In a market where you’re competing with all the entertainment options, you’ll need to make sure the launch of your new activity leaves a mark on your customers. Here are multiple tips to take into account in order to maximize your revenue at launch and even further.
Marketing, Marketing & Marketing
First and foremost, you’ll need people to know you are adding a new activity to your center and this will mainly be done through an effective marketing campaign. You have different marketing solutions at your disposal depending on your location, target and budget. Launching ad campaigns through social media, for example, will be a sure bet. Even a low-budget but well-targeted ad will do wonders.
You could also bring back customers by sending them personalized emails. You probably already have an email list from all your current customers but if it’s not the case you should start building one today. With VEX Solutions’ attractions, customers register their contact details that you can later use for email campaigns, birthdays, etc. In return, they get an enhanced experience while playing: they see their nickname above their avatar in-game as well as get emails with their score and new ranking once the play session is over. This is all automated and you get those pieces of data and customer follow-up effortlessly.
Keep your Staff Engaged
This is maybe the most important decision you can take regarding the profitability of a VR activity in your center: how is it going to be operated? To maximize your revenue you have multiple key factors to take into account.
You want your whole staff to love the experience in order for every employee to be able to praise the attraction highly. They need to become true ambassadors of your activity through personal and authentic recommendations to your customers. To ensure this, let your employees play for free whenever they want to (outside of working hours, of course). You can even go as far as offering free tickets to play with their friends and family members.
Likewise, you want your employees to feel good about operating your VR attraction. This way, you’ll avoid situations where staff members might discourage customers from a specific attraction just because they don’t like operating it. This can often happen if the attraction is not maintained well enough, if the staff was not properly trained for its operation or if the operation is simply tedious.
In conclusion, let your employees learn to love the attraction to facilitate its operation and push sales through personalized recommendations. VR is still new to some and there are people who will need to have their doubts cleared to make the jump.
Word of Mouth
For smaller groups, and to entice the word of mouth effect, you can bundle your new attraction with already well-established activities from your center. If you own a bowling alley, packaging one bowling game with one discounted session in VR is a great way to entice people to take that first step. Then, the attraction and the word of mouth will do their job bringing other customers in.
We asked more than 6000 people how they learned about the existence of the specific leisure center they just visited and 50% answered through word of mouth. This is not a miracle, it all has to do with the kind of experiences those businesses offer. In this case, they all had VEX attractions. When your customers come out of your attraction with the biggest grin on their faces plus that WOW feeling, you know they enjoyed themselves. When you provide unforgettable experiences to your customers, they talk about it in their circles and you get new and repeat customers every day. Out of every VEX Adventure player surveyed more than 95% of them recommend it to their friends and relatives.
Groups and Corporate Events
Being a social experience at their core, VR attractions like VEX’s, are a great fit for birthday parties and group events that will fill them in no time, even more so with esports attractions that are appealing to kids and gamers looking for competition. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t overlook the importance of corporate events to fill the occupancy during off-peak hours.
To grab these groups and events, offer attractive rates and above all make it an easy process. If you just “let it happen” this will generate some revenue for sure but if you promote your offers and if the process is easy to follow, this is how you will maximize your profit through that avenue.
These groups coming for your anchor attraction will spend money on other activities, beverages and food boosting once again the ROI of your attraction.
Groups and corporate events will undoubtedly increase profitability and are in no way to be overlooked!
Keep your Attraction Busy
Last but not least, keep your attractions busy. In Belgium, we call this the “Waffle Effect” (yes, really). Basically, when you’re in a street during the day and you can smell waffles baking near you, you will start salivating and you’ll soon succumb to their tastiness. Damn you, Belgian waffles! In other words, when customers see people having fun inside an attraction, it’s easier for them to relate it to the enjoyment they might have if they tried it. In turn, and in combination with great staff recommendations, they are more inclined to go for it.
The waffle food trucks will bake, even if they don’t have customers, just to get the smell in the street and attract new clients. Just like them, at the start of the day or if it’s a slow one, you can offer discounted games or put your own staff in the attraction, spectators will agglomerate and you’ll get a queue the whole day.
Like the Belgian waffle food trucks, keep your attraction busy in order to attract customers that will bring you real money!
