Rather than laugh them out of the shop Kelly asked them to slow down and describe the fly. From that he was able to point them in a direction where

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AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Here’s an example: A few months ago I was in Kelly Galloup’s fly shop on the Madison River when two out-ofbreath customers ran through the door, bellied up to the counter and said: “We need all the Pink Scud Stoneflies you have!” I thought my ears were playing tricks on me but after repeating it a second time it was obvious both guys were green to the sport, but knew they wanted something—they just didn’t know what it was.

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help get them started. Nearby colleges or adult learning centers are a great way to tackle this problem.

The Kingfisher Fly Shop in Missoula, Montana, teaches an accredited introduction to flyfishing course at the University of Montana. Students learn all the basics from entomology to knots to proper casting technique—there are even two extended “field trips” that pit their newly learned skills against wild trout. These are people who would otherwise never wave a fly rod in a river.

Kingfisher part-owner Jim Cox says the program has been great for getting new blood into the sport (his main motivation) and once students complete the course there is a feeling of loyalty toward the shop. If even a small portion of the classes continue their interest in the sport, that’s a lot of anglers needing new rods, reels, and lines in subsequent years.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

4. Create a Festival Weekend Learning to flyfish should be fun, so why not throw a party to make people feel welcome? I’m not saying you should serve cake and ice cream, but organizing an event—use the anniversary of the shop or celebrate opening day if you need a reason—is a good excuse to offer sales on gear or clothing, schedule demonstrations on casting and fly tying, or hold a variety of casting competitions where winners receive prizes. The awards don’t have to cost the shop an exorbitant amount of money, but they should be valued enough to make it worth someone’s time to stop by. If you want even more value for your effort give away prizes branded with the shop’s logo. Ask some vendors and suppliers to participate as well—you may be surprised by who would like to help.

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Though they seem like a lot of trouble to plan and execute, small celebrations like this can bring in new blood—especially if you’re holding introductory classes on tying flies or casting. The hardest part is spreading the word, so if you’re able to latch onto an already publicized event like a town celebration or fundraiser, much of the publicity is already taken care of and you will see more people coming through the door. If not, talk with a local radio station looking to boost listener ratings—unconventional partnerships like this sometimes have a way of bringing people together.

5. Offer Freebies Create an incentive program so customers feel like they’re getting more than what they’re paying for. Sure it will cost you a few bucks here and there, but in the big picture you’ll be ahead of the game—especially if an impulse buyer is walking your floor and suddenly decides a new rod or reel is the order of the day.

None of the extras need to be highticket items. In some cases an extra fly for every dozen purchased is enough to hook a new shopper. You may even consider throwing in a small fly box (imprinted with the shop logo) if someone buys two-dozen or more flies, or a free line with the purchase of a specific fly reel. Not only will you have a happy customer walking out the door feeling they received a solid bang for their buck, chances are good they’ll return when they need other high-dollar items. Still need some convincing? Let’s not forget the story of two Nebraska brothers named Cabela who in 1961 started a small catalog business from their kitchen with a single advertisement and few handfuls of free flies.

6. Package Pricing This is an extension of the freebie idea, but organizing package deals is a great way to tie ease and convenience together for customers that are in a hurry, cost conscious, or just browsing.

Customers don’t always want to spend loads of time testing individual pieces of gear and deciding what combination works best for them. Assembling a set like a rod, reel, and line and pricing it for less than the sum of the individual components is alluring because it puts convenience and value in the palms of their hands and pushes them to make decisions on the spot. Rod, reel and line combos are natural starters.

7. Keep Fishing Reports Updated If a customer visits your shop’s website and the fishing reports are three weeks stale, what would make them think they’re getting the best information from you or your staff should they show up in person? One reason anglers visit fly shops is to get the scoop on fishing conditions, but if you’re not putting your best foot forward before a customer leaves home, you’ve instantly stalled their motivation to visit before hitting the water.

On that same note, be truthful—if the fishing sucks, let people know it. It may feel like you’re pushing possible business away, but no one likes to be deceived. A potential customer would much rather take time off from work when fishing is good, and if you’re not upfront and honest before they step out their front door, what’s stopping them from thinking you’re not shooting a square deal the next time they need a new pair of waders? Most passionate anglers take their chances whether the fishing is hot or not, but if you’re upfront from the start you’ll never be accused of being dishonest just to promote business.

Updated fishing reports are also a good way to plug limited-time sales or unconventional patterns found exclusively in your fly bins. If you or your staff ties something unique to the area, give it some hype. A curious angler who stops in to buy a half-dozen may suddenly realize they forgot their favorite sunglasses at home and purchase replacements.

8. Referral Exchange Hotels, restaurants, and local microbreweries are a great place to attract visitors—especially if your community depends on tourism dollars. Approach these establishments and try to find some mutual agreement where they will refer business to you, and visa-versa.

One of the best marketing tools I’ve ever seen was in the lobby of a restaurant popular among out-of-towners because of its proximity to the highway and hotels. The eye-catcher was nothing more than a sequence of local fishing reports posted on a dry-erase board.

The shop’s logo, phone number, and address were on the bottom, the reports were updated daily, and the info was always the topic of discussion among patrons waiting for a table. In return for the exposure the fly shop recommended the restaurant to out-of-town customers and guide-trip clientele. It was win-win for both businesses.

9. Have a Happy Hour

If you plan ahead for such an event you may also be able to save money on wholesale prices. Some fly suppliers offer discounts if you place an especially large order or submit a purchase order early enough they have time to adjust their production schedule accordingly.

10. Make Your Shop Inviting There is a pro and con to this idea. The pro is you make everyone feel welcome.

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Got a river or stillwater nearby that draws a lot of attention when the salmonflies or Callibaetis are hatching?

Get customers in your shop by advertising discounts on patterns during certain times of the day

or over a weekend. Sell specific patterns in two-for-one bundles or drop the price by 50 percent for a limited time. Place the hours or days of your sale on a sandwichboard sign near the road so anyone driving by is sure to see it.

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‘should’ve been here yesterday’ statement to every customer or client walking through the door. Somewhere in the middle you’ll find a good balance.

A couple chairs or small bench makes a huge difference for someone who just wants to try it on before they buy.

11. Sell Gift Certificates

Serve hot coffee, water, or soft drinks.

Set out a tray of snacks or candy. Flip a TV to ESPN, repeat an instructional DVD in the background, or play quiet music (good bluegrass is always a plus in my book). It may not seem like much, but it goes a long way towards helping customers feel relaxed.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

If you sell clothing and have the space to construct some makeshift changing rooms—do it. Think about how many times you or your spouse has put a piece of clothing back on a rack because there isn’t a fitting room to check the fit and feel.

The same goes for waders and boots— no one likes to hobble around on one leg trying to slip something over their feet.

Not everyone is easy to shop for—that’s why there are gift certificates. Over the years these get-out-of-jail-free passes have saved the day when it comes to lastminute anniversary and birthday gifts for a significant other—so why not offer the same relief for your customers unable to find that perfect present? They’re quick, painless (the purchaser specifies an amount within their budget), take the pressure of having to buy a gift away, can widen your customer base, and they allow the recipient to acquire something they truly want or need.

From an owner or manager’s standpoint, gift cards provide the shop with instant cash. It may be months before a gift card is redeemed, but since your register already gobbled up the green, time doesn’t matter. If you’re lucky (or the shopper is like me), a customer will use a gift card as a springboard towards more costly items. A $60 fly line isn’t so expensive when you have a $40 gift card burning a hole in your pocket.

Presentation can go a long way with gift cards and certificates. If you go the extra mile and offer something worthy of being presented as a gift (not just a handwritten piece of paper), customers will undoubtedly remember. Talk with an advertising specialty printing company about your options—small tin gift boxes or envelopes embossed with your logo are nice touches and they can help put everything in perspective for you. Look at gift-card packages offered by companies like Eddie Bauer or Cabela’s for inspiration.

12. Tell a Story It’s not uncommon for a fly shop to receive the majority of its revenue from

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tourism. But with the past few years of drought and fickle weather, solid fishing conditions are tough to come by in some parts of the country. This is when it’s important to make sure customers (or guide clientele) take home a story—something more than a memory of a mediocre fish. Give them a hat with the shop’s log and ‘retire’ a used fly to the corner of the brim. The cost of a t-shirt or hat is minimal and well spent if it turns into a returning customer or referral.

Even better, wait a few weeks after a guide trip and E-mail the client a photo from their day on the water—possibly one of the mediocre fish they caught or a candid moment that made the day. It makes the trip seem more like a day on the water between two friends rather than a business transaction, and serves great as a memo saying you appreciate their support.

13. Create a Catchy Logo The better the logo the more apt people are to wear it. If you don’t have one already, don’t simply gauge a new design by how catchy it looks—work through several revisions and design something that looks professional and polished. A smart design lends itself well to clothing and makes is something a customer likes to wear year-round, not just during a weekend fishing jaunt.

Show your logo around town with giant stickers for your car, truck, and boat, or add it to your sun shade if you put one up over the dashboard. Ask family members to wear your shop’s hats or if they’re willing to put a magnetic bumper sticker on the back of their ride.

Most freelance or design studios can help you put something together for around $500 if you don’t have something in mind. If that’s more than you’re willing to spend, get creative and barter—there may be a fly fisherman working in a studio willing to trade some work for a day on the river.

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14. Don’t Gouge Greed kills businesses. You can have the best service, the most knowledgeable guides, and a location other shops would kill for—but it means nothing if your prices aren’t reasonable. Make sure your pricing is competitive to what the consumer sees, not your accountant. Sometimes the profit lies in selling more, not charging more.

Do you have a promotional line—a few products not tied to any manufacturers that dictate retail pricing with authority?

If you do, knock a few bucks off these items to build traffic—or couple it with a service. Imagine how many more oneman pontoon boats you could sell if you threw in the first 3 shuttles free of charge.

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With so much information available online, more anglers are turning to the Web for information on products and fishing destinations, and having an attractive and informative website is a must. It should be easy to navigate and visually appealing.

Use photos of fish from past guide trips or jaw-dropping scenic shots as compliments to every page.

Do you know someone that can string a few words together? A website is a great place to post content like short stories about the local rivers and anglers, blogs, news briefs, or updated fishing reports with a humorous and personal touch. Couple this with an updated library of client shots from the river and you’ve created something worth checking out regularly.

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AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Of course the most important segment of a shop’s website is the online store. The key to remember here is to treat every order as priority. Someone shopping online has to wait for their order to be shipped, and the faster you can get it in their hands, the happier they’ll be. Don’t wait two or three days to get something in the mail, do it as soon as possible. at

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HOT ISSUE

The Elephant in the Room: MSRP Written by Charlie Meyers

“Absent vertical price restraints, retail services that enhance interbrand competition might be underprovided because discounting retailers can ride free on retailers who furnish services…” the case syllabus detailed.

It also noted that resale price maintenance “may also give consumers more options to choose among lowprice, low-service brands; high-price, high-service brands; and brands falling in between.”

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

All together now. Get those hands in motion. Give it up for The Supremes. The absolute law of the

Memo to those at all levels of the retail business universal: The high court repeatedly referenced the welfare of land has spoken on the touchy matter of vertical pricing and, for the specialty rethe consumer, i.e., “The rule (of reatailer and just about everyone else interested in making a solid buck off exclusive son) distinguishes between restraints flyfishing merchandise, the word is nothing but good. with anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and those When the U.S. Supreme Court issued two key rulings earlier this year on with procompetitive effect that are in the prickly subject of manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), the next the consumer’s best interest.” sound heard was a collective sigh of relief from high-end manufacturers, specialty shops and certain other retailers whose reaction might surprise you.

Moreover, it should be noted that the decision in both recent cases Whether the two high notes lifted by the court in separate decisions actually changed much in the way the flyfishing industry conducts business remains to came on a 5-4 vote—not exactly an overwhelming margin should the be seen. But it does allow suppliers to get their heads off a legal swivel while matter come before the court again, laying off a battery of antitrust lawyers. which it probably will. So as long as For benefit of anyone who might not have heard, let’s get the basic details out the customer stays reasonably happy, the industry seems to have a canon to of the way before diving into a very broad ocean of speculation. Although live by for the foreseeable future. a companion ruling involving the electronics industry might have served the purpose nicely enough, the case that lines up most directly with the fly busiPurely from a practical standpoint, ness involves Leegin Creative Leather Products, a Texas firm that makes the decision allows the flyfishing women’s accessories, primarily belts and purses. industry to keep on with what it generally was doing all along—only Overruling lower courts, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that Leegin indeed without always looking over its colcould enforce its MSRP in a dispute with a discount store. The decision reversed a precedent by which such price strictures were held illegal per se under lective shoulder for the antitrust cops.

The flip side might have carried the Sherman Antitrust Act. far more consequence. Without the favorable ruling, the publicity and In its place, the court decreed a “rule of reason” governing pricing arrangefocus generated by the case quite ment, specifically noting that price protection works in the consumer’s best literally might have sent MSRP to interest in that the specialty shops it supports offer education and service not hell in a handbag. otherwise available.

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Now that the bete noir finally is out of the closet, both suppliers and dealers can more effectively address the pricing issues that so keenly concern them.

When shop owners were asked in a recent survey what issues they found most distressing, the answer came back almost as a shout: Discounting.

Within this broad framework, the fly industry will be characterized by the same broadband dealings ranging from Temple Fork Outfitters’ (TFO) novel agreement to buy back whatever a retailer can’t sell to those bitter-end strictures that cause products to grow rust on top of the dust. Now, both manufacturers and dealers have more incentive to pay attention.

“We have very few issues with the Big Box guys. Where we get burned is with our little guys, who put things on eBay.” Put these retail giants under a microscope and the reasons make sense.

Massive inventory control systems make discounting far more cumbersome than for smaller operators.

Then consider a gigantic catalog component with a standard shelf life of six months or more—scarcely an article for nimble maneuvers.

The image that emerges is of a large, slow-moving ship, with roughly the turning radius of the Queen Mary. Against the prospect of being seriously undersold by Internet pirates in a cutthroat system, there’s little wonder that the giants favor price control.

“It’s in our best interest to support that,” said Cabela’s spokesman David Draper. “We can make some money and pass value along to the customer.

“We’ve worked with most vendors for a long time or plan on working with them for a long time in the future.

We like to keep good relationships.”

This latest legal shift shouldn’t be viewed as an end-all to the pricing issue. Don’t be terribly surprised to see another court visit by MSRP somewhere down the road, most likely in some other industry. Meanwhile, flyfishing can operate on a more solid and vigilant footing, minus the lawyers. at 33

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Given this level of anxiety, manufacturer attitudes in the wake of the court ruling might rank as the most impor“We spend a lot of time monitortant current topic in fly merchandising. ing bulletin boards,” said Rick Pope, president of TFO. “A lot of dealers “Discounting hurts the retail margin now are doing Internet business. They and the image of the brand,” declared watch each other like hawks.”

Andy Wunsch, director of sales for Simms, which, like most premium The point of all this is plain enough. suppliers, always had enforced MSRP Most specialty shops—particularly the through unwritten agreements that exclusive brick-and-mortars—can’t might not have survived legal tests. long survive in an Internet world jam packed with bargain hunters unless Redington sales manager Mark there’s price protection for the highAndresen sells products under both dollar stuff.

MSRP and minimum advertised price (MAP) strategies. For him, the court Now, with the legal deck stacked in favor ruling lifts a considerable burden that of the supplier, the message will ring even took the form of perpetual worry. more clear: stick to the pricing arrangement or risk losing the product completely.

“Before this, we never put anything in writing, and if we shut someone down, “Discounting only hurts the retail marwe’d just say that we don’t have to sell gin and the integrity of the brand,” to you,” Andresen explained. “Then said Wunsch, who also addressed the we’d hope they didn’t have the deep nagging problem that plagues both pockets to fight it.” sides of the deal—what to do with the inevitable dusty merchandise that Wunsch echoes that feeling of release. simply won’t leave the shelf.

“This would reinforce what we’ve been trying to do before this ruling.

“We negotiate with the dealer on a This gives us more legs on the Intermarkdown and try to rework that into net side of it.” another product. A dead product is no good for anyone, because it doesn’t The bottom line in a post-Leegin give the dealer money to reinvest.” world: Expect high-end manufacturers to be more aggressive in enforcing While everyone points toward the InMSRP, particularly when dealing with ternet as a core source of discounting selling on the Internet. Less expensive evil, it might surprise many to know merchandise—including gradations that a favorite object of derision, the within a premium label—will continue Big Box, generally earns high marks to be juggled as always. for price maintenance.

“They’re better about holding price than anyone else,” said Andresen.

“When you discuss pricing with the Big Boxes, shake hands and agree to do things, they do it.

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But don’t stake your time, effort and return on this writer’s pronouncement.

Listen to the experts. Judith Schnell and Mark Koenig, two major players in the flyfishing book trade, say sales of flyfishing books are as good if not better than they’ve ever been.

Koenig, who runs Angler’s Book Supply in Eugene, Oregon, stocks 4,500 titles and supplies 1,100 retailers worldwide.

Koenig is a guy who cuts to the chase: “The most important reason people should carry books is that they can make good money doing it,” he said. “If you’re a shop owner and you’re not selling books you’re leaving money on the table because your customers are buying books elsewhere. Books aren’t a huge percentage of a shop’s business, but it’s not chump-change either. Nobody’s doing 20 percent, but five to 10 percent are numbers to shoot for.

Why Books in Your Shop?

Because They Sell, Dammit!

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Written by Greg Thomas

Flyfishing boasts an extensive literary history and, despite what the aspiring Cyberpunks are saying— blogs kick ass and books are dead—that flyfishing tradition isn’t even close to seeing the flatline.

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“The idea of books being dead isn’t valid at all,” Koenig added with a hint of irritation. “I think it has become more difficult to sell a novel or a set of essays than it was 20 years ago. But books are a broad category and what you are really selling today is knowledge. The demand for knowledge is as great as it has ever been. The key is to connect the people seeking knowledge with the book or DVD that provides them with it. If you do that you have a successful category.”

Schnell is a 27-year veteran at Stackpole Books who serves as that company’s publisher. From Stackpole’s offices in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylva-

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Andy Kurkulis owns Chicago Fly Fishing Outfitters, an urban shop that caters to a broad clientele. Kurkulis considers books as an integral part of his business.

Koenig calls Kurkulis one of his most active customers.

“Overall, the percentage of our business done in books is relatively small,” Kurkulis admitted, “but, for the geographic footprint that books take we see a significant return.

“Our clientele ranges from superliterate guys who fish infrequently but read a lot, to hardcore destination junkies,” Kurkulis added. “Our books continued on next page ...

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AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Still, books don’t sell themselves and the popular titles these days don’t resemble romantic classics, those compelling pretty sunset/caught a big fish titles by such noteworthy angling writers as Roderick Haig-Brown, Norman Maclean and Zane Grey. These days, regional or species-specific guidebooks, instructional books, and destination angling teases (the male romance novel)

“Books sell if you present them well and you are committed to books,” Schnell said. “They won’t sell if you don’t give them good space and fail to keep them fresh. You need to replenish the inventory. Really, to sell books you need to know what’s in the book and you need to offer service and expertise so that when a customer asks about a subject you can point out a good title.”

* * * *

“Most of our books are produced in full color and written by authorities on the subject, people who have invested their lives in discovering information,” Schnell added. “The books are expensive to make but, with fly fishermen, they like getting their information from books and they are willing to pay for that. They are not reluctant to put down good money if you give them the right book, on the right subject, written by the right author. That’s what our sales, which are better than ever, have proven.”

are top sellers. However, like a solid rod without a shop employee’s backing or a quality reel without name recognition, a fine book—even a really informative and entertaining read—needs some ammo. Place it in the back of a shop on an obscure shelf, or have no idea what the book reveals, and you have a weighty item that costs money and eats space rather than bringing in cash flow.

In a shop environment, books are best used as tools.

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nia, Schnell handles all aspects of the business, ranging from acquisition of manuscripts, to warehousing, to retail sales. She is considered one of the most inventive publishers in the flyfishing realm having recently kicked out several winning titles including the recently released Barr Flies. She, too, says books are worth carrying and good books, written by experts and produced in an appealing format, aren’t the difficult sell that some owners make them out to be.

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definitely drive sales in all areas of the shop. You sell a book on CDC and all of a sudden you’re selling more CDC. Bob Clouser comes out with a book and all of a sudden you have increased sales to people who want to tie smallmouth flies. You sell a Kaufmann book on bonefishing and it leads to sales. Maybe someone even books a trip to one of the destinations they read about.

“Really,” Kurkulis noted, “books dovetail nicely with our travel service here, which is one of the fastest growing components of my shop. We send customers around the planet on trips that we arrange and the ones they arrange … and they’re always looking for information on those places.”

In a fly shop or any other venue, selling books isn’t brain surgery.

However, there are tricks to the book trade and understanding some fine points definitely pushes sales. Like Schnell, Koenig believes that placement of product and familiarity with a product line is imperative. Basically, Koenig promotes the idea of spread-

ing knowledge—and the opportunity to purchase knowledge—throughout a fly shop.

“Placing your books with titles facing out in an accessible area of the shop really makes a difference,” Koenig

noted. “Also, placing an instructional book on knots in your tippet section makes sense. You might add a DVD on casting to your rod section …

Hatch Guide to Western Streams in your fly tying area. Product has to be accessible in order for people to make an impulse purchase and books are definitely an impulse purchase.

“I like the mini pile, too,” Koenig added. “It works really well for holiday sales. If you have a few titles that you really like, bring in more than one or two copies of each. A pile creates a scene. It’s especially productive if

it contains a new release. You could have a few mini piles—Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die, by Chris Santella and/or About Trout, John Gierach’s newest title.

“Shelf-talkers are great, too, but you rarely see them outside the wine sections at grocery stores,” Koenig implored.

“A staff pick with a tag that hangs under a product is effective. Say you’re looking through a whole shelf of leader and tippet material and one of those is Rio fluorocarbon and the shelf-talker says ‘This leader kicks ass and I caught a giant, wary permit on it.’ People have to look at that! Wherever possible place knowledge in your store where people need it.”

Regarding new titles, those fresh to the business must understand that books have a distinct lifespan, that being—solid sales as a new title and tapering sales, if any, afterward.

“You have to offer a product mix that is appealing to your customers and there are two components that go into making that happen,” Koenig ex-

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plained. “You have to select new product on a regular basis and you have to get rid of the books that aren’t selling.

I recommend that people do that in a total title count. You just have to say, ‘We’ll have this many titles in the shop and when we bring in three new titles we have to discount three to get rid of them.’ In books, the trick is to be on the bandwagon and catch initial sales for a title and then to get off the title before it becomes a dog.”

ued literary tradition serves the interest and long-term health of the sport.

“Flyfishing has some tremendous authors who just happened to be fishermen,” Kurkulis said. “McGuane, Raines, Robert Traver, Gierach. It’s a mix of authors who are incredibly

proficient and some who are incredibly profound. You have authors ranging from the classics, to humorists, to those who write how-tos and are motivated by sales. In flyfishing there is a book for everyone. We would be doing a huge disservice to the sport if we didn’t carry books.” at

So how does a busy shop owner or register boy keep track of the book trade? Look toward regional guidebooks, flyfishing instruction (knots, casting, tying, rowing, insect and fish identification), and category captive books, such as Kaufmann’s Bonefishing; Hogan’s A Passion for Steelhead; Lawson’s Spring Creeks; Combs’ Bluewater Fly Fishing; Harrop’s Trout Hunter; LaFontaine’s Caddisflies; Shollmeyer’s Hatch Guide to Western Streams; etc.

To keep an eye on the new releases you may want to sign up for Koenig’s E-mail service called e-book Bites or contact several other respected flyfishing book distributors, such as The Book Mailer, Doug’s Bugs, InterSports, or Rumpf.

In the end, a successful book program mirrors other appealing categories— employees should be familiar with the product and they should believe in the product. In the current retail flyfishing environment adding five- to 10-percent to total gross sales could mean the difference between retail life and death.

37

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

And, perhaps, a book program drives deeper than a single-item sale. Flyfishing is, remember, a classic sport with a line of literary gifts. No shop owner has to be a full-fledged philanthropist to carry and support books, but a contin-

feature

Time to Speak and Be Heard Written by Bennett Mintz

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Over the years I have conducted dozens if not nearly 100 public relations, publicity, communications and marketing workshops.

And I learned one thing: People have an irrational, pathological fear of calling somebody in the news media.

38

Most of my workshops were done for the staffs of major non-profit organizations such as Red Cross chapters, YMCAs, Scouts and similar groups. I also conducted sessions within the flyfishing industry. So, let’s pretend this is a workshop. You’ve had the coffee and donut; I’ve told the obligatory opening joke. Now, let’s begin:

newspaper’s outdoor news reporter/editor to go fishing within the last week; • The last month; • Six months; • Same question: have you bought him a drink? Told him about a funny incident? Do you know his E-mail address? Do you know his deadline?

• Please raise your hand if you have spoken with your local newspaper’s outdoor news (hunting and fishing) reporter/editor within the last week; • The last month; • Six months; • Please raise your hand if you have mailed or E-mailed that person a news* release within the last week; • The last month; • Six months; • Please raise your hand if you have invited your local

*Note that I used the word “news” not press release.

If it ain’t news, don’t release it!

If you’re being honest with yourself–and with me–it’s unlikely that you’ve answered very many of my questions positively.

Understand that virtually every story in every newspaper and every TV broadcast is the result of action taken by a publicist, whether that publicist is the press

secretary for the President of the United States, the sports information director of your favorite college team, or the publicity chair of your child’s PTA. Do you think that freelance celebrity photographers just happen to guess the name of the saloon where Paris Hilton is dancing with her pants off ? Nope. They were tipped by a publicist for either the bar or Ms. Hilton herself. The courts have spokespersons. The fire department has a public information officer. The military has its PIOs–I was one–as well as every university publicizing the results of every crackpot study.

You, dear reader, are now the PIO for Joe’s Bait & Tackle and Sushi Bar–your store!

There’s a thin line between being a great publicity agent for your store and being a pest. Unless you’ve got something to give your outdoor writer/editor–a good joke qualifies–don’t bother him. Know his deadlines for a feature story and hard news.

Do you run periodic fly tying classes? There’s a story there someplace–a young kid or an old woman, a handicapped person or a minister taking the class. Obviously, you can’t do that kind of story every six weeks or even six months, but there is a story if you tip it judicially. Casting classes?

Same thing.

Use your noggin. Every new gadget or flyfishing reel isn’t “stop the presses” news. But occasionally there are new products that warrant a mention–especially wrapped around gift-giving times like Father’s Day or Christmas.

Why not a Top Ten list of items every fly fisher would love?

If you run a guide service, how about inviting the outdoor writer out for a day?

What about a fly tying class for Scouts (I mean Girl Scouts) and tipping off your outdoor writer? A class held at a Senior Center? Something for Iraqi war veterans?

interest in a subject. Frankly, most editors (unless they fish) haven’t a clue about fishing in general and flyfishing in particular. Tell them you’ll give them 500 words (or whatever) every Monday for publication the following Thursday.

If all of that is too much, think about getting a local college or junior college journalism or communications major to do it. Maybe for a few bucks. Maybe for school credit.

Think green. Catch-and-release environmental stories make news. Flyfishers think nothing about C&R, but Joe Sixpack still thinks that anybody who spends a day on the water catching fish and tosses them back is nuts. Bring in an expert, maybe a customer (that guy from the university) to talk about the economic value of a released fish. Didn’t Lee Wulff say something about a fish being too valuable to be caught only once?

Sponsor a father-daughter flyfishing day. It makes a good feature story. Sponsor a husband-wife day. A family day with a token prize for the biggest family, the youngest child or whatever. Let your imagination run wild.

If you’re in a destination, send a news release (not a press release) back to clients’ hometowns. “Jack B. Smith, Anytown, flyfished the salmonfly hatch on the MuckMuck River . . .” Newspapers in virtually every city of any size can be found on the Internet.

Remember the adage–names make news. Just be sure to spell them right. Is it Smith or Smyth or Smythe. Is it Mr. or Dr.?

College newspapers are another tremendous source.

Schools of any size have hundreds of faculty and staff–all well-paid these days–and are prime targets to flyfish. The sport is clean and green. Go after them for casting classes, orientations, trips, speakers . . . you name it.

If your newspaper doesn’t have an outdoor writer, you have the opportunity to become one. Tell the sports editor or managing editor approximately how many licenses you sell–that tells him there’s an untapped circle of news

So, now, while it’s fresh in your craw, go over to the phone, call the local newspaper and ask for the outdoor editor.

When he says hello, say hello back. You are now in the publicity business. at 39

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Or, if all else fails, how about inviting the outdoor editor/ writer out for a beer? Three heads are better than one– yours, his and the beer’s.

As for the local newspaper outdoor editor, you are his contact with the community. He needs you more than you need him. You have fishing anecdotes, humor, good times and things of interest. Without you, all he’d write about is boring stuff from the state department of fish and game.

feature

Reflections on

“Fly TV” Written by Monte Burke

There in our driveway was a big white van with big blue letters on the side of it that screamed: “HCTV: Your TV experts!” A rotund man jumped out of the driver’s seat. Tools dangled from his body like ornaments on a Christmas tree. He gave me a friendly wink as he ambled to the back of the van to get the antenna.

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

I’ll never forget the day we first got “real” TV. I was 12.

We lived in the country, where we got three channels on a good day.

It was a Saturday, and my two little brothers and I were in the backyard of our house, setting up a huge battle between our Matchbox cars and our Star Wars figures in a stubborn patch of dirt in the otherwise green lawn. I was running back to the house to see if we had any Black Cat firecrackers left over from the Fourth of July (we took these battles very seriously), when I stopped dead in my tracks.

40

For the next week, I sat slackjawed in front of that cathoderay tube glow, endlessly flipping through those glittering channels filled with Walter Cronkite reports, Farrah Fawcett movies and black-and-white re-runs of Leave it to Beaver. There was only one type of program that made me actually rest my thumb to watch: the fishing show.

I found Jimmy Houston with his cornbread accent and bleached blonde hair, casting, catching and kissing big old largemouth bass.

And Bill Dance, wearing that orange-and-white “T” hat that never quite seemed broken, busting out with a “hoo-boy” or a “goll-ee!” on every hookset.

But, for me, one show stood out.

I was, at the time, in the budding throes of what turned out to be a lifelong obsession with flyfishing,

and felt blessed to find Curt Gowdy on Sundays hosting The American Sportsman, in retrospect, probably the pinnacle of the outdoor TV show genre. Gowdy filmed in Argentina and Newfoundland, dreamlike places that for me sitting on the living room floor seemed attainable only through the magic box. It was manna from heaven.

But my mother, appalled by the amount of time I spent just sitting there as if I’d been lobotomized, took away the TV gods’ great bounty like she was a plague of locusts, only allowing a scant half hour of viewing a day. I think I cried.

But in the end, I never really missed it. I grew up. I fished. I went to high school and college. I fished some more. As I got older, I was even lucky enough to visit some of those far-off haunts first brought to me by The American Sportsman. I occasionally caught a fishing show here or there, but for the most part, they just never really crossed my mind. But recently I decided to take another look, this time concentrating only on flyfishing shows. I spent a month in the fall logging some serious hours in front of the TV, watching others do what I love to do.

Here’s the first thing I found: there aren’t as many flyfishing shows on these days as there were in the fairly recent past, when our sport surged to the top of American leisure activities after “the movie.” Flyfishing, in its most casual use, seems to have fallen off a bit in popularity, which, in practical terms to me means I don’t have to suffer through dull cocktail party conversations with poseurs. Versus, the old Outdoor Life Network, is spending more air time these days on the NHL and college sports, positioning itself as a wannabe competitor to ESPN. The offerings on ESPN2 are even thinner. Could it be that cheerleading contests and monster truck pulls garner higher ratings than flyfishing?

In the end, though, it was hard to get over the fact that the show really just functioned as a 30-minute infomercial for LL Bean. Hey, I like the company as much as the next guy and I own some of their indispensable gear. But isn’t merely sponsoring the show enough?

Another show on Versus had a promising name: Fly Fishing America. Hey, I love flyfishing, I love America and I fish there ... it had to be good, right? Wrong. Maybe I caught it on a bad day. The show was about a man named Mike who has launched a website about his favorite river, Colorado’s San Juan. A good portion of the episode takes place indoors, showing Mike sitting in front a computer and talking in a monotone voice. Not exactly riveting drama. It didn’t help that when they actually went outside, it was winter and the San Juan River had a dull and vacant pall, as if it had spent the summer inside surfing the Web. Mike does eventually go fishing with his two sons and his own father. They catch a bunch of fish. It’s moments like these—on the river with fathers and sons— that make the sport of flyfishing so cool. Unfortunately, these moments are hard to capture on TV. And the ads? Lots of male anxiety stuff. There was one for the Hair Club for Men, and another for Enzyte, that “natural male enhancement” product (will it make you cast longer, too?). We flyfishermen are, apparently, a pretty insecure bunch.

There were other shows I watched as well. Over on ESPN2, Operation Outdoors aired a touching segment about a wounded Iraq veteran, who insists he’s now an even better flytier with his prosthetic hand. Flyfishing for him was a means of recovery, both physically and emotionally. It was pretty nice, but from watching other episodes of the show, flyfishing is not the program’s primary concontinued on next page ...

41

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Alas, I did find a handful of stuff. The first was on Versus, a show called LL Bean Guide to the Outdoors. The segment I watched turned out to be about LL Bean, the company itself. Imagine that? The conceit of this particular episode was that the host, Tim Rajeff, was to standin as an LL Bean casting model. Rajeff is deservedly known as one of the greatest fly casters in the world. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that he’s also a pretty good TV show host, full of energy and self-deprecation.

At one point, Rajeff told the camera that he had to go do his makeup. Without missing a beat, Bean’s fashion shoot director glanced at Rajeff ’s cue ball-smooth dome and quipped “especially your hair.”

Rajeff and the head of Bean’s rod development fished in Freeport’s harbor and caught schoolie bass that were kindergarten-small. Viewers did learn a couple of interesting facts during the show: of the 4,700-odd photographs taken in a week-long shoot, only 70 or so actually make it into the catalogue. Also, did you know that Bean ships more than 200,000 packages a day during the Christmas season? The show was sponsored in part by Chevrolet, so viewers were subjected to that maddening John Mellencamp song with the refrain that goes: “This is ouuuuuuur country!” It’s probably ringing through your head at this very moment. Sorry about that.

feature

cern. Then there’s The Huntley Way on Versus, a show that’s supposed to produce humor by having two hosts with vastly different personalities. Huntley Ritter is supposedly a Hollywood actor, a young, impatient guy obsessed with the latest outdoor gadgetry. He’s paired with the gray-haired Ronnie Hall, supposedly a grizzled outdoor veteran, who fishes bamboo and ties his own flies. The segment I watched was filmed in the Holy Lands of Montana, on the Madison, Gallatin and Yellowstone. The show is very well shot. It also has “personality,” I guess. But the whole “young versus old” theme seemed pretty contrived, and the give and take between the two hosts felt like that of a staged reality show.

To be sure, in the past there have been some very good flyfishing shows. The Complete Angler, a show about James Prosek tracing the life of Isaak Walton, aired back in 2003. ESPN spent some money on it and it showed. The filmmaking was sublime, filled with beautiful, slow shots of the English countryside. The narration was excellent, almost poetic. And a few years back, ESPN also aired In Search of Flywater, for which Curt Gowdy was brought back as a host. It

starred Jim Costolnick, a cheery Catskill flyfishing guide, and Karen Graham, a former fashion model who possesses that old Hollywood glowing-blonde type of beauty. The show retraced many of the steps of the old American Sportsman. It was expensive and well-shot, but it didn’t survive for too long on the air.

I started to wonder: why did flyfishing shows leave so much to be desired? Perhaps the novelty has worn off and the world is indeed flatter. Many fishermen these days have traveled to these far-off exotic places, or at the very least, have read extensively about them. Also, I could never shake one inviolable fact about these shows: they’re on when I should be out there actually doing it. An easy metaphor would be to liken them to another form of videotaped entertainment that instills in the viewer an overpowering urge to actually be doing what’s filmed, rather than merely observing it. But since I have no experience with these types of shows (ahem), I’m unable to really make the parallel (cough, cough).

But perhaps it’s more than that.

Flyfishing shows, by their innate voyeuristic nature, may never be good enough. I think in a frighten-

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ing way, they play to our increasingly urban and suburban lives, outsourcing our experience with nature, furthering an ever-growing disconnection. And like all TV, the shows are centered around the money shot. In the NFL, that’s a hard hit. In baseball, it’s the home run. But to me, holding a suffocating fish up for a camera (video or still) is usually my least favorite part of hooking, playing and releasing a fish. The strategy, the patience, the luck, the pleasant jolt of a strong take, and the pull of a heavy fish in the net are much more pleasing.

And the old cliché about “just being out there” is an old cliché for good reason: Television is, and always has been, a poor conveyer of inner life, of any feeling that is neither explicitly physical or emotional.

Like it does with baseball, TV has a hard time covering the entire flyfishing “field,” of capturing all of the nuances. Like baseball, flyfishing is a “game” played at a drowsy pace, interspersed with quick moments of exhilarating action. Only nifty editing can give a fishing show the adrenaline required for TV. I once read an essay by nature writer Bill McKibben, written for Esquire magazine in the early 1990s, just as cable TV was spreading across the nation like some drug-resistant superbug. It was a passionate critique of our increasingly sedate and sedentary lives spent sitting in front of a box, watching experiences and not having them for ourselves. McKibben ended the essay with this zinger: “No one ever lay on their deathbed wishing they had watched more Matlock.” I could never say it better myself. In the end, flyfishing may never be a perfect TV sport. And that’s a big reason why I love it. at

feature

Video Killed the (Lame Cable Fishing Show) Star Written by Will Rice

You don’t need to be a marketing genius or retail guru to connect the dots between the buzz generated by the digital flyfishing video boom and the propensity that this form of media has to impact our sport.

For many other outdoor and action sports like skiing, snowboarding, and surfing, the digital train has long ago left the station. It would appear that the flyfishing industry has just recently purchased a ticket to ride, but momentum is building. Now it’s just a matter of making the decision to hop on board or simply get out of the way.

Where this train is going and how it impacts the niches of the flyfishing market is very much in the hands of the entire industry—shop owners, equipment and gear manufacturers, outfitters, lodge owners and booking agents—as well as the video producers themselves. After all, this whole phenomenon is being pushed along by a rapidly expanding group of young and creative independent filmmakers who have decided to break away from the ho-hum and stale Saturday morning format, instead venturing into (literally) uncharted territory.

If flyfishing is to find its Warren Miller clone—or at least a reasonable equivalent—it may come from the Angling Exploration Group’s (AEG) Fly Fishing Film Tour. Last year’s inaugural tour featured eight independent short films shown in 29 cities across the United States. According to Thad Robison of AEG, the tour drew more then 5,000 attendees and jam-packed a number of large theatre venues in cities such as Spokane, Bozeman, Missoula, Seattle, 43

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

Put simply, digital video is a media form with the potential to change the landscape of the flyfishing industry. Visually demonstrating a sport vs. describing it in writing has a proven historical track record of success. As a case in point, look to skiing, a sport whose parallels with fishing extends right down to the fact that many people are immersed in both. Many agree that the single most enriching element in the history of the American skiing industry has been the collection of Warren Miller ski films. Can video do the same for flyfishing? Stay tuned.

That promise rests with the ability digital video to both light a spark with nonanglers and generate a surge of excitement that causes veterans to take a trip or buy more sophisticated gear—both a product of the heightened intensity of the visual image.

feature

Salt Lake City and Boulder. The 2008 Fly Fishing Film tour kicks off in January with a sharp upswing to 70 venues; sponsors are anticipating more than 25,000 attendees.

It’s a proposed rocket ride that cries out for greater industry participation. Supporting these filmmakers while capitalizing on the recent demand for digital content can be simple and cost effective.

“I think if you’re a local shop and want to get started, go out and buy one of those big plasma screens and start playing some of these movies,” said Tom Bie, editor of The Drake magazine and the guy behind this year’s Fly Fishing Video Awards, the unofficial highlight of the Denver Fly Fishing Retailer Expo.

“It can be that simple. I guarantee your customers will like what they see.”

For this medium to progress, become more professional, and expand its reach to customers, these filmmakers say they’ll need more industry support.

“When we first started approaching fly shops about carrying our DVD’s many were very hesitant,” said Robison. “They told us stories of products sitting on shelves for months at a time. Some of them still had VHS tapes for sale, collecting dust. They never had heard of flyfishing entertainment like this and unfortunately lots of folks just didn’t get it.”

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

To date, the two Trout Bum Diary videos have sold over 18,000 copies worldwide.

“We did have a few shops that took the risk. Ron and Kristin Torda, owners of All About the Fly (www.allaboutthefly.com), in Monroe, Washington, were believers from the beginning.

Their small shop showed the first Trout Bum Diaries all day every day on their TV, and in the first 4 months of the release they sold nearly 70 copies.”

Another more qualitative testament to the momentum of digital video was this year’s “Five Minutes of Flyfishing Film Awards” hosted by The Drake. To say this off-shoot of the retailer show drew a capacity crowd is an understatement. This 44

high-energy event, now in its second year, has a track record of showcasing the most cutting-edge flyfishing video content.

Twelve videos, all five minutes in length, were queued up on a digital projector and, by the time the show started, the jampacked room was ready to go off like a bottle rocket.

The lights dimmed and within the first few frames of ‘See the Take’ (by isuckatflyfishing.com) the crowd erupted. As a ferociously large Chilean brown trout moved off a mossy bank in pursuit of a giant streamer the crowd reached fever pitch.

The action was captured on high definition video and slowed down in a way in which you could hear your own teeth grind in anticipation of the strike. There is something to be said of a movie presentation that can make a roomful of sometimes cranky shop guys, equally salty fishing guides, and hardened industry veterans scream and cheer at their top of their lungs.

“What we tried to put together is not really a new concept. It is a new concept for flyfishing—but surfing, skateboarding, skiing and snowboarding all have similar events,” Bie said after the show.

“We received three times the number of entries in 2007 than we did in our first year. I think any event that fosters creativity in this sport and generates this type of new and improved video content is great. All of these advances in digital media and film quality are just getting started. We’ve just barely scratched the surface.”

Truthfully, the event was a showcase of mixed talents, some polished, others, clearly amateur. But the fact remains that the representative audience thirsted (as shown by its enthusiastic response) for anything that represented the raw essence of the sport, as alternatives to the “I love me-TV” offerings that often buy their way into mainstream cable and satellite television.

Some of the industry’s leading manufacturers are taking note and supporting the digital video movement.

“It’s a great event and a highlight of the FFR schedule. The high points are the films and the viewer response,” said Jim Bartschi of Scott Fly Rods, a sponsor of Bie’s event from its

genesis. “We’ve been involved with digital media from its inception and we’ll continue to stay involved. People in our community are often the creators and participants in these media. It maps well to who we are as individuals and the brand.” Digital media doesn’t just mean DVD sales and traveling theatre engagements. Not surprisingly, flyfishing videos have quickly made their way to the Web. “There is no question that video is going to be the next shot in the arm for the fishing industry,” said John Dietsch, founder and CEO of Hook.tv, an Internet website with a very similar user interface as the wildly popular YouTube.com.

Dietsch perhaps is best known as the director behind the flyfishing shots in the film A River Runs Through It. He

describes his new venture as an Internet engine that provides the web infrastructure for angler, retailers, and manufactures to deliver content to the masses.

“People always ask me when I’m going to work on another movie like A River Runs Through It?’ Hook.tv is my answer to that question.”

On Hook.tv, users can upload, download and search digital content that is specific to flyfishing. Content can be accessed from a PC, and even a wireless phone or hand-held device.

“This month, we’re projecting 250,000500,000 individual page views. In a year, our goal is to have 1.5 million.”

The content creation revolution has begun. How you participate is up to you. From a technology standpoint, the barriers to entry are coming down.

It doesn’t cost much to invest in a quality digital video or high-definition camera. Software programs like iMovie make the editing process easier than you might expect. From a consumer perspective, sites like YouTube.com make finding specific places, species, and even people fast and efficient. Even as you read this article, filmmakers are developing new content to capture the excitement and spirit of flyfishing.

All of these factors are leading up to an explosion in new content by new filmmakers who are going to present flyfishing to new audiences—those fresh faces who next will appear at the door of a fly shop. The digital train has left the station. It will be up to the industry as a whole to decide whether it wants to get on board … but, for now, you can make your own reservation. at

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BACKCAST

Maybe what they say about the fly-

fishing business is true after all—that part about it being populated with people more attuned to the roar of the river than the tinkling of the cash register.

Instead of the nitty gritty of commerce, some shop owners—or at least the minions to whom they entrust their precious customer contact—have their minds on something wild and far off.

There’s been considerable discussion lately concerning a lagging level of service at specialty shops, particularly since that element generally is trumpeted as the most effective weapon against the incursion of Big Box stores. Now comes evidence that service neglect may be endemic to the industry as a whole, with origins higher up the food chain.

How else does one explain the result of a survey at the September Fly Fishing Retailer Expo in which manufacturers—the folks who might be presumed to set the industry standard—failed miserably on a basic service exam?

In a groundbreaking ploy it pledges to continue, the American Fly Fishing Trade Association’s (AFFTA) board of directors hired a “Secret Shopper” to patrol the showroom, rating each exhibitor on several points of booth design, flow and, of course, service. The sleuth, a 25-year veteran of outdoor retail, will remain nameless because AFFTA plans to use him again next year.

“The thing that stood out was how bad customer service was in general,” declared Mr. Shopper, who made these observations: • “It was amazing how may times people in the booth didn’t even acknowledge me. They just stood with their arms crossed, no smile, not even a word of greeting.”

AnglingTrade.com / December 2007

• “I went to the front table of one booth four separate times and there was no one there. When I finally found someone at the desk, they couldn’t locate the rep.”

• “It often was hard to tell who the workers in the booth were.”

• “Some booths didn’t even have signs. It was hard to tell what they were selling. Some signs actually were misleading.”

When final marks were tallied, certain exhibitors stood out. Secret Shopper ranked Scientific Anglers tops 46

among larger booths, 400 square feet or more, with Orvis in second place. Among smaller booths, Fisherman Eyewear ranked first, just ahead of Original Buff.

Mr. Shopper’s advice: • “Wear company shirts so workers can be identified.”

• “Arrange the display to show what’s meaningful or unique.”

• Above all, talk to somebody. “If you’re going to have a booth and spend all that money, at least engage someone.”

The survey was intended as a guide for exhibitors, but many of these same components can be transposed to the microcosm of the specialty shop. In the last issue of Angling Trade, an article about Cabela’s contained a stinging rebuke to specialty shop rivals.

Asked whether he was worried he’d be recognized when he scouted the specialty competition prior to opening a new store, Fred Neal, Cabela’s director of fishing and marine products, made this comment: “You could take a picture and they’d never notice you.”

Of course, not every shop has a problem with customer connection. But an absence of basic, early contact with the people who walk through the door is prevalent in the business. As previously announced, this magazine will conduct its own Secret Shopper campaign as a regular feature. Don’t be surprised if a rating of your shop shows up in print.

As a general theme, this issue of Angling Trade offers a broad tutorial on how to use new media as an impetus to sales growth. These are exciting concepts aimed at bringing flyfishing nearer the forefront in consumer marketing.

But after all the cyber dust has settled, one basic truism lingers. The No. 1 media is and shall forever remain your level of service to each customer who walks in the door or dials your phone.

As someone observed at a Retailer Expo seminar, “If your spouse puts you on hold and doesn’t talk to you, it doesn’t take Dr. Phil to tell you your marriage is in trouble.”

At the end of each cyber day, nothing matters if service doesn’t happen in the shop. at - Charlie Meyers, Editor-at-Large

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