If you’re an outdoor brand that’s looking to scale at pace and establish an international presence, then connecting and engaging with action sports fans across multiple channels is a crucial component of any brand strategy.
But before you start building out your communications, you need to do your homework. That means creating customer personas, establishing your brand’s mission statement and producing a set of tone-of-voice guidelines that keep your copy consistent across all platforms and help your customers get to know you as a brand.
In this blog post, we’ll dive into the ins and outs of copywriting for outdoor brands, with tips to help you engage your adventure sports fan base and break into new global markets.
1. Understand your dream audience by creating personas
Before you start writing copy, you need to know who you’re writing it for. This is where customer personas can really come in handy. They’re super useful in helping you write content tailored directly to your target audience and delivering your brand message in a way that resonates with them. Pack your personas with enough useful information, and they can help increase sales, boost revenue and enhance customer engagement.
When creating customer personas, think about who you want to target and what you need to know about them in order to do so. These questions are a good starting point:
- What sports are they interested in?
- Where do they typically shop?
- How much do they spend on average?
- What kind of gear or services are they looking for?
- How do they spend their weekends? And where do they go on holiday?
- Where are they hanging out and having conversations?
- Who do they hang out with?
The answers to these questions can help you leverage your dream customers’ behaviors and target them with content they actually care about. Psst, want to know the best way to get the info? Ask your customers directly. Simple as that!
2. Focus on the outdoor experience, not just the product
Rather than just listing product specs in your descriptions, describe how the gear you offer can enhance a customer’s sense of adventure. This is where storytelling comes in. Enriching your copy with inspirational language and clear imagery can build a narrative that helps action sports enthusiasts envision themselves using your gear on their outdoor adventures – from technical hikes in the French Alps to sunset surfs in Hossegor or conquering cliffs in Granada.
Here are some examples from Montura and Mammut:
Montura’s descriptions give examples of where to wear their products, while Mammut’s copy encourages adventure and tells customers how their gear fits into and actively supports their lifestyle. Both descriptions are far more interesting than reading a list of features – though that’s also available if you’re in a hurry and want to see the main selling points at a glance.
3. Shout about your brand’s mission and values
Outdoor enthusiasts are drawn to brands with an authentic voice that stands for something beyond the product. The stats don’t lie 88% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding which brands they prefer. Whether you’re talking about sustainability, inclusivity or craftsmanship, customers want to see brands clearly communicate their beliefs and demonstrate genuine commitment to their values.
Storytelling can help get your mission and values across, but steer clear of “fluffy” language, false claims or greenwashing – all things that can ruin trust. Getting your mission statement right can be tricky – so having a set of tone-of-voice guidelines with specific things to say (and terms to steer clear of) can help you stay true to your word and yourself.
Bottom line: the more honest you are, the more customers are likely to trust you.
4. Highlight sustainability and ethical practices (without greenwashing)
Seeing that around 66% of people are more likely to pay more for a product if it comes from a sustainable brand, it makes perfect sense to shout about your causes and all the good stuff your brand’s doing. When it comes to copywriting for action sports brands, sustainability in outdoor sports is big news, and outdoor sports fans want to know how you’re using your platform to try to make the world a better place.
But sustainability is more than a trend – it’s a lifelong goal to have a more positive impact on the wild places you love, both now and for future generations. Having a mission statement on your website that’s transparent about your environmental and ethical practices is a great place to start. Then, wherever possible, incorporate your values into your copy to show customers how their purchase supports a greater cause.
However, when writing about your sustainability and ethical practices, you must be mindful of greenwashing. This is when you make environmentally conscious promises without putting in the graft to make more responsible products. If you make any claims, you need solid evidence to back them up. You can see how Patagonia holds themselves accountable with clear and direct copy on our article about 6 brilliant content ideas for outdoor brands (with examples). You don’t have to be perfect, but you do need to show that you’re working to have a gentler impact on our planet and people. Here’s an example of the straightforward language we’re talking about from Odlo:
5. Encourage purchasing decisions by using visual and descriptive language
Another way to evoke a response from outdoor sports enthusiasts is to create detailed descriptions that allow them to visualize your gear in action. When customers shop online, they can’t feel the product or try it on to see how it fits. Instead, descriptive words like ‘breathable,’ ‘rugged’ or ‘weatherproof,’ paired with high-quality product imagery, can work wonders. If your consumers can’t get to a fitting room, why not transport them to the slopes or the crag instead? (Just through your incredibly detailed imagery, of course.)
Using descriptive language also helps action sports fans make informed decisions about how the product fits, feels and performs – ultimately helping you land more sales and more satisfied customers.
6. Use a consistent (and on-brand) tone of voice
Tone of voice is the style with which we communicate with customers. It’s extremely important – especially with so much competition in the outdoor sports industry. Whatever your brand represents, your tone of voice should match it. Having a bank of carefully chosen words, phrases and expressions that your entire team has access to helps them work together to accurately demonstrate who you are and what values you stand for. That keeps you front of mind when it’s time for your customers to shop for new gear.
Whether you’re creating marketing emails, social media posts or product descriptions, keep your tone of voice consistent across all channels so that potential customers can instantly recognize your brand on every platform. If you need some inspiration in getting started, read our article on how to create tone-of-voice guidelines with examples for sports and outdoor brands. We’ll show you how to cut through the competition with tone of voice in three simple steps.
7. Localize your message for different markets
To stop your brand message from getting watered down in other languages and feeling a bit, well, lackluster after it’s been translated, use transcreation to adapt your it for each market. Transcreation is essentially where translation meets native copywriting. Instead of a direct translation, we find creative solutions in different languages by looking at the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of your overall messaging. Transcreation puts the emotion back into outdoor and action sports, making your copy more compelling.
Transcreation isn’t necessary for every channel. If your translations use straightforward language or you have budget constraints, you could benefit from using AI translation as a starting point. But how does it work? At The Action Sports Translator, we partner with AI translation specialists who know how to review, analyze and polish AI drafts to perfection. Before your copy hits the market, our linguists work hard to make sure the text is terminologically sound, right for your target market and in line with your tone-of-voice guidelines, leaving you with quality copy that fits your budget.
Speaking of guidelines – you’ll also massively benefit from having a set of language-specific guidelines for translated messaging that reflects your brand voice across markets while resonating specifically with local audiences.
8. Engage customers with your calls-to-action (CTAs)
CTAs are hugely important – but they’re often overlooked or treated as an afterthought. You know what it’s like – you’ve got a tight deadline to get your content live and out the door for your next product launch. You know you need CTAs, but you get distracted by other priorities and put one or two at the bottom of the page without thinking much about what the copy says – because something’s better than nothing, right? Problem is, you’ve missed a core opportunity to optimize your content and show off your brand’s personality. Honestly, we see it happen all the time.
If you want to encourage outdoor sports fans to click on your CTAs, take the opportunity to use action-oriented phrases that connect with their love of adrenaline – and help you stand out from the crowd. Things like “Gear up for your next adventure” or “Join the movement” are way more interesting and inspiring to read than “Buy Now” or “Click Here” (although these have their uses too when you want to create urgency).
Personalized CTAs perform 202% better than generic ones, too. If you really want to connect with your customers (and if your marketing software allows for it), you could even address them directly by using their name in your CTA copy. Something like, “What are you waiting for, Shaun?” is sure to get someone’s attention (assuming, of course, that their name is Shaun).
Partner up with us to leverage our tried-and-tested content-creation process
If you’re looking to engage adventure sports fans and break into global markets, then you need copy and content writers who know their way around the outdoor and action sports industry – and who know how to create incredible brand experiences. No simple feat – especially when it also involves creating content in languages you don’t speak. That’s where we come in.
Ready to jump-start your content operations? Get a quote or shoot us a message at hello@theactionsportstranslator.com to find out more about how our multilingual copywriting and outdoor and sports translation services can get your customers hyped about your brand in whatever language they speak.
