Research for the Major Industry Trade Organizations

Responsive Management routinely conducts scientific trend surveys for major trade organizations and industry groups. For more than a decade we have tracked national participation rates in sport shooting and archery for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and the Archery Trade Association (ATA), respectively. Responsive Management works with these organizations on other research studies as well to engage sport shooters and archers.

For example, Responsive Management and the ATA recently took an in-depth look at bowhunters, including their participation rates and attitudes, with a particular focus on Millennials. Another project initiated for the ATA combined a marketing effort with a research study. For this project, Responsive Management spearheaded an email marketing campaign to encourage license purchases and bowhunting participation among lapsed participants—a variety of campaign messages, images, and timing options were tested and compared post-season, with the results informing best practices for agencies to implement similar campaigns in the future.

Responsive Management also recently conducted an innovative study for the NSSF focusing on how to reactivate non-shooting firearm owners. Scientific surveys and focus groups were used to study firearm owners who are infrequent or inactive shooters, as well as others in households with firearms who do not go shooting. Prompted by the fact that nearly twice as many Americans live in a household with a firearm than go shooting, the study examined motivations for and attitudes toward sport shooting, constraints to participating, and reactions to efforts to encourage participation.