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With the proliferation of escape room businesses taking place over the last decade, if you're thinking of taking the plunge and opening your venture, then there are several important considerations to keep well in mind. Gone are the days, where you could just throw some old furniture into an old room and start charging money. Today's games are in many ways technologically advanced. Many of today's games are heavily themed and the gameplay is much more immersive than those more simple games of yesteryear. And today the customer has a certain level of expectation that is not cheap and cheerful. Today we're going to take a look at possible marketing strategies for your new escape room business.
By their very nature, escape room games need a hands-on approach when it comes to marketing. It's super important that before you launch, you already have a detailed plan of how you're going to attract those customers needed to keep the show on the road. if you haven't got this ready, then you'll struggle. There are plenty of other successful escape room brands out there who are already determining the market direction as far as social networking marketing goes.
There are several important elements that your marketing strategy should be revolving around. They include such things as safety, pricing, reliability, secure payment platform, and last but by no means least, stellar customer service. Notice that we haven't mentioned the games. That's because, though they are important in their own way, they will not be the deciding factor as to whether players recommend your escape room or even choose to visit you again and again.
If you're able to put all these factors together in one package, then you'll have no trouble both retaining existing customers as well as finding new players. Below is a list of platforms you might consider to get things up and running from the moment you open the doors for the first time.
Have a huge opening party with an aim of attracting local people, as they will hopefully be your first customers
Pay for advertising on local TV and radio
Promote via all social media platforms
Make up an introduction letter and send it out with your brochure to all sports clubs, schools and local households in your area
Have someone drop off business flyers wherever the public hang out locally.
Then we have things that are more directly related to the actual business itself. These can include;
Adopting a direct mail drop
Have a loyalty plan in place that rewards customers who register and/or bring new customers
Make attractive handbills for circulation
Ensure that your signage is clear, easy to read, and placed in a prominent position
Deliver a fantastic experience every time.
Factors That Will Help You Get The Right Product Pricing
As a new business, you will stand or fall based on your outgoings. And one of your biggest costs is that of the premises who you stage your games. Rents are prohibitively expensive. So, if there's any way you can reduce or offset this massive monthly drag on profits, then you should be looking into it. If you have your own facility that can be converted into an escape room game faculty, then that's the way to go.
If you have no choice but to rent a space, then you'll want to make sure that there's a loan facility at your local bank, just in case you might hit some unexpected problem down the road and find yourself in need of extra cash. This is also for peace of mind, as you'll have enough things to stress about apart from making the rent. It's super important that you are always thinking of ways to cut your operational costs. You will need to develop a mindset that's fixed on finding savings.
So many new businesses fail because they were lax with costs, forgetting that all those non-essential things they were spending money on, just meant that they had a deeper hole to dig themselves out of once the business started. You will be surprised at what you can achieve by putting your own hands to work. So instead of paying other workers to do everything, try and do as much as you can yourself. Not only is this a great feeling to be making a direct contribution instead of just throwing in the cash, but it'll save you money that'll be sorely needed once you get open.
Where ever you open your new escape room business, there's probably going to be one situated nearby. Hopefully, as part of your research into escape room games before you started to set up on your own, you would have visited and played every single escape room game in your area. So you should already have an idea of the amount of bang you get for your buck. You should have a good idea of what type of games you should be offering, along with a pricing model that'll help you stay competitive.
By far the best strategy is a long-term one, that may take time to pay back dividends. This is simply to build up a robust client base via a strong business network. This means you having to press the flesh once in a while at the local business meeting places. Your business must be seen by your peers as a relevant and important part of the overall business that takes place locally. In other words, you want to be taken seriously.
Of all the thousands of different ways to increase customer retention and attract new customers is to produce results and satisfy the customer's expectations. After all, if your players are perfectly happy with the experience with you, then why would they look elsewhere for the same thing. Look at the books of any business, and the moment you start to see sales declining, it can often be correlated to a drop in customer service delivery. Any drop in quality will eventually show up in the numbers. poor customer service will kill any business stone dead. This is where the amount of effort and work will pay dividends. It's an effort, but you need to stay on top of the business both mentally and physically. You'll need to be constantly upgrading, looking for better ways to do things, and make sure that your customers are 100% satisfied. Remember that your job is to turn regular customers into loyal customers.
Another path to keeping customers is to offer some form of incentive. To know what to offer you'll first need to ensure that you have a means of tracking all those customers. We suggest that every new escape room business should invest in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. This will not only allow you to build a customer base but also track progress, results, and outcomes, allowing you to maintain your loyal customer base. These software systems can be completely customized. This'll allow you to keep in touch with your clients. With this, you can carry out quick surveys, remind them of their birthdays, keep track of their progress, and send them emails and flyers. You'll have a means of keeping them interested in your business.
If you look at the massive sums large corporations are spending on brand awareness then you'll see the importance of promoting your brand. For this, you need to make a conscious effort, coupled with a willingness to spend on media to get your brand out there. If you have the intention to make your games a national brand, as opposed to being only known locally, then you'll have no other option but to spend the dollars on promotions and advertising. Here's a list of platforms you can use to leverage your brand to greater heights.
Ads in newspapers and magazines
Ads campaign across social media including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Community sponsorship
Billboards in strategic locations
Flier and handbill distribution
Have a website and drive relevant traffic to it
Ensure that your staff is always decked out with your business branded clothing.
The same goes for your vehicles.
Keep in mind that this is all playing the long game. promoting a brand new business takes time and effort. Many surveys state that escape rooms can be in profit within 3 months. but they never appear to state the initial cost involved. Provided that you hit the ground running with pre-prepared fliers and bonuses and incentives, then you'll get the customers. Just make sure you treat them well, and they'll quickly be transformed into repeat customs who are constantly recommending your games to everyone within earshot.
