Powderhook Enables Brand-Driven Mentoring Initiatives


Powderhook Announces Suite of Digital Tools to Broaden Partners’ Mentoring Efforts

Powderhook announced today that its digital-mentoring toolkit includes new features to allow brands, agencies, and NGOs to join and accelerate the growing movement to mint new hunters.

The brand-enhancement tools are bundled in a service that Powderhook calls PRO accounts, which allow companies and agencies of all sizes and types to connect with hunters of every experience level through the Powderhook mobile app. The tools are designed to be adapted to the specific needs and scale of every PRO partner, says Eric Dinger, founder and CEO of Powderhook.

“Our goal is to assist the effort to create 100,000 hunting mentors,” says Dinger. “Brands, businesses, state agencies, and NGOs are all part of that effort, but they will all develop mentoring programs differently and in their own way. Powderhook is neither the beginning nor the end of this work. We simply offer a suite of tools that add scale and measurement to our partners’ mentoring strategy.”



Examples of the tools include branded learning communities, which the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) is using to fuel a “How to Deer Hunt” series of tutorials delivered through the mobile app.

Powderhook utilizes virtual communities called “Camps” to bring mentors together with mentees to develop the exchange of information, advice, and experiences. The new app tools allow brands to have a more defined experience in the ecosystem of the app by using Camps for their own mentoring programs.

Both Pheasants Forever and Bear Archery are watermarking their contributions in various Camps, so that mentees know their mentors are associated with those brands.

Nearly 1,400 users have signed on as digital mentors and have created 147 Mentorship Camps devoted to such wide-ranging topics as big-game hunting, archery hunting, outdoor photography, and waterfowl hunting.

“We’re early in this effort, but gaining momentum daily,” says Dinger. “Our goal is to help our partners create 100,000 mentors through the app. That number is big and audacious, but it’s not accidental. We think that’s the scale required to meet the goal of creating 3 million new hunters over the next 5 years.”

In order to satisfy brands’ interest in measuring the reach and efficacy of their digital mentoring efforts, PRO members have the ability to manage and measure all their outreach efforts.



“Literally, all people who work in the outdoor industry have their job because of participants, and almost all want to grow their own business or program,” says Dinger. “The idea behind PRO is when you help someone as their mentor for a couple of minutes a week, Powderhook will help you promote your business or program. We call it earned native advertising, and it's not a business model we've ever seen anywhere else.”

Dinger says the ability for each PRO partner to customize the mentoring relationship is what gives Powderhook its edge.

"Powderhook PRO exists to help the companies, brands, and agencies willing to invest in growing hunting to take market share from their competition by being the first brand in front of new users,” says Dinger. “I believe that helping someone on a one-to-one basis—which some people define as mentoring—is and always has been the best form of marketing. Our tools simply allow brands to help individuals at scale.”

The Powderhook app is available to download or update by visiting: App Store or: Google Play