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When you're running a bricks-and-mortar escape room, then one of your major problems is going to be how to fill the hours apart from evenings and weekends. These are essentially business hours when everyone is at work. So it makes perfect sense to try and find corporate bookings during their working hours. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Because escape rooms themselves are a relatively new concept, you might be surprised as to how many corporate customers have never even heard of the genre. So how on earth can you sell an escape room game to people who have no idea what it is?
With a new escape room business you're going to find problems when looking for corporate clients. One of the main reasons is simply your competitors. Your future possible clients for your existing escape room team building programs have already partnered with the competition. To that end, you're forced to target groups who are less than familiar with the whole escape room concept. And that brings us neatly around to the same problem. How to sell to corporate groups who know very little about escape room games? To begin with,there are a number of important factors you should take into consideration when trying to figure out where your corporate customers are going to come from.
Identify Your Audience
First and foremost you need to identify who exactly your potential customers are. Then you will have to pursue them. On a local level, it's a good idea to promote your team building programs at local business networking meetings. By arranging to speak at these events you are spreading the word organically. Another method is to reach out to social media influencers and ask them to spread the word for you, though most would require some sort of payment.
We suggest that you focus all your energy onto networking events. These are the places where business people meet and greet. Everyone has a beer or glass of wine in their hand and the talk flows naturally. To accelerate this process it's probably worthwhile to join your local Chamber of Commerce. Now you might imagine the members of such organisations to be uptight and serious. And in truth you wouldn't be wrong. But the selling of escape room games is very different from any other business in that it revolves around, first and foremost, having a good time. Many escape room businesses have reported that they have received a huge amount of interest and outstanding booking rates thanks to their local Chamber of Commerce. After all, at the end of the day, everyone just wants to have a good time.
Practice Your Pitch
Trying to sell something that no one has seen or experienced before is going to be an uphill struggle. If you want to effectively reach your audience then you're going to have to have a perfect pitch. Promoting an escape room team building event to corporate customers is going to test your marketing abilities. We suggest that you perfect your elevator pitch. For those of you unaware as to what this is, it's the idea that you should be able to communicate your sales pitch to a client within the space of 10 seconds. That means after meeting someone for the first time, you have a very short period in which to convince them to come and play at your escape room business. The bottom line here is to keep things simple. It goes without saying that a good pitch will answer the most important questions that clients might have. These are:
What Is an Escape Room?
As you may well be talking to people who have absolutely no idea what you're going on about, it’s very important to try and see things from their perspective. For that you want your description to be concise, but at the same time not give away everything. Rather like a movie trailer that leaves one intrigued without giving away the whole plot. As it's a new idea for many people, you'll find it's a great conversation starter. But whatever you do, don't put too much information into your pitch. The main idea here is to spark an interest.
Why Should They Book with You?
Having potential customers perk up their ears is one thing, but how do you convince them to finally make the booking? Well, it’s not rocket science. You'll have to convince them that trying something new is better than doing team building with a more familiar environment they’ve done before. Today there are so many team building business and corporate activities to choose from, it would make anyone's head spin. As a business owner of escape rooms, you are in some ways in direct competition with all of them. So the question remains, why should they book with you rather than taking a more familiar route?
Probably the best reason that you can give is the fact that team building with escape room games doesn't feel “forced” in any way. Believe us, in most working environments the minute a manager pipes up with the idea of everybody going off on a team building exercise, eyes start rolling and people start getting nervous. Many traditional team building exercises are boring and lame. They lack any sense of fun or even achievement. For those taking part, they come across as pointless and yet essential exercises, that you need to take part in simply to hold onto your job or to keep some manager happy.
For that, you need to communicate how escape room games break the traditional corporate mould of team building exercises. And of course, they’re a huge amount of fun.
Sell the Experience
Remind yourself that the pitch is just the beginning of the whole sales process. Corporate customers always take time to make decisions and like to do lots of research beforehand. It goes without saying, the first place to check out is your website. That said, we suggest that you have a special page or pages on your existing site that just deals with corporate clients. This page should promote your team building exercises and programmes. It needs to appear absolutely professional and should include photos and videos of others who have played your rooms before.
Follow Through
So now you’ve found your audience and you pitch them on your new escape room team building business idea. You've reached the point where you are trying to sell them through your website. But having enquiries is not the end of the journey. It's important that you keep track of who is calling and when they are thinking of coming to check out your escape room. The most important part of all is to try and discover when they are thinking of booking. This allows you to push a constant stream of follow-ups which are designed to keep your business at the forefront of their mind.
It's not over until you find them standing in the reception. They should be excited and full of expectation, looking forward to their first gaming experience.
Play to Your Strengths
There are many different ways to skin a cat. When it comes to promotion, what might work for one business may not function well at all for another. It’s important that you understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and use these to your own advantage. Some business owners are outgoing and this helps them be really good at networking. And they can use that to meet new people and convince them to try your escape room games. Other business owners can be more shy. For them, they may try methods that focus more on their web presence and the use of social media to entice new customers.
Conclusion
The first thing you need to do is to find your audience. For this you’ll need to find out where corporate people go to socialise. Your job is to join them for a chat. Make sure that your pitch is perfect. Obviously, when you're meeting people for the first time, you don't want to come across as someone who's pushy. That's why it's good to have a pitch that subtly hints at what you do, and what you can offer. Moving on, you need to ensure that your website is top notch. And that means nothing less than a fantastic design, that's easy to navigate, and sells the business. Keep in mind that with all things in life, when someone comes to your website, the first impression is everything.
We think the best attitude is not to imagine the job is done once the customer comes through your front door. We would like that the story isn't complete until they have actually left the escape room happy, and looking forward to playing again. More importantly,happily recommending their escape room experience to everyone they meet. That's because there's no better marketing than word of mouth.
If at the end of the day, you're struggling to find corporate clients don't worry. It takes time to build a business foundation. Always keep in mind that it only takes one customer to get you off the ground.
