From the Editor’s Desk Last month, The First Shot conducted the first of a monthly series of on-line reader surveys. 583 readers responded to the survey. This month’s survey, which can be found at http://www.odcmp.org/survey, focuses on those readers who have participated in either national or regional John C. Garand matches or events. Last month, 583 readers responded to a general reader survey that we ran on-line with the May issue of The First Shot. It’s my task here to make practical sense of the results of that survey without using the statistical jargon that tends to make most people’s eyes glaze over. The first thing the survey results tell us is who’s not visiting the web site. For example, of the 583 readers who responded to the survey, only 4 were female. Furthermore, only 16 were age 30 or younger, and 23 presently serve in the military. These are target populations that eventually we want to reach, and we know from experience that there are women, younger people, and military personnel involved in marksmanship. The question remains, however, as to what we need to do to attract these people to our site. Those who visit the site now are generally male, age 50 or older (approximately 56% of the readers who completed the survey marked that they are age 50 or older, including 25% who are age 60 or older), are members of CMP-affiliated clubs (80%), and have previously purchased one or more rifles from the CMP (72%). Some other interesting characteristics of our readers: > While slightly over half of the readers who completed the survey (50.4%, or 294 of 583) marked that they regularly participate in area matches, only 17% (98 of 583) regularly participate in regional or national matches. > Approximately 47% (272 of 583) commented that they shoot informally and are not generally interested in serious competition events. > 64% (375 of 583) identified themselves as gun collectors, and of these 375, 81% (303) have previously purchased at least one rifle from the CMP. We are also interested in what people want to read. Question #10 of the survey, in fact, directly asked readers what information they looked for “through the CMP web site and Internet communications.” The results are shown in the table below: The results are also useful in understanding people who are interested in marksmanship, but who are not members of a CMP-affiliated club; of the 583 readers who responded to the survey, 88 (15%) marked that they were not members of a CMP-affiliated club. If this is representative of the readership as a whole (and given that over 10,000 people now visit The First Shot each month), there are probably over 1,500 readers who can be considered potential new club members. Some characteristics of these readers: > 48 of 88 (55%) are age 50 or younger. > Of the 88 readers who marked that they are not members of a CMP-affiliated club, 25 readers learned about the CMP through print publications such as The American Rifleman and Shotgun News, 18 from Internet search engines and links from other web sites, and 14 from friends, family and/or shooting partners. > 72 of 88 (82%) are interested in the availability of weapons, and 62 (70%) in the availability of parts and ammunition. 57 of 88 (65%) described themselves as informal shooters, and 50 (57%) as gun collectors. Mike Wallace is President of Spectrum Research & Consulting, and holds a PhD in Mass Communications from Florida State University. Dr. Wallace serves as editor of The First Shot. He can be reached at spectrumresearch@earthlink.net.