Know your audience. It’s the most fundamental key to success in communications, no matter if you’re a comedian delivering a punchline, a creative director launching a billboard, or a political candidate hot on the campaign trail. It’s also one of the most difficult lessons to master, as it can prove quite a mystery to learn exactly what makes each of your loyal followers tick—or better yet, click.
As a business owner, nobody understands the day-to-day operations of your center better than you do. You’ve learned your customers’ favorite days, preferred pizza toppings, and average number of hours spent in the center. You may have grown accustomed to being on the outside looking in, but in order for your center to thrive, developing an inside perspective is absolutely paramount to your success both today and tomorrow.
Data collection represents a tectonic shift away from marketing on the whim of what you think your customers want, to marketing with a renewed purpose behind the strength of relevant information. We’ll teach you a variety of effective methods to actively capture essential demographics and turn customer data into the kind of repeat revenue you can set your smartwatch to.
Building Your Birthday Buzz
Nobody can make the big day even better quite like you. The most personal of celebratory occasions, consumers have become conditioned to expect something special for themselves (or children) as the date nears—and while a surprise is always welcome, this is when they expect a price-slashed birthday party offer, exclusive savings, or even a free treat. You see where we’re going with this, right? Collecting your customers’ birthdays means you can follow up with email offers, knowing full well this is the time they’re likely to purchase. After all, when it comes to their children, parents will stop at nothing to secure the perfect party package or birthday experience for the guest of honor and all their friends.
A digital marketing platform can help you send out a birthday collector form to your email list. For a more direct-response approach, try placing a date collector kiosk or tablet in your party rooms. While you can expect a fair share of people to share their big day voluntarily, adding a small but special gift or discount in return for each date collected provides the proper push to build up your birthday bank.
The Wonders of Wireless
Let’s face it—customers don’t just come to your center for your main attraction. They visit to share their experiences across a multitude of social profiles. When it comes time to post a selfie and start their takeover of the timeline, however, nothing is worse than unreliable cell service. This is where your center can save the day, and obtain valuable information about your visitors in the process.
Installing a WiFi access point in your facility and offering free wireless internet to guests can be an ingenious way to both provide a service and acquire customer data points. To connect, customers would simply need to sign in with their email, phone number, or social profile—all viable leads you can use to send future audience-segmented promotions and coupons.
From MVP to VIP: Establishing a Loyalty Program
Every customer deserves to feel important, and never is that more evident than through the opportunity created by a rewards or loyalty membership. Retaining guests is less costly than acquiring new ones, which is why developing a program or club is a vital prerequisite to increasing the lifetime value of your customer base. With the proper plan in place, guests will feel reinvigorated by the rotating influx of incentivized offers, and in turn your business will benefit from repeat visits and new customer referrals.
While there’s nothing wrong with making your customers card-carrying members in the physical sense, prepare yourself to accommodate today’s generation with mobile check-ins, online redemptions, and social media contests for newer members. Identifying who’s returning to the center repeatedly will help you cater to the most devoted fans of your business.
Stay On Top of Things with a Website Popup
From timely updates to your hours of operation to an overview of your famous attractions, there’s plenty of reasons for your website to collect traffic—but is it enough to really the move needle? Keep all eyes on you by installing a popup to claim a coupon such as free admission to celebrate Thanksgiving in November or a sign-up to get the party started by joining a birthday rewards club. By providing their name, contact information, and whatever basic information you set up to collect, they will be able to access exclusive specials, giving them even more incentive to visit you in person.
Keep Your Options Open
Like finding the right tool for the job, discovering the best way to collect data comes down to what works best for you. While most businesses are use to pulling data from nearly every nook and cranny, the landscape is constantly evolving and remaining open to new technology and shifts in strategy can help you stay ahead of the competition. Presently, there’s a cornucopia of alternatives to choose from and as we’ve outlined above, the options are plentiful. Additional means include directly asking customers to supply information on their own through a digital waiver that can be sent via email or deployed as a pop-up on your website.
Installing a customer satisfaction kiosk, like ServiceGuru or Avius, captures your visitors’ feedback at the point of interaction providing you with both valuable insight and information with each and every experience. Finally, utilizing a cashless card registration for all the action both in the rink and in the arcade is the premier way to make it easy for regular rollers to load up on all the fun from their very first visit.
Data collection is your first step to generating more profit from the customers you already have. Download our repeat customer marketing plan to discover how you can double your repeat visits by collecting more data.
