5 Highly Effective Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Outdoor Business in 2025
Marketing can be hard to tackle. Especially if you’re a small business owner trying to figure it out all by yourself.
Whether you’re trying to increase sales, improve conversion rates, or get more website traffic — you can use these five tried and true strategies to expand your brand’s reach.
Here are the 5 marketing strategies we’ll cover:
Targeted marketing
Email marketing
Optimizing your website for SEO
Blogging
Podcasting
Ready? Let’s dive in.
Identify and Target a Specific Audience
Let’s start with the basics. If you haven’t identified your target audience, you NEED to start with this. It will make a huge difference in the success of all the marketing strategies you try.
According to Semrush, a target audience “is a group of people that products, services, or marketing efforts are aimed toward, typically defined by traits like age, gender, income, interests, challenges, and goals.”
With this in mind, many companies create what is called a buyer persona or marketing persona. This is an in-depth description of a fictional personality who represents your target audience.
It paints a picture of exactly who your messaging will be aimed towards.
An important advantage of having that target audience is that you can identify what their pain points are. What are they struggling with? What problems do they have?
And then you can use your messaging to address those pain points. By showing them how your business can help alleviate the problem and make their lives better.
When you work on the overall marketing strategy for your outdoor business, get specific. Speak directly to your target audience.
Benefits of a Target Audience
Targeting a specific audience has great benefits for your brand. Using targeted marketing strategies for your outdoor business can lead to:
Gaining 20% increase in sales by generating higher-quality leads
Increased click-through rates for your ads by up to 670%
Stronger customer loyalty (aka long-lasting relationships, where your customers come back again and again)
Your business stands out from your competition — giving your leads a reason to choose YOU over someone else
It might seem backward to target a smaller group of people in order to get higher profits. But niching down on your market actually gives your business a higher chance of success.
How Do You Identify A Target Audience For Your Outdoor Business?
There are several ways to go about choosing a target audience. Keep in mind what kind of people would benefit the most from finding your brand. Here are some questions to get you thinking about who your target market could be for your outdoor brand:
What industry does my ideal customer work in?
How does my ideal customer communicate? (what platforms/tone of voice)
Where does my ideal customer live?
What problems does my ideal customer live with? (these are their pain points)
How old is my ideal customer?
The answers to these questions change the type of messaging you’ll use. Different communication styles would appeal to a fifty-year-old male who works in the mining industry compared to a teenage girl who’s an avid hiker.
🏕️Pro Tip: If you’re stuck, you can always take a look at your existing data. Who has already bought from your business? Take note of any patterns you see in the demographics. That can give you a hint as to who you should target in future marketing efforts.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Target Marketing
✅The do’s of target marketing:
Take the time to create a customer persona
Use your customer persona to identify the pain points and desires of your ideal audience
Use those pain points and desires to attract higher-quality leads
❌The don’ts of target marketing:
Try and market to anyone and everyone — this is almost the same as marketing to no one
Don’t get so niche that your potential client pool is too small to carve out a successful business
Remember — generalizing doesn’t work as well in marketing as you might think. You need to identify your target market and tailor your messaging to them.
Summary
Create a buyer persona to figure out who your target audience is.
Targeted marketing results in 20% increase in sales and up to 670% increase in click-through rates.
Use pain points to figure out how to connect with your target market on an emotional level.
2. Grow Your Email List
To create an email list, gather email addresses from your website. Building a large email list is one of THE👏 BEST👏 things you can do for the success of your business.
In fact, an email list may be the most important part of a successful marketing strategy. It has the power to turn your leads into long-lasting and loyal customers.
Benefits of a Strong Email List
Email newsletters act as a direct line of communication. You can keep your customers aware of new offers AND nurture a relationship with them built on trust.
Especially when you combine great content with personalization for your target audience. Growing your email list:
Has an incredible ROI with every email generating about $44 for every $1 you spend 🤑
Is 40x more effective at gaining customers than Facebook and Twitter combined
Leads to customers spending 138% MORE than those who never received an email offer
Email marketing is cost effective while also having an amazing return on investment. You’ll convert more leads AND make more sales at the same time.
How Do You Build Your Email List?
Since an email list is so crucial for your outdoor business, how do you build one? First things first — you need to create some kind of incentive in order for people to want to sign up.
To grow your email list:
Offer a digital freebie that leads can get access to after entering their email address
Create an email opt-in pop-up on your website
Market the benefits of signing up for your email list on your other platforms
Once again, people need a reason to sign up for your email list. If there’s not a good enough incentive, they won’t give you their email address.
And of course — you also want to make sure you’re keeping your current leads happy. Don’t give them a reason to unsubscribe.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Growing Your Email List
✅The do’s of growing your email list:
Personalize your emails to your target audience
Create unique and on-brand email content
Use your email list to grow brand awareness & brand loyalty
❌The don’ts of growing your email list:
Buy an email list — no one likes to get spam emails they didn’t sign up for, this is NOT the way to build lasting customer relationships
Spam your leads with too many emails
Use your list only for aggressive sales-y emails (again: no one likes to feel like they’re getting spammed)
At the end of the day, the emails on your list are real people. They chose to give you a direct line to communicate with them for something in return. Don’t take advantage of that or risk losing your hard-earned leads.
Summary
A strong email list may be the MOST IMPORTANT part of a successful marketing strategy.
Email lists have a high ROI. (you make on average $44 for every $1 you spend)
Give leads the incentive to sign up with their email by giving them something in return. (like a digital freebie or coupon code)
3. Improve Your Website’s SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of refining your website’s “technical configuration, content relevance, and link popularity.” What the heck does that mean? Improving these categories of your website makes it more searchable.
The search-ability allows your website to rank higher in Google searches. And that makes it more accessible to potential leads.
According to Forbes, out of all the clicks made on desktop devices, 45.1% came from organic clicks.
Benefits of an SEO-Optimized Website
SEO isn’t only about increasing your Google ranking. It’s also about improving the user experience on your website. SEO helps:
93% of businesses experience improved website performance and marketing success
Increase your brand’s authority by providing content your leads search for
Gain 1000% more organic traffic than the average social media campaign
Leveling-up the user experience on your website with SEO to get more organic traffic. You gain these leads because they were searching for topics that relate to YOUR business. This makes them more likely to find the value in what your brand offers and continue to the next step in the customer journey.
How Do You Improve Your Website’s SEO?
The most cutting edge SEO strategies change. Technology for search engines evolve. And experts continue to discover new ways to improve SEO performance.
But, these are some things you can do to improve your website’s SEO:
Do SEO keyword research and incorporate those words/phrases into your website text
Add a blog to your website (more SEO optimized pages)
Hire a professional who knows how to do SEO
Over time, SEO improves the performance of your website. And it leads to increases lead generation.
The Do’s and Don’ts of SEO
✅The do’s of SEO:
Do SEO keyword research before creating your website content
Try and pick keywords and phrases that have low search difficulty and high search volume
Understand SEO strategy plays the long game — it will increase your organic traffic and Google ranking over time
❌The don’ts of SEO:
DO NOT engage in keyword stuffing (using the same keywords over and over again just to rank higher — it doesn’t work)
Use keywords and phrases in a way that makes your messaging sound unnatural and choppy
Expect that SEO strategy will put your website on the first page of Google overnight
Developing and implementing SEO strategy has a learning curve and takes time. But the benefits make it well worth the effort.
Summary
SEO generates 1000% more organic traffic than the average social media campaign.
You can improve SEO by conducting keyword research and adding a blog to your website.
SEO gives your website a better user experience and improves your Google ranking.
SEO strategies take time to learn and use. This may be an area where you want to outsource to a professional.
4. Blogging for Your Outdoor Business
Blogging for your outdoor business is another great long-term strategy. It allows you to carve your space in the outdoor industry. You can use word count, content strategies, and SEO research in your articles to generate new leads.
Benefits of Having a Blog on Your Website
Adding and maintaining a blog to your website increases the amount of leads you get. While at the same time earning their trust. With an active blog:
Websites have 434% more indexed pages and 97% more inbound links (both improve SEO)
Generate 67% more leads for companies that have them, as opposed to those that don’t
Benefits are compounding — blogs continue to generate new leads as long as their on your site
Your articles provide them with valuable and helpful information. Without the risk of having to buy something.
How Do You Choose Blog Topics For Your Brand?
Picking relevant blog topics is important. You want to make sure the articles bring value to your target audience. Here are some general topics you can narrow down on based on your business:
Your customers’ FAQs
How-to articles related to your products/services
Listicles (helpful lists related to your brand
News/updates about your brand
Try out a few topics and use your site analytics to see what kind of content performs the best with your audience. That way you have a baseline understanding of what your customers like and dislike.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Blogging for Your Outdoor Business
✅The do’s of business blogging:
Be consistent — aim for at least one blog post per week
Write about topics that are relevant to your business and provide value to your readers
Do SEO research before drafting your blog post
Fact check your work & site your sources
❌The don’ts of business blogging:
Write super short blogs (ideal word count is between 1500-2500 words)
Publish content that has nothing to do with your business
NEVER plagiarize someone else’s content
Adding a blog to your website is all about establishing authority in your industry, improving your SEO, and providing your leads with immediate value.
Summary
Business blogging is a great long-term strategy to boost your website’s SEO and establish authority in your industry.
Websites with active blogs generate 67% more leads compared to those with no blog.
Blogs are a powerful tool to build trust with your target audience. Because you provide them with immediate value WITHOUT the risk of making a purchase.
5. Start a Podcast For Your Outdoor Business
Podcasts allow you to reach a whole new audience and connect with your current leads in a new way. Like blogs, podcasts establish trust with your leads by providing value. And they build authority in your niche at the same time.
Benefits of Starting a Podcast
Podcasts give your business HUGE potential to reach new audiences. With a podcast:
You have less competition — only about 450,000 podcasts are active.
82.4% of people who listen to podcasts spend over 7 hours per week listening to podcasts.
The average listener listens to 8 different podcasts per week
Less competition and the potential for new leads makes this worth the try.
How Do You Start a Podcast for Your Outdoor Business?
Starting a podcast is simple and cost-effective. You don’t need to invest a ton of money to produce a good-quality podcast for your business. Here’s a list of things you will need to get started:
Have something to record episodes on (even if that’s your phone)
Choose your podcast software (where you’ll post)
Choose your editing software
Find a quiet place to record
The hardest part is taking that initial step to get started. You can invest in more advanced equipment like microphones and headphones later on. But they aren’t required for you to start.
The Do’s & Don’ts of Podcasting
✅The do’s of podcasting:
Outline your episode topics (and pick topics relevant to your business)
Promote your podcast on your existing platforms
Take the leap - start recording and learn as you go
❌The don’ts of podcasting:
Record in a spot with a lot of background noise
Think you need expensive equipment to get started
Skip the editing phase
Summary Block
You have a lot less competition in the podcasting world to stand out and get noticed.
Most people who listen to podcasts spend over 7 hours per week listening to them.
It’s super cost effective. You don’t need expensive equipment to start your podcast.
You'll build a solid foundation with these marketing strategies. And set your business up for success. You’ll start generating more leads, making more sales, and gaining credibility in no time.
It can feel like you need to be on all the digital platforms for your business to find success. Coming up with all that content takes a lot of time and energy. And then you actually have to post it, make edits, ect.
To save you time (and the massive headache) — I’ve created an ebook that shows you how to recycle your online content. This way you won’t have to lose sleep over always figuring out what you need to post next.
