Inflatable Indoor Fun Center Business

The Marketing Side of an Indoor FEC

Untangling the web

Everyone can agree that first impressions can go a long way, which is why creating a web site that is both attractive and easy to use is so important for your indoor FECs business. When someone wants to find out information or see what exactly your facility has to offer, it is more common for them to visit your web site than for them to actually drive out there and see for themselves. How you design your web site to look and work, is eventually how potential customers and guests learn to view your family entertainment center. If the web site is either too difficult to navigate or overwhelmingly dull, then people will assume your family entertainment facility is dull or already too complicated to go visit. As an family entertainment facility owner, director, or administrator, you have to make sure that your web site is just right for people to both feel is amazing and simple. Make sure to include the information that is needed for guests to easily access. Information such as pricing, specials, hours, directions, and party packages are all must haves on web site designing. You can also learn to include the commonly asked questions to avoid your employees having to answer repetitive questions.

Once the main must haves and graphic designs are decided upon, you must directly go into deciding who and how will the web site be maintained. Some family entertainment center operators do it with professional help, or with professional software. However you decide to do so, you have to keep in mind that the web site will need consistency in forms of updating specials, and party packages for customers to be aware of what the upcoming new deal may be. With site maintenance you can easily make sure your web site is being regularly taken care of and updating any customer on a possible inquiry’s or situations. The inflatable indoor fun center web site can also be a cost effective way to contact clients and promote sales. Emailing your customers for newer and better pricing allows you to avoid the media mail charges of today’s snail mail.

How To: Partner with Local Businesses

An independent family entertainment center operator can be a recognized accomplishment in the entertainment world, but not the easiest way to go. Partnering with local businesses on the other hand can be a form of security and assurance of your professional goals. Both parties can take have a win win situation and benefit equally. Adding to your alliance can only make your business stronger. When you and your partners have the same views and or goals, it also adds much more possibility to grow and strive towards sky rocketing success. Make sure to always lure your potential partners in with how exactly they will benefit from partnering with you and not someone else. Take a second to look at the entire picture and see exactly what their business is in need of. Take from what you know of their company and use it to build a foundation they can benefit from, all while staying equally interacted.

Looking for well known charities is one key direction to go. Charities can be known to not only spread the word in several different communities, but also can help with long term clients. People who tie businesses with charities often stay true to the cause and view your company as a part of it as well. Charities can also be tied with many different programs that lead to high recognition in some cases. Fund raisers for example are always the programs that work towards giving back. Prices are generally discounted at a reasonable price and then resold to other companies looking to do charity at a higher rate. Another way to promote recognition is though creativity. You have to find fun and new ways to pull in larger audiences. Find ways to be relevant to mothers, fathers, teens, children, and even single young adults. Become a part of the scene and offer two for one special with your partnered company. One example can be offering a free bouquet of flowers after the fifth visit to moms and dads who visit your family entertainment facility. This will not only benefit you business, but also benefit your partner and pull in more parents to your indoor FEC, all at the same time.

Party Time

Generally speaking, when a person thinks of birthday parties hosted at indoor FECs, they think of children anywhere in the age of 1 and 12 years of age. These days however, indoor centers have begun to provide birthday bashes that can also be of great joy to teens, college students, and even mom and dad. inflatable indoor fun centereverywhere have begun designing parties that fit in different age groups. Teen parties for example have now been designed to let the guest of honor (Birthday Girl/Boy) to decide what games they should be able to play, what food to have, and even how to set up the decorations. For teen’s birthday parties the idea is to let them feel they are in control and a bit more responsible for a change. It makes them feel a bit more grown up to have so much power around all of there every day friends. Also, they have the chance to pick more grown up games such as air soft, laser tag and anything else they might feel is cool.

When it comes to adult parties such as moms and dads birthday bash, the idea is to simply let them be adults and have fun. Let them take a break from their everyday life and responsibilities and take some time to themselves to enjoy some laughs. Design birthday parties that you know they will enjoy. Include great food, a variety of beverages that include alcohol and great music for them to enjoy. Adults normally need just those three things to have a ball. Keeping that in mind, make sure that your adult parties are at a descent time for them to take part in and away from any other parties going on that night such as teen parties or children’s birthdays because of the alcohol. You wouldn’t want to book two parties at the same time, right next door to each other for two completely different age groups. They would not mix well at all. You also wouldn’t want to make children wonder what all the noise is about and have the adults have to tone it down because of children being present. Make both parties enjoyable and make sure there booked at different times.

Marketing Magic

An family entertainment facility runs on effective marketing all year round, and learns to be the ultimate buzz of all businesses. Marketing has to be pulled from how well you know your guests and just high or low they rank you against other similar businesses. An affordable way to learn how your guests you’re your indoor center is to provide short surveys or feedback notes for them to fill out. This way you both have a chance to learn what you need work on and get recognized for the great work you and your family entertainment facility is doing. Use scales from 1-5 or 6 to rate your indoor FEC’s ranking. Use direct questions to get explanatory answers, instead of yes or no questions where your answers won’t help much at all. Try to get exactly what you need to know from your customers by providing questions that you know you as a guest would like to answer. Design your questionnaire to be something your guests can quickly but effectively answer.

Once you know what your guests look for at your family entertainment center, you can begin to effectively market your business. There are a variety of different ways FECs advertised there deals and overall business in the past few decades. Some methods being TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, direct mail and even billboards. These days, people have found far more reliable ways to advertise their business in ways that they too could keep up with today’s technology advancements. Traditional marketing fell flat due to people being able to fast forward through commercials, replacing the radio with plug in ipods, and even replacing newspaper and magazines with direct on the web media info every second and hour of the day. Stick to staying relevant and provide universal access to your family entertainment facility with improved web sites. Create tied web pages with other web sites that get a lot of publicity such as face book, twitter, YouTube, and yahoo. The more popular web sites you have access to, the more guests at your family entertainment facility.

Becoming Media Savvy

Start off by thinking about what makes your inflatable indoor fun centerdifferent. What do you offer or host that other FECs or businesses don’t? Stick to things, events, and new features that will grab anybody’s attention hands down. One example can be any new game coming to your family entertainment facility such as a huge new slide, paintball shooting ring, or bowling arena. Another way to do so is by using signature meals and deals that you already flourish on such as your world famous Pizza. People love to read eye catching promotions that start up excitement and positive commotion in the community. Focus on how your writing will sound and just how slogan you’ll make it. Stay away from sounding too commercial and instead write as if you were a guest yourself and reading something you were interested in finding out more about.

When it comes to the media, always remember that they too have a huge role in providing successful media events. Include the media in certain events to make sure you have positive feedback hitting the media. Start by hosting specific media focused fun days such as an all day pass for media workers only. Give them the opportunity to hang out and have fun for themselves. Provide them hands on experience as to all the fun your family entertainment facility has to offer. The media can always come in handy when it comes to promoting your business within the community. These days’ people are always looking to see what the media has to say about a business before they even consider visiting.

On Target

Laser Tag has now come to be a huge part of many indoor FECs for many reasons. One major factor being that it attracts a variety of different audiences. Laser Tag is one of the few ways of that people of all different age groups can take part in. You can generally see children of 8, 14, and even 19 years old hanging out, beaming it out with their 45 year old neighbor. The truth is, laser tag has a wide audience, and this audience is what makes it so fun. A lot of people like enjoying things in large groups, and Laser Tag is all about a group of people getting together to have fun. For family entertainment center operators everywhere, the key to a successful Laser Tag arena is to have a venue that is not only large enough, but filled with as many different colorful, glow in the dark bases. If there are facilities that have an upstairs, down stairs, 3D, and even different themed laser tag venues, I can guarantee you that alone will increase sales in a matter of months. People love more, and when you give them just that, the crowds star flocking.

On the other hand, you do have to make sure you can take care of the basics of maintaining a clean, fun, and overall neat Laser Tag facility before going through with the purchase. Make sure to take care of the basic battery changes, vest cleaning, and even the occasional gun glitches before those small problems can turn into bigger ones. If you do happen to come across a larger problem like a black out or power shortage, then make sure you have the people who have the correct knowledge on speed dial. You wouldn’t want to turn saving a few bucks doing it yourself into a thousand dollar repair. You can also try things like making your Laser Tag facility a bit more energy efficient and have some special lighting turned off and on when its needed. Think of it similar to the clap on clap off lights there are available. It saves energy and it still reliable to turn on when needed.

Primetime Online

Web sites are a whole new virtual portal to the world of indoor FECs. People can simply type in your name and get everything they need to know from simply one click onto your web site. For almost a decade now, the internet has evolved at a rapid pace and with that the view of web sites in general. A business web site has to have specific information and information that is simply nice to know all in one site. A few tips on what to include and what not to do when it comes to your web site, you have to think outside the box and like a true web savvy professional. First and foremost, you have to find out what type of design you are going to be developing. family entertainment center operators can both hire a designer that will be responsible for updates, specials, and even how high you rate on regular search engines. Or do the designing yourself through general searches of competition or help from your employees.

Focus on making the homepage the best page your guests will see. Your guests will need to be able to see as many fun shots you can make a part of your web site to get a general idea of what you offer. Add the basic questions everybody asks to your web site to free your staff from answering repeated questions. Remember to include anything that will make your guests come back, such as coupons, special codes and anything else you feel will catch their eye. Take advantage of what your employees have to say and include and write your own web site to make sure you stay away from repeats. Stick to key words for better ranking and keep a close eye on what the competition has to offer. After your web site is complete, make sure to flaunt it and have as many guests visit your site to see for themselves how much you have to offer.

A Word from our Sponsors

A strategic move that indoor centers everywhere have used for decades is local partnerships to help revenues and community connection. Be sure to focus on what they have to offer your family entertainment facility so that both can benefit equally. Some family entertainment facilitys have certain ties by advertising there logo on certain equipment, or maybe offering certain half off deals after a certain amount of visits. Offer VIP passes for guests to be able to have a reason to come back to either business. In order to know what you will offer in return to your sponsor, seek who you wish to target. Stick to targeting businesses that share the same philosophies and overall goals. No family entertainment facility would want to connect with companies that are on completely different pages. Companies such as Tobacco or Alcohol promotions really wouldn’t do well with FECs.

Once your partnership has been formed, begin to work your way towards those benefits. One great tip for any family entertainment center operator who has a sponsorship formed would be that of staying in touch. Partners who are constantly communicating and aware of each other’s situation would benefit much more than those who are constantly guessing the next step. Sponsors can use their communication to keep up with special events that will increase revenue substantially. Some indoor FECs use their partnership to promote events such as holidays, birthdays, and state celebrations.

Grand Slam

Batting cages have been another great hit among the family entertainment center crowds. There are many different ways to target different audiences with your Batting cages; the key is to simply be creative. One way to do so is to make sure to wrap some attention on elementary, middle school, and high school students practicing for school baseball teams. Offer lessons to help them both learn and bring team and friends along with them for a great time. Do keep in mind that you can hire anywhere from one to three coaches to help with the lessons. Students love to have a place to be able to have fun, and professionally coached on their own free time. School coaches can also benefit from your batting cages if offered an economical price. Make sure to market any special deals to public or school teams to be able to pull in these large baseball crowds.

Another key component would be to provide your guests with a genuine relationship for them to base their experience on. Some examples are letting the coaches’ use meeting rooms. Joining on school functions or charity events will both raise money and help advertise your facility. Once you’re able to build this relationship, guests are more likely to return to the facility and environment you have provided. You can also choose to expand the season for students to be able to have the facility’s use longer or for your own Batting League. Catering to corporate can always help as strong sellers. One last key component would be the maintaining of your facility. Keeping your facility looking good and presentable for your guests will avoid any bad mouthing and continue the heavy flow of guests.

Digital Dollars

Family entertainment centers everywhere have started to see just how much Digital dollars can actually go. With the internet being so big in today’s generation, the company web site benefits in many different ways. One way this is done is through online ticketing. People have the luxury of purchasing there tickets at any time of any day because the web site runs 24/7. People usually make decisions once on the web site and not always have the time to go through the phone call process. You can collect all the information you need for future marketing, and you can easily track effectiveness. This also helps FECs stay strong when competing with other family entertainment facility. It really does save both time and money for guests and indoor center operators.

Ways to use these online ticketing to your advantage would be when catering to birthday parties and package deals. Employees can make sure they know exactly how many people will be arriving and just how much discount they would be receiving. Guests will be able to pick and choose between prices, packages and area. This way the facility won’t double book or have people asking what they are offering because availability will be online. You have to have marketing mind set when setting up these online ticketing for both your, and guests benefit. Do keep in mind that when it comes to bigger parties and or bookings it may be best to handle directly.

Ad Aware

When it comes to advertising your inflatable indoor fun center in both smart and economical ways it simply takes becoming relevant to your audience. One huge way is through txt. Some indoor FECs use competitions where neat prizes are available to those who sign up for the raffle. Once there information is in your system, you can send promotional text messages to catch their attention. They can choose to be removed or remain on the list at any time, and also forward the cool new offers to people who aren’t on the list. Another way Is through pre-promotion for those newer family entertainment facility operators. Pre promoting will allow your guest to already know who you are before you even open.

People can also use Google Adverbs to easily promote your business with key words to make your business pop up with common searches under your category. This costs almost a dollar a day or 30 dollars a month to promote. This way you won’t have to stray away to far from what the kids are on these days. family entertainment center operators should also consider guerilla marketing for a great way to bring in crowds. All it takes is some willing employees to pass out flyers at local events such as block parties or holiday celebrations, and the business can see serious results. Social marketing also stays relevant to what the kids are doing these days and gives you a chance to promote quickly and easily. Staying on Face book, YouTube, and even Yahoo is usually all it takes. But you can always join sites that are more popular in your town if different.

New Frontiers

Owners of indoor FECs can also always look to expand their business in search of new audiences. When focused on just what your family entertainment center offers you cross out any other possible revenues. You have to really design your family entertainment facility to offer everything a family needs to have fun. Some examples can be reaching out to your guests. Reaching out to families that are planning on taking a trip to your family entertainment center allows you to explain all the activities you can offer them if they were to visit. Team building allows your audiences to enjoy their time the rest of the week through creative planning and activities. This also helps move sales throughout the slower work week, offering more for those who go in.

Higher Learning can also help open the doors to older audiences such as people older than there 40s. Providing them a place to go and hang out in between people of their own age and interests. Other programs that offer the same is the Mommy and ME programs. This program gives preschoolers and their parents a place to bond and learn new things during the Monday-Friday work week. Toddlers can have a learning environment to enjoy with their stay at home guardian instead of staying home and watching TV all day.

The Game Changer

Something completely out of the ordinary and different an family entertainment center can provide to the younger audiences is now know as summer Camps and or programs. Children can continue to have fun and experience new team building in this utopia and controlled environment built for children to enjoy. Children get to push towards study success and have a chance to continue learning in their summer vacation while enjoying it as well. Children get to practice different art, exercises, and overall team bonding throughout the program.

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