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Steve Evatt How to be Visible

Steve Evatt How to be Visible. So lets as we talked in the warmup Steve you’re really a niche person you do some things really well. In the next five minutes let’s share with the listeners how you serve the outdoor industry.

“It’s an honor to work with Steve and harness his knowledge of what works and doesn’t work in marketing the outdoor and firearm industry,” said Eric Sivertsen, CEO/Partner of Epicosity. “He brings a wealth of experience and proven insights that are invaluable to those looking to grow their businesses.”

Steve: Okay, well first off a little bit of background. I was 21 years with FMG Publications, I was the advertising manager of American Handgunner magazine, so I’ve been around the industry for a long time coming up on my 25th Shot Show here in January pretty soon. So been doing this for awhile. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

Three years ago I went out on my own and started my own little niche company

Three years ago I went out on my own and started my own little niche company just simply called Evatt Marketing, and what I do is one thing and one thing only and that is I put companies products together with qualified writers both in the print media and the new media, digital and I make it happen for companies that especially if they’re a small company that maybe has just a great product but they don’t know how to get it out there they can’t afford a big advertising campaign, but they need eyeballs on the products. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

This is what I do I step in and introduce them to one of my 200 or so writers and bloggers, there’s several of them, I try and get 10 of their products out a month to various writers if they could afford to have that much product out, so that’s basically what I do. I’m a facilitator of product reviews. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

I’m a facilitator of product reviews

Bruce: And I asked Steve how much hunting he did and he said he killed some hogs. And Steve’s 21 years advertising manager of American Handgunner Magazine so he sorta kinda knows the industry a little bit folks. I’m just thinking of many, many of my guests they got a product and I can’t start naming them because I can’t name 250 or that’ll go the whole show, but the thing is, that if you have a product, and you an idea that you put together, cobbled together, Steve may be the person that can help you get started as far as fees and all that, that’s all up to Steve. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

But the interesting thing and why I wanted him on the show is because I met so many of you and I know so many of you guys and gals have some great ideas and great product that just needs a boost. And social media’s great, digital marketing’s great, Amazon is great, and it goes on and on and on. But when you look at a guy like Steve, Steve let’s talk about the first thing you bring to the table. Writers and bloggers, how does all that work? Steve Evatt How to be Visible

Writers and bloggers, how does all that work?

Steve: Well, over the past three years in working with Epicocity which is a full-service agency out of South Dakota, they’re one of my clients. I have developed a list of writers, bloggers, You Tubers, people that I’ve met at Shot Show, get recommendations from other writers and of course I know a lot of the print writers because I was with FMG for so long, and of course we always hob-nobbed with all the people, unfortunately, Harris is gone, but now they’re being taken over by somebody else and I think a lot of their writers are coming back and we’ll have those back on board again. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

And of course, I know the people at Inter media and those kind of things. So what I do is I put out a general call every month of all of my clients when I add new clients I put in descriptions of their products and I send that out to all 200 of my current list of those product reviewers and if they’re interested or they’re working on something that might jump out at them if they want to do a little piece on them or they want to play with and see what happens and the only thing that I require of the writers is that they actually do something on it or if God forbid, there’s a problem, they let us know beforehand before they write anything on it so that we have an opportunity, at least my companies that I represent have an opportunity to fix or repair whatever is the problem before they bash it, so to speak. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

I try and vet all the writers to make sure that they’re not just looking to get an audience by being vicious about things there are some guys out there like that. They’re just not part of my group. And I also want to make sure that they’re just not looking for free things. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

Because I have to protect my clients’ interests as well too

Because I have to protect my clients’ interests as well too. And on the client responsibility that when they send a product out once it’s been reviewed I never expect the reviewer to have to pay to ship it back. Especially for say a gun or something like that. So we always make sure that the gun companies and whatever they send a pickup label so that it doesn’t cost the writer anything after he or she has done reviewing the product. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

Bruce: Okay, so I’ve got a friend down in Florida that has a product and so he goes, “Boy, this might help me.” So walk me through it. So I call you, let’s take it away from somebody else because like I said I can’t name everybody. So I’ve got a product and I call it Bruce’s Swish for lack of a [inaudible 00:05:50] thing. And it’s an outdoor product and it’s helpful when you’re doing long-range glassing for sheep, I just came off a sheep hunt so I’m thinking about this product. So I’m developing a product I bring it to force, I get a bill and I say, “Hey, I’ve done a product that’ll help you steady your optics.” In the field. NEA. So what happens now?

“Hey, I’ve done a product that’ll help you steady your optics.

Steve: So what I would do is I would ask you to supply me with a one sheet, which is basically just a spec sheet. Hopefully, it has some good photos or whatever of the product but lets the writer know exactly what this will do and then I just make sure that I have a contact name at your company, you might have a person in the back office that’s gonna be taking my emails to fulfill the orders. But what I do is I send that one sheet out to all of my writers and ask them if they’re interested and let them take a look at it and if any of them are interested they email back to me saying,

“Yeah, Steve I wanna do something on that next month so let’s get it rolling now.” And I send an email to your representative at Bruce’s company saying, “Please meet writer XYZ he works for a website called XYZ and he would like to review the new product for sheep hunting.” And I have the address for them already and all they have to do is send the product to ’em. The writer will get it, review it, he or she lets me know by sending me a link when the product has been reviewed and the post is up regardless of what medium it’s been put up on and I send that on to your company and let you know.

And then if we like you could share it on your website and that’s basically it. It’s a pretty simple process. I don’t send the products out myself I just connect the company and the reviewer.

Bruce: Yeah you connect the dots with 21 years of service, you know some people in the outdoor industry and so I’m enamored of this because with so many people and necessity is the mother of invention and so many guys are tree stand, ground blinds, we got handicapped, disabled people hunting, youth hunting, so there’s a myriad of products available and as you and I talked in the warmup, people just don’t know how to bring it to market.

I can think of 20,30,50 almost 100 different people that I’ve come in contact with over the last 18 months that it would be good to talk to. So how does somebody get in touch with you, Steve? What’s the best way to get in touch with you?

Steve? What’s the best way to get in touch with you

Steve: The best way is simply to drop me an email line and it’s [email protected] and I’ll be more than happy to return your email as soon as I get it. I’m especially looking for new writers that I can add to my list, not new writers, but writers that I don’t know about, so if you haven’t worked with me before and you’d like to be a part of my reviewing list I’d love to talk with you.

And I’m also looking for, like I said, companies that need help. I’ll give you a quick example of one that was really kind of a fun one to work on and talk about tiny, these guys make one thing. It’s two retired cops. They make one thing and one thing only. They make a notched-out 1911 hammer. The way it’s been cut it reduces the amount of strength it takes to pull back the slide on a notoriously hard to pull slide of a 1911, any 1911 it doesn’t matter the caliber. Any 1911 this thing’ll work on. And it really is a godsend to older guys like me who’ve lost some upper body strength or for people who have some disabilities that maybe have a hard time with the 1911 slide. And also women, a lot of women have a real hard time with a 1911 slide and understandably so.

They are very hard to pull back. So the Cammer Hammer is the answer to their problems. Well, I had this reviewed by Bob Boyd at Shooting Illustrated and if anybody knows Bob he’s a great guy, he’s in a wheelchair, he’s the editor of Shooting Illustrated and he loved it. And he said it really worked like a charm for him, it made it a lot easier on him. So that’s the kind of company that I’m working for. Somebody that has maybe a niche little thing that they need some help getting the word out on and I’d love to help ’em.

Bruce: And folks, since we’ve been launched August 31, 2015, about 68,000 of you have downloaded and listened to the show and again we all wanna move the ball forward, we all wanna become better hunters we all wanna have the best gear available. We wanna have gear that works. And to me, again that’s why Steve’s on the show is because here’s an avenue because I’ve got some thoughts on just about anything just ask me. That’s a joke, folks. But to start meeting professionals I’m going to ATA in January, Steve, do you go to Shot Show? I know you go to Shot Show, do you go to ATA also?

Steve: I used to go to ATA years ago when I did some work shooting industry on their advertising but now it’s usually Shot Show, NRA, the NASCW, the wholesaler’s show. I do IWA in Germany every year and those are my main ones.

Bruce: Okay, so when you go to the Shot Show when you see a new product that’s stuck in the back room, they’re not on the main floor, they’re just stuck someplace. They’re at the Shot Show, though. How do you help those guys? Or what’s your approach with that?

Steve: Well, what I do with them is find out a little bit about the product, talk with them about it, they’re always happy to chat up about it, and if they’re interested I let ’em know what I do, give ’em my card and I take their card and follow up with ’em to see if they are interested. I send them a sample agreement of what I do with all of my customers, it’s very simple, straightforward but there’s no surprises.

I’m gonna try and get 10 products out for you and in return, all you need to do is make sure that you get it to the writer in a timely fashion and pay for the shipping to get it back from ’em or keep it, whatever you wanna do with it. But it’s pretty straightforward it’s pretty simple.

Bruce: Now do you do consulting as I’m thinking, my Swish product for sheep hunting, and I go, “Gee, I’m a busy guy, I got a job, wife, kids a dog, the whole thing and I love to go hunting, but it’s here I don’t know how to market it.” Do you do that also?

Steve: I will recommend certain people. It depends on their income if they’re very small then I have people that do things that I can’t do. I am not a guy that can put together a printout or a digital ad, that’s not my forte I just don’t do it. But of course if they need larger marketing then, of course, I send them to Epicocity who I’ve worked with for three years now and they’re a great company and they know their stuff and that’s the kind of company you want to be with if you’ve got the buck for it.

Bruce: So you can help somebody and say, “I don’t do this but I’ll help you get to the right people.”

Steve: Absolutely.

Bruce: So you can get a road map or action steps or whatever you want to call it to say, “Hey, you’re here today, this is where you wanna be because we both know that it takes three to five years to make a profit, I don’t care if you’re selling gold. It still takes awhile. Some people are misintentioned, “Oh, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread I’ll just put it on the web and people will go to Amazon and buy it.” Eh. Not so much. Your thoughts? Steve Evatt How to be Visible

I’ve got other people that do that I can recommend to them

Steve: Yeah, and you give me an example of what I can do for ’em. It’s nothing big but this Cammer Hammer for example. They didn’t even have really a spec sheet on it, so I gave them the name of a gal that I’ve worked with for many years and she does one thing only too, and that’s like put up PRs and make one sheets, sale sheets for people. And she’s every inexpensive it’s $150 I think, so for $150 I have professionally made sheets ordered of course the [inaudible 00:14:44] pays for that, but now they have that that they can use on their sales efforts, but it’s also something that I can send out to my clients on the Cammer Hammer. So if they need a video done or something like that then we can go up the ladder and I’ve got other people that do that I can recommend to them. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

this is why I like to help, pardon me, the little guy.

Bruce: Let’s talk about the outdoor industry. You mentioned in the warm up about helping the little guys out because they never get seen. Share some tips right now if you can that hey, you got the idea, you got a product, now we’re kinda talking about all time, but let’s drill down and really specifically say, okay, this is why I like to help, pardon me, the little guy. Steve Evatt How to be Visible

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