Marketing To Women in Fishing and The Outdoors

Grow your customer base by a possible 30% using these tactics
Alyssa Lloyd
By Alyssa Lloyd

Alyssa is a photojournalist and angler based out of Kenora, Ontario.

Last Updated: March 5, 2019

If you feel as though you don’t have many women visiting your business or haven’t targeted them in marketing as much as you could, you’re certainly not alone.

Having a hard time figuring out where to begin? We can help you.

Marketing to women is often underused or confused with over complicated strategies in the outdoors industry. But it doesn't have to be that difficult, and you shouldn't let possible consumers get away because of it.

Read the benefits below, but pay close attention to the Presence section and you’ll be off to a good start.

The benefits of marketing to women as a business are endless, with the chance of gaining new loyal customers being the best outcome. It can also be incredibly positive for your business on a smaller scale–– and it certainly doesn't hurt to be on the right side of history.

Here are some reasons you should start targeting an additional 30% of your possible market today.

BENEFITS

  • Any presence of women will immediately garner attention to your brand over others. You will stand apart, whether you’re hoping for more male consumers or female, you will stand out and that’s half the battle of marketing.

  • They are keen to be taken seriously and will have more respect for your brand and business.

  • It's an effective way to make a noticeable difference to your business model and attract new clientele.

  • You can appeal to women in multiple ways just as you do men, whether it's for a "girls trip," and solo trip, a romantic getaway with a spouse, a radical group adventure or sharing a bonding trip with kids. (Mother/Daughter trips are vastly undersold even though there is a real market for them).

  • Women are the fastest growing demographic in the fishing and hunting industry. Surpassing men and young boys by a very large margin. This makes them the number one consumer priority in our market right now. 

  • Women are now teaching young children about fishing and the outdoors more than men.

Now that we've gone through the benefits of marketing to women, let's touch on why you should absolutely do it, it’s simple - more business!

WHAT WOMEN WANT

A major issue, especially in the outdoors industry is when marketers over think their campaigns and wind up doing more harm than good. It’s no secret that most advertising to women is insincere, demeaning, or just plain negative. Here are three major complaints across the board from women:

1) Patronizing or using lack of experience as a tactic, they're not all beginners

2) Altering the experience because they are a woman. Do not assume they want cozier lodging or easier experiences than your male clientele.

3) “I never see myself in advertisements for the outdoors, therefore I never see myself doing those things.”

The number one rule of marketing is making your consumer see themselves using your product, visiting your area, experiencing your adventures, etc. It is no different with women in the outdoors, put them in the frame.

Which brings us to the first way you can improve your marketing towards women. Presence.

PRESENCE

If you're not targeting women in your social media, brochures, websites, etc., you're simply missing out on the most important tactic for marketing to women.

We're not saying you need to flood all of your feeds and advertisements with media of women. It’s so much simpler than that. Think about the photos and posts you'll share to appeal to men. Now place a woman in them. It can really be as simple as that.

Posting regular photos of women and young girls enjoying your lodge, the fishing, swimming, relaxing, will appeal to a larger spectrum of women. After all, women are their own identities, they don’t all fall under the same niche, a common mistake that marketers make with stereotypes.

KICK STEREOTYPES TO THE CURB

Do we really need to market to women differently? Short answer, no.

When we start thinking about women as individuals who have just as many wants and requirements as men for fishing trips, we’ll be farther ahead.

Simply put, one blanket can’t cover them all. 

Don’t market to them as if they’re all beginners. You can be a beginner friendly lodge without making those assumptions in every example of your captions or advertisements towards women. Those types of campaigns make the wrong types of waves.

Some women are adrenaline junkies looking into advanced solo fly-in paddling expeditions, one may want to experience adventure at a boat-in outpost, and perhaps others want the convenience of having a town with shopping nearby.

As a lodge, say you’re interested in booking more weeklong trips into your private outpost. Use this opportunity to share a photo of a woman enjoying her solace as opposed to a man, suddenly you’ve marketed towards a woman and all it took was letting the photo speak for itself.

Captions such as “Are you ready for an escape?” or “It’s about time I answered my other line” with female subjects as opposed to male subjects are just as clever and endearing. They also have very high share-ability on social media. See Below:

It truly is as simple as creating a presence for women to see where they belong in the bigger picture.

WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR AUDIENCE

To start, you don’t have to change a thing about how you market to women as opposed to how you market to men. However, you may want to expand where you share your marketing. 

Almost 80% of users on Pinterest are female. That is an incredibly focused market for you to target right off the bat. Women often use Pinterest as a resource for things they are specifically after. “Canadian Vacation” may be a common search or "Fishing Vacation”. You can have some fun with captioning like “Adventurous Girls Trips” or “Ladies Vacations” for those looking for inspiration on different trip ideas. 

Using keyword heavy captions for your pins with appealing photos will do wonders on Pinterest. It’s also free.

Another platform to consider is using a blog on your website to share in-depth experiences at your lodge. 

A study by Bustle found that 81% of female millennials connect with brands better using social media platforms split almost evenly between Instagram and Facebook. This is a great way for them to find brands and companies that reflect their lifestyles and you’ll gain followers and word of mouth through these platforms. There are more stats below on what content women will share more of on platforms like these.

HOW DO YOU REPRESENT THEM WELL

If you’re keen on sharing more content with women, but you want more information on how to represent them properly while still being appealing, here are some tips below.

  • Share women of all ages, shapes, sizes and races.
  • Share photos of young girls having the times of their life.
  • Share mothers, daughters, wives, girlfriends, single women, and groups of women.
  • Share beginner and avid anglers alike

In other words, don’t focus all of your attention on one age group or mold such as mothers, because you’ll miss out on so many other opportunities to appeal to women coming from different walks of life.

IN CONCLUSION

Lastly, have some faith in yourself. Women do a lot of research when it comes to trips and products, comparatively more than men. If they’ve found or are seeing your page, they’ve likely already decided they want to do a fishing trip. Your only job is now to show them themselves in your adventure and make them feel welcome.

We just need more content that enriches and entertains the smart independent women of the 21st century. A goal we'll be striving for ourselves at Sunset Country while also including our faithful clientele. As we know, the industry is shifting and it's up to us to keep up to it.

SOME IDEAS FOR ADVANCED MARKETING INSPIRATION:

  • Consider inviting female talent, whether an angler, social media influencer, writer or YouTuber to visit your lodge and share their experience.

  • A study by NewsCred determined 70% of women will share content that makes them laugh and 30% of women will refuse to read content that doesn’t enrich them in any way, whether that be for entertainment or research.

  • Women will typically research more than men, blogs and stories shared on your site and social media platforms may stick out more. Make them specific, about lodging, food, fish species, etc.

  • Need a blog post idea? If you have female workers at your accommodations or business, treat them to a day of the adventures you offer your guests. Once they are done, let them share their experiences through blog posts as mentioned above. People love stories from people in the areas they are going to and you’ll be surprised how quickly your staff will become recognizable to them when they visit.

 

CONTACT US

If you’re interested in discussing some more advanced marketing tactics for women in the outdoors, or you’d just like to touch on points in this article, please feel free to contact Alyssa or Erin at the Sunset Country office.

We’re happy to brainstorm with you, help you with blog posts, using platforms such as Pinterest and more. 

Some more resources: