If you’ve been marketing for a while, you might have noticed that the traction you once had is starting to wane. You've built a substantial email marketing list, your social media following has grown, and you've boosted online sales through organic website traffic. Yet, with the explosion of content in our industry, especially in the hunting, shooting sports, camping, and concealed carry weapon (CCW) segments, how can you breathe new life into your brand and content marketing to keep growing?

The answer lies in outdoor lifestyle marketing. By integrating your customer's narrative into your brand’s story, you can place your product into a context that transcends its features and benefits. Here’s how you can harness the power of lifestyle marketing to enhance your content strategy and engage with your audience more deeply.

Understanding Outdoor Lifestyle Marketing

To understand outdoor lifestyle marketing, we first need to define what a lifestyle is. A lifestyle encompasses habits, attitudes, beliefs, interests, opinions, ideas, and thoughts based on an individual’s unique personality.

For instance, the outdoor lifestyle can be defined by terms like adventure, freedom, family, discovery, conservation, and escape. On the other hand, the lifestyle of the 16 million CCW holders in the United States might be characterized by terms such as freedom-loving, defensive, aware, protective, heroic, and concerned. Lifestyle brands define who people are and who they aspire to be.

Many brands in the industry focus solely on their product’s features and minimize their customers' lifestyles or neglect it entirely in their marketing strategies. When lifestyle is left out, brands miss a crucial pathway to connect deeper with their customers. Lifestyle brands give your buyers a goal and vision to become something better, making lifestyle marketing incredibly effective.

Building an Outdoor Lifestyle Brand

Turning a brand into a lifestyle brand takes consistent, intentional effort driven by your company’s leadership to permeate your company’s culture and drive authentic experiences. Here are six tactics to help you get started:

1. Know Your Tribe

The concept of a "tribe," as coined by Seth Godin, refers to any group of people connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. You must understand your tribe's pain points, interests, and motivations to lead them in the lifestyle your brand represents.

2. Create Awesome Branding

Brands that invoke the best visuals and messaging are more likely to garner emotional attachment. Almost all lifestyle brands have an active design component. A visually appealing logo or symbol of your brand that your tribe adopts will make them want to stick it on the back of their truck or even get a tattoo.

3. Invest in Your Culture

As your brand becomes more trusted, it’s important to showcase the people behind the scenes. The best cultures become the best lifestyle brands. Ensure that your team embodies the lifestyle your brand represents.

4. Leverage Influencers

The lifestyle affinity is a natural fit for influencer marketing because your influencers are already living the lifestyle you want to integrate into your messaging. They can boost your content and storyline to their audiences through social media, garnering trust and expanding reach.

5. Create Engaging Content

Content will continue to be an essential part of any digital or influencer marketing strategy for the foreseeable future. When creating content, don’t boast about how great your product is. Instead, show how it improves your tribe’s lives without overtly pushing your product.

6. Be Present

Like any relationship, sometimes all it takes is showing up. Brand awareness is a key part of building a lifestyle brand. Stunning video and photography of hunting, camping, or hiking adventures help you stay top of mind and part of your customers' lives.

Examples of Successful Outdoor Lifestyle Brands

Several brands have successfully integrated lifestyle marketing into their strategies, creating deep connections with their audiences. Here are a few notable examples:

Beretta: Beretta’s lifestyle marketing aligns its brand with an upper-class type of shooter and their experiences. The brand’s creative platform features clean fonts and a color palette that suggests luxury. Their photography represents sophisticated, traditional, and affluent customers. Beretta also offers a clothing line, allowing customers to wear the brand. This integration extends beyond products, offering content that helps customers improve their shooting and outdoor pursuits.

Sitka: Based in Bozeman, Montana, Sitka Gear is a prime example of living the outdoor lifestyle. Their helpful articles, short films, and transparency in design and manufacturing processes make them an excellent lifestyle brand. Sitka's mission to inspire, delight, and enlighten hunters, along with their focus on conservation, adds a higher purpose to the brand, making it more attractive and admirable.

Yeti: Yeti excels at integrating its products into the outdoor lifestyle through story-based content. From spearfishers to Big Horn Sheep hunters, Yeti is a brand built for the wild. They even have a Spotify playlist with songs that reflect the Yeti lifestyle. This creative approach helps embed the brand into their customers' lives.

Magpul: Magpul evolved from being known for firearm accessories to a lifestyle brand by adding apparel like gloves, shirts, and pants. They now connect with customers beyond just their products, embodying a lifestyle that resonates with their audience.

Making the Connection

To align your brand with your customer’s lifestyle, start by understanding their characteristics, problems, challenges, hopes, fears, and dreams. Build your marketing strategy around them, not your product. Dramatize your material around their outdoor, hunting, or shooting activities, but also consider other aspects that define them, such as their pride as a first responder or their desire to spend more time with friends and family.

Your brand must become a storyteller, allowing your customers to see themselves as their best self. Lifestyle marketing should paint a visual that seems almost dreamlike while remaining brutally authentic. Modern consumers, empowered by digital technology, are highly discerning. When you seamlessly integrate your product into their lives, becoming a natural part of their personal story, they’ll perceive your product as a perfect match for their self-image.

If your content strategy needs a boost, lifestyle marketing might be the tactic you need for continued success. By embracing the narrative of your customer's lifestyle and integrating it into your brand’s story, you can create deeper connections, foster trust, and inspire your audience.

As we continue to navigate the evolving digital landscape, remember that the heart of effective marketing lies in the stories we tell and the connections we build. Embrace the lifestyle of your audience, and let it guide your content strategy to new heights.

In my 20+ years as a social media strategist and content creator, I've seen firsthand the transformative power of authentic storytelling. Collaborating with outdoor lifestyle brands has taught me the importance of merging traditional storytelling with digital innovation to create content that resonates deeply with audiences. Whether working with brands like Topo Chico, Frito-Lay, or Costa Coffee, the goal has always been to forge genuine connections and build vibrant communities.