R3 Through Marketing via Pilot States
Strategic Priority
Recruitment, Retention, Reactivation (R3) - Marketing
Project Description
Marketing is an effective way to accomplish R3. The fish and wildlife community is learning this and beginning to see what agencies can do and how much should be invested in marketing. Furthermore, with the new allowances in WSFR since PR modernization passed, new ways to fund marketing in states have not been available. Therefore, information on effective marketing techniques to accomplish R3 is timely and much needed. With over 40 states' fish and wildlife agency members who are practitioners of marketing and R3, ACI has a primary goal of advancing agency communication abilities. Since PR Modernization, ACI has garnered 2 MSCG grants to accomplish R3 through marketing: the 2020 and 2021 Effective R3 Marketing Strategies. For these 2 MSCG awards, ACI led five completed state projects from the 2020 grant and is currently leading five more pilot states through funding from the 2021 grant to innovate and continually improve R3 via new marketing techniques. ACI has helped these states with little prior resources directed toward marketing invest in these activities and see the value that marketing can bring to these efforts. So far, the ten states involved have learned a lot through these pilot projects and are sharing their case studies with others in the community. If we want all agencies to continue adopting marketing as an integral method to accomplish R3, we must continue these efforts! This project will further develop the practices for states to innovate and continually improve R3 marketing techniques. Using the 2020 and 2021 awarded R3 marketing funds, ACI established a committee, and 10 states put $50,000 each toward marketing tactics to accomplish R3. In awarding the 2021 grantees, there were 15 exceptional proposals, of which we could only fund 5. This year, we propose to fund the next 5 top scoring applications from 2021. Funding these previously submitted proposals ensures that we have "shovel-ready" projects that rise to the level of evaluation and innovation needed. It also awards those who have already spent time and effort planning their R3 marketing. Below are the five States we plan to select and a brief description of their projects:
Alabama – Targeting new gun owners through location and audience-based ads
Michigan – Retaining new hunters from COVID cohort via digital tactics
Kansas – Hispanic outreach for R3 in places with a 50%+ Hispanic population
Kentucky – Retaining surge of female hunters via specialized marketing
Florida – Turning anglers into hunters
Project Facts
- Organization Name: Wildlife Management Institute, Inc
- Organization Status: NGO classified as 501(c)(3)
- State: Pennsylvania
- Obligation: $259,377
- Start Date: 01-01-2022
- End Date: 12-31-2022
Results
5 states were granted funds to complete their projects. All of the states ran their campaigns as proposed and did so successfully. All case studies are now posted to the R3 Clearinghouse, and states use them to replicate and learn from them.
Kansas – created landing pages in Spanish; created 6 versions of Facebook ads; created over 20 versions of Google ads (Google changes ads based on photos/text entered into their ads manager and based on the profile of the person viewing so that a woman in her 20s gets a different ad than a man in his 50s). These ads got 1.6 million impressions over the campaign.
Kentucky – created squirrel and deer hunting dedicated pages and several ads featuring women for placement on Facebook/Instagram and YouTube. The reach of these ads was 6.7 million impressions in total.
Florida – worked with an influencer to generate hunting content to feature on all their owned communications channels from website to social and beyond. The ads they created and posts they boosted on Facebook/Instagram resulted in 1.6 million impressions. They also had 275,926 views on YouTube with the content created.
Alabama – The lifetime license campaign placed in Alabama showed it wasn’t working. After they create a new online process for purchasing a lifetime license, they will reengage with this campaign. This grant was a great catalyst in getting the lifetime license process put online!
Michigan – Created ads and website landing pages, then placed ads for their event that was in partnership with Hunters of Color. The ad campaign resulted in 4.8 million impressions.
