AGD Marketing strategy.. just interested

[dawump]

Hi all,

Don't know if I'll get an official response to this, but every time I read a paintball magazine I wonder what the AGD marketing strategy is.

I know from the quality of my mag that for sure now that I have ONE AGD product, I'll always buy AGD, but wonder how people actually get around to buying their FIRST!

I was totally obsessed with the process of finding the right gun.. and eventually picked purely on online research, and then bought used from ebay. If I'd picked something that I'd been able to use or borrow at my local field I would have ended up with a Spyder. If i'd gone higher dollar based on what I saw at my field, or was locally available in stores I would have bought a cocker.

So.. just wondering. AGD gets great mentions in "New Product" sections, and the Tom Kaye tech tip articles are good exposure ( although you would think they would include pictures of people with Emags instead of cockers to go with the articles... and you'd also think that they'd get it right... this month is missing figures 6,7, and 8 or something like that ).

On top of that the online and mail order vendors don't show mags as high profile as other markers.. I can't imagine anyone getting overly excited about the tiny photo of a Mag with the standard grip and no barrel.

So. If people don't buy them because of advertising, and don't buy them because all their friends have them where do all the sales come from?

Also, what is selling just out of interest? Are people still buying new micromags and mags or is the RT and emag selling better?

Thanks.

Keith

[TransMan]

Well i bought my mag because i was very interested in the design of the valve and the RT trigger i was tired of spider clones so got my mag and never looked back. I havnt regreted buying my mag for one sec.

[dawump]

I hadn't thought of that. I guess people who have entry level markers and have played for a while are a little bit more savvy when purchasing their next one.. and what is actually GOOD ( like AGD stuff ) has a good chance of being bought, even if it's not advertised to death.

Keith

[BajaBoy]

when i first started paintball i got a raptor.. then broke.. and i got another.. then synce everyone had spyders.. i got a tl plus.. but my friend keven gave me this oold old um.. like paintballer mag, and i saw a "smartparts mag" it had the AA 12' (silver base) on a black powerfeed body.. and i fell in love with it.. and synce then ive always wanted that gun.. then this kids andrew got a mag packege from gear.. it had a 47ci flat line.. for grip and a um.. autospiret barrel? sry ui cant spell.. and i likes the was he had micro through out.. and look so awesome.. then i knew i wanted a mag right then n there.. but it was to much money 4 me at the time.. and my fried tom desided 2 get one last xmas.. and i did to.. now ive maybe the nicest classic out there (maybe) lol alot of people ask about it n stuff.. this guy wouldnt let me play with it on his field.. im like wtf.. (its not even a retro)
but it has maybe the smalles pull ever.. custom sear:p and pins and stops on my frame (and yes i do have another sear just in case is stopes working;)

[ur4me2bunker]

I started playing with a mag because that is what everyone at the field worth a damn shot and that was 12 years ago. I play at Paintball Sams in Wisconsin and the Mag is pretty much the field gun there.
Whenever anyone at the field asks what gun to buy I always sell them on a mag. The biggest selling point I tell them by us is that if they intend to play at Sams the Mag is the one gun you can always get worked on. There are so many guys using them there is always someone there who can fix them.
I must admit though, if I had started playing anywhere else I probally would have gone with a cocker. It seems to be the most advertised gun and the field choice of every field but Sams.
Your right, I always though AGD kind of dropped the ball getting picks of there guns out and running adds. It's funny, out of the box a mag (of any type) is hands down the best gun to play with but most guys don't know that! Every guy I know that went from a mag to an angel or cocker came back to Mag. AGD should really put some money into getting the word out. I kills me to look at magazines and hardly EVER see a mag.

[magman007]

yes... there is one problem with AGD's marketing... there isnt any! after JJ left the marketinh went down the tubes. but do you kno what persuaded me to buy a mag? it was that one little picture in the old 888paintball adds, you kno the ones with the green border? that was what intially got me to buy my mag, i dont kno why but it is.


to get me to bou my rt pro...well that was the 2 page add of the incredible marker found in the issue of apg with the guy with the psychoflage epic on the cover.

[AGD]

Official Response,

We did drop the ball with marketing while we were deeply involved in the military projects. Since then things have changed greatly and we had to get our product line updated before we could do a marketing push. Expect more from us next year.

AGD

[SlipknotX556]

Like Sockhats Tom? :)

[ur4me2bunker]

I'm glad to know you guys are going to be pushing your products again. Sure, you dropped the ball a bit with marketing but at least you didn't with your products. In a way, that's the beauty of the AGD line, sure, it's the most under advertised gun in the industry but it still SELLS!
What a statement! The word of of mouth along with the pure quality of your products has gotten you where you are. I own four mag of various styles myself and I will buy the Xtreme as soon as they are out because you guys have never let me down.
Now you just need to reach the next gen of players who may overlook you do to fancy adds and cool pics in magazines. It's sad, but what sells guns these days is how cool they look in magazines.
Until you pick up the pace with adds and marketing trust old timers like me and boys at Sams to push your guns to anyone who will listen!

[oldsoldier]

Originally posted by AGD
Official Response,

We did drop the ball with marketing while we were deeply involved in the military projects. Since then things have changed greatly and we had to get our product line updated before we could do a marketing push. Expect more from us next year.

AGD

And that, my friends, is why I chose AGD. Personal responses from the owner himself!!!

[845]

I play with a mag because I find PTP mags sexy. :p So I bought one.

[dawump]

Thanks for the personal response Tom.

I bet advertising is a difficult issue as it seems that Spyder and Tippman have an almost endless advertising budget.

From some of the responses here I'm wondering if it would be easier to take a big chunk of the people buying their second marker rather than investing massive amounts to get a small cut of first time buyers.

Sypder especially have managed to put together a range of products with a huge "drool factor" with a very high perceived bang to the buck.. Tippmans niche is more customer service and better entry level reliability at the cost of "sexiness" but we all know that you get what you pay for when you buy an AGD product.. Very hard to get that across with advertising though.


Keith

[AGD]

Spyder and Tippman compete on price. Tippman has had three price reductions in three years. They advertise to the guy that is going to spend his first 150 bucks on something and doesn't know much about Pball.

They do HUGE volumes, in excess of 200,000 guns per year. 50 cents per gun will cover all their adds. We don't have that luxury. At 2000 bucks per full page add we could give away 3 emags a month in the forum and it would cost us about the same. If you look you actually don't see that many Angel adds.

Advertising is a tricky thing, Krispy Kreme did very little but managed to establish a huge rep. Others(who will remain nameless) spent a ton and got nothing. We are looking for that technical breakthrough to help catapult our marketing and advertising efforts. I thought it was going to be the Warp Feed (I was wrong) but now it's looking like LVL10 will do it.

AGD

[pito189]

Originally posted by AGD

We are looking for that technical breakthrough to help catapult our marketing and advertising efforts. I thought it was going to be the Warp Feed (I was wrong) but now it's looking like LVL10 will do it.

AGD

Don't fret about the warp TK. It is a great idea, and I'm not sure when the last time you went rec ballin, or the last time you have been to any small regional tournies. But it is catching on, people are realizing that it's so much easier to shoot without that huge hopper on top (me just becomming one of them last week). It is just taking longer than you wished.

I believe lvl 10 will do it for you. One of my teammates is a beta tester. He had people hunting him down today at a 3 man tourny we were reffing, wanting to shot their fingers in a mag.

Edited for spelling:rolleyes:

[dawump]

We are looking for that technical breakthrough to help catapult our marketing and advertising efforts. I thought it was going to be the Warp Feed (I was wrong) but now it's looking like LVL10 will do it.
AGD

Well the list is getting pretty long..

- Warp feed
- Electronic trigger that can work manually
- LV10
- Few moving parts / reliability

With that as the deluxe it's very tempting for someone willing to spend the money. From a marketing perspective, have you ever considered reworking the RT so that the internals etc are the same, but it is on an emag body?

The RT would then be phased out but basically the same thing would be sold with an emag body as the "non-electronic" version of the emag allowing lower entry level pricing and upgrade possibilities.

While from a technical perspective this would be practically the same as selling RTs now with an upgrade price to an emag, from a marketing perspective it's a whole new ball game. It could allow you to sell to two different markets while promoting conciousness of a single product.

Keith

[mykroft]

dawump: he's already done that. the only differences between the RT Pro and the E-Mag are the grip, battery, sear and the E-Mag has a nicer sight rail. Body, Rail, valve are identical between the two.

Level 10 is looking to be very very popular. I have people hounding me about it (Still haven't received mine)

[845]

My friend Cal just bought a Micromag because of AO Day II NJ. He played speedball twice with his 96 Cocker (body is like brick sized and it is extremely heavy) and he kept taking gun hits. Then he used my micro and he did awesome. Now yesterday he went out and bought the mag used for 275. He was so excited he called me last night at 12am :rolleyes:

So AO days with mag only tournies are a good strategy.:)

[Brian68mag]

LOL
off the boblong message board
the site....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
not to be mean at all boblong i love my timmy and all but your site is umm in need of help not all the links and this is a pritty crappy message board it would be cool if you were more involved with the site you would get more business (deffentally if we ever saw you post on the message board)
i dont mean to be offensive but check out www.automags.org tom k is always lurking around the forum..ive talked to him personally, anyway some things you should check out for the message board.... www.phpbb.com umm vbb (dont have a site sry) even ewww www.ubb.com (it crashes the server and is slow but it looks better) with thease you dont Have to have advertisments on your site all over the place or notice the broken images at the top of the pages..i would be glad to help you out i do a lot of web design but i might be a little busy because im working on a gameing site for some people anyway if you ever see this feel free to contact me to talk.

[ur4me2bunker]

We are looking for that technical breakthrough to help catapult our marketing and advertising efforts. I thought it was going to be the Warp Feed (I was wrong) but now it's looking like LVL10 will do it.

Breakthrough? Breakthrough? What else do you have give us? A midget to run along side us teching the gun as we go? Lets see, E Trigger, Lvl 10, Warp Feed..... I think you had your breakthrough, again and again.
It's like I said when you were testing the warp out, they are the best thing to come along in years but it won't go over do to the looks. Those of us who could care less about looks but care about how it plays love them. The rest of the little kids out there more worried about how cool they look then how well they play may take some time.
Your C&C will bring them in. It's the best looking gun out there. Thanks for always going for quality and tourney level ideas instead of flash though. Those of us who use it appreciate it Tom.

Son of Sam

[Brian68mag]

Tom, IMO for advertising to be effective you need to show people what this level 10 does in a extreme manner, like a screen by screen ad of you pulling the trigger with your toungue in the breach without you blinking. People all over still tell me, mags are blenders, EACH any EVERY one of these people needs to learn about level 10. If i were you i'd put one or 2 full page ads in APG because imo its the biggest most read paintball magazine(not the best is some aspects lol) Have APG do a review/article on it so people can see it works. Make a video and have warpig put in on there site
20BPS CYCLE RATE WITH STANDERED HOPPER AND NO CHOPS WITH AGD LEVEL10!
Encourage every AO member to give demonstrations at fields they go to.
I think regardless what you do that you have succeded with this lvl 10 and that mags are going to boom and you will make alot of money.
Great job Tom, Take a vacation, in somewhere nice, not wyoming :DD(im in laramie lol)

[billmi]

Originally posted by Brian68mag
Make a video and have warpig put in on there site


You might want to watch the Chicago Open episode of PigTV...

:-)

What you need to convince Tom to do, is be a PigTV sponsor and get a commercial that shows LvL 10 in EVERY PigTV episode :-)

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills