The reservation platform (i.e. Bookeo, Fareharbor, etc.) you select isn’t the most important decision you’ll make as an escape room owner, but it is one of the most important decision you’ll make as a business owner. This platform will touch both the frontend and backend of your escape room business on a daily basis. How? Here are a few examples:
My one suggestion for escape room owners…don’t rush the process and do your homework. Okay, that’s two suggestions, but you get the point. Here are some things to consider when making this decision. It’s an investment not an expense The reservation & business platform you choose will impact your daily operations. It will become a critical part of your business, so it needs to be given the attention it deserves. A properly selected platform will bring effectiveness and efficiency to your livelihood. Choosing the least expensive option may seem like the best decision at the moment, but that could come back to haunt you if it hurts customer reservations or back office operations. Consider the customer experience Customers, as well as management, will use this platform. It’s critically important to provide a well-integrated, easy-to-use solution for the best customer experience. Online customers know what a good reservation/payment experience looks like. You risk losing business if the platform is too confusing or cumbersome. The customer experience should weigh strongly in your decision. It’s business management Y’all The escape room business is a great one! But, it’s still a business and needs to be viewed that way. The livelihoods of owners and employees are depended on a successful and profitable business. Sure, great room design is essential to a successful escape room, but back office management is just as important. Most escape room business platforms provide insightful and necessary analysis. Revenue reports, channel analysis, promotion tracking, room utilization reports, etc. are often readily available in these platforms. Such tools will be key to running a successful business. Do some homework Luckily, you don’t have to make this purchase decision in isolation. Most platforms are already being used by other escape rooms. Visit the websites of these rooms and see how the reservation and payment interface works. Does it look fairly seamless or does it look like a disjointed add-on? Is it easy to find the desired room and time or is it a scavenger hunt? Real-world research is helpful. Also, nothing beats firsthand feedback. Pick up the phone and call a couple of room owners to get their opinion. Yes, you probably won’t get an hour of time, but most owners will probably give you 10 minutes to share their experience in summary. The reservation management platform is the cornerstone of your escape room operations. It will touch everything from customer reservation selection, to payment processing, to marketing initiatives. You don’t necessarily have to choose the most expensive solution; just ensure the platform you select meets both your short-term and long-term business goals. EscapeRoomMarkeing24 is a marketing and business management group focused on helping escape room owners establish and run successful businesses. You can reach out to them here for more information.
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If you’re a business owner or manager without years of marketing experience, any marketing related decision can be difficult. Many times, it seems like a no-win situation where you don’t want to waste money on useless campaigns and at the same time don’t want to miss an opportunity to grow business…. It’s the proverbial Catch-22. Thankfully, when marketing campaigns are thought-out and targeted, the effort often delivers the desired outcomes. Many of our current clients came to us with this exact dilemma. So, you’re not alone. A great marketing campaign must provide the right message, in the right way, to the right person, at the right time. Okay…well there you go. Easy right? Yea…if only it was that simple.
While there’s no secret formula that guarantee’s 100% success, there are a couple of fundamental imperatives that can help you better the odds. #1 Create GREAT Content Content is still king! Today’s consumers are busy people with diminishing attention spans. In many cases, you’ll get 5-6 seconds to make your case with compelling content and a failed effort will result in the consumer moving on to something else. Most people are very protective of their time, so you need to provide a GREAT reason for them to give some up. Content must speak directly to the target market and specifically to the needs of that targeted audience. Good, compelling content takes time to create and refine. Don’t skimp on this step. Most importantly, make certain you provide content that a customer wants to hear rather than stuff you want to say! Many campaign authors miss this crucial point. #2 Target Your Audience Your carefully curated content must now be refined for the targeted audience or ‘personas’ because everyone doesn’t care about the same things. For example, a business owner and the facility manager may value different aspects of a landscaping services proposal. The product is the same, but the value placed on each part of the service is different for the stakeholders in the purchasing process. Gone are the days where the ‘shotgun-effect’ can be used to spread one message across a large group and see great results. #3 Focus on the ‘Why’ more than the ‘What’ Buyers want to know precisely how a business’s products or services will help them and what benefits they will receive. It’s more important for a costumer to understand ‘why’ they should purchase the product (value) than to understand ‘what’ the product does (functionality.) Without the former, the latter is irrelevant. See the last sentence of #1 above. Stories or case studies are often an effective way to communicate this value. When buyers hear stories that are related to their condition, they immediately see themselves in the same situation. Sales barriers are lessened and the purchase of the product or service becomes more compelling to the customer. #4 Proactively Drive Action in the Sales Pipeline Getting customers to act and eventually make a purchase is the goal of any marketing effort. Often this is a process rather than an instantaneous event. The “one-and-done” strategy of sending just one email or mailer won’t work for most markets. Customers in many markets will require multiple touch points before they decide to purchase. Follow-up emails, phone calls, and messaging are often required to secure the customer’s business. Also, we’ve found that customers are often 55-75% along in the purchasing process before they reach out to a company. This means you’ll need to proactively insert yourself in the game if you want to increase the chances of making the final cut. #5 Repurpose…Repurpose…Repurpose There’s secondary value to high-quality content and targeted value messaging…using it again and again. Great content can be used across various campaigns, different medias and even within multi-part campaigns. When content is refined to what works best, it can (and should) be duplicated and used with multiple marketing campaigns. #6 Track, Measure, Refine. Maximizing your return on marketing investment requires some oversight and maintenance work. Many of today’s marketing platforms, tools, and services offer performance reports on your campaigns. With this information you can begin to see how well content and campaigns are working. Continuous improvement is the key here. Refine the content, methods, and outreach until you get the desired results. Like most things in business, you get out of marketing…what you put in. Marketing tools, platforms, and channels continue to change, but many of the fundamentals stay the stay year after year. Good luck out there! |
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