SHOT Business Q&A: Aiming for Excellence
News Briefs - January/February 2025
Above: 3 Tactix: Riton 3 Tactix EED (Enclosed Emitter Dot) features unlimited eye relief.
At Riton Optics the goal is to solve the problem the customer doesn’t even know about yet.
For more than a decade Riton Optics, now based in Tucson, Arizona, has committed itself to offering its customers rugged and dependable riflescopes, red dots, binoculars, and spotting scopes. The company also manufactures a variety of mounting solutions along with accessories such as a bino harness. SHOT Business Editor Slaton L. White recently sat down with new marketing director Trent Marsh to take the pulse of the company.
SHOT Business: You said when you became marketing director at Riton that “our mission is not just about selling products; it’s about crafting an experience for our community of outdoor enthusiasts. Together, we aim for excellence, weaving a tapestry of brand messaging that resonates, fosters camaraderie, and propels us to new heights in the industry.” How is the company accomplishing this mission?
Trent Marsh: The first step is in understanding your customers and their pursuits. This is where it can be tough for an optics company compared to some other products, because so many of the products have multiple ways of being used by the customer. I know how a camo jacket will be used. I know how a bullet will be used. I can make multiple, valid, very different use cases for the exact same optic. With that in mind, we had to take a hard look at how the product had been positioned previously, and how we wanted to help our customers answer their optics questions. We’re sort of in phase one of that right now. Examining the brand and products and making sure we are marketing them thoughtfully and providing the resources and information our customers need to make the right choice. As we continue that process, and refine it, it’s about getting more granular, and drilling down even further on how we can support the market with products and content that help make their life easier. If you can do that, you’re in a great position to help people beyond just selling them something and moving on.
Trent Marsh, Marketing Director, Riton Optics
SB: As technology continues to impact the design of the various optics Riton offers, how do your product designers keep up? How do these changes affect your marketing strategies?
TM: That’s always the challenge, isn’t it? I give a lot of credit to our product team, led by Chris Varas, for making sure our products meet the standards we want to establish for the Riton brand. It’s a lot of research, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of examination of problems that aren’t being flagged yet. The goal is always to solve the problem the customer doesn’t even know about yet. Otherwise, you’re starting behind the curve. Chris is a user of the product. So am I. So are the vast majority of our team members. That by itself doesn’t mean much, but when you factor in the collaborative environment we’ve created, and the fact that anyone in the company can ask those questions and present ideas to start a development loop, you end up with a process that brings the best answers to the table. That hasn’t always been the case at other places I’ve been, and I’ve spoken to a number of friends and colleagues over the years where that isn’t the case. We value the voice of the consumer and the user, and that drives the design process. Then, from a marketing standpoint, my job is easy right? Anytime you are solving a problem, you just have to let people know. There isn’t a lot of difficult marketing involved in letting people know you’ve made something easier, more reliable, or more affordable. You just have to let them know it’s available. That’s a fun position to be in from a marketing standpoint.
SB: There’s been a big focus this year on the Primal family of products. Is this marking a change for the Riton brand moving away from the tactical or long-range markets?
TM: It’s absolutely not a move away from those core markets. The tactical and precision space is really where Riton made its mark early in its life. The Primal focus for this year is about growing our brand, not repositioning it. Optics use is tough to be narrow about. A scope one person would use for long-range precision shooting might be the scope another person uses for hunting, so marketing is tricky. It’s tough to be everything to everyone. The roots of Riton are strong in that tactical and precision world. We’ve learned a lot about how to make and deliver really strong, effective product to a very demanding category of shooter. Hunters are demanding, too. We just haven’t focused on awareness with that audience as much as we probably should have in the past. So, as we develop some products that speak directly to hunters, and we go out and market to them and tell our story, we think we bring a lot of value and credibility to the space. That said, we also relaunched all of our pistol dot lineup in the last 12 months or so. We aren’t walking away from tactical or EDC audiences at all. We’re just building a larger brand umbrella to work from. (ritonoptics.com)
