5 Easy Ways to Increase FEC Revenue

Special events, multi-visit passes, and staff competitions are just a few of the ways to boost your FEC’s revenue today and in the future.

You’re likely always thinking about ways to drive revenue and increase your bottom line. Sometimes, great ideas can come from quick brainstorming sessions with your team. Today, we did a quick brainstorming session of our own to provide you with a few ideas that you can use immediately to start driving more revenue today. Use these as they are or as a jumping-off point for your team’s next leadership meeting.

No. 1: Hold a back-to-school event or drive.

It’s hard to believe that school will be starting in a few short weeks, yet here we are. But that doesn’t mean you have to go into a post-summer slump. Consider hosting a back-to-school event or school supply drive to increase traffic to your facility. These are also great ways to support your local school districts or charitable organizations, which can lead to future partnership opportunities. If you decide to conduct a drive, reach out to local organizations or school districts to get supply lists and find out what organizations to partner with. Once you set the event date or collection drive, be sure to get the word out.

Use your customer record data to send targeted emails and consider what kind of organic and paid social media content you need for the event. Your CenterEdge customer data can be segmented by zip code and age ranges if you wanted to target specific school districts or school levels, for example. You can also upload customer lists into Facebook so you can send relevant ads to people in your local community that are similar to your current audience.

Make a plan for any paid and organic social posts before, during, and after the event. You can easily schedule posts inside Facebook Business Manager or in free or paid tools like Hootsuite, Hubspot, Later, and Sprout Social if you don’t have a way to manage your social media now.

Note: This tip works well all year round. If you don’t have time or don’t want to coordinate a back-to-school drive, consider a holiday drive supporting your local food bank. You could give game cards to guests bringing donations, conduct prize wheel giveaways, and have a lot of fun helping others while boosting revenue.

No. 2: Create a multi-visit pass.

Passes can drive repeat business and draw in more revenue during each visit, so think about what kinds of passes might be compelling for your audience. For example, let’s say you want to drive traffic in September because that’s typically a slow month with schools back in session. If a typical session of laser tag or go-karts is $10, you could create and market a BOGO pass that gives your guest two sessions for the price of one. Or, price the bundle at $15 and market it as “buy one get one half off.” You could allow the first pass to be valid immediately and set the return attraction pass to be valid September 1-30, for example.

While you might think of a promotion like this “costing” you $5, remember that it’s unlikely that your guest will only come in to redeem their pass item. They’ll buy game cards, additional attractions, food and beverage, all of which drive revenue. Plus, you’re guaranteed the per capita boost when they make the initial purchase.

Another option is to create a pass bundle, such as selling six laser tag sessions for the price of five. This incentivizes higher spending upfront and garners commitment from your guest to return a specific number of times.

No. 3: Build a culture of upselling.

The easiest way to increase revenue is to boost your per capita spending with the people already there, which happens with intention. Arm your staff with the tools they need to make upselling part of every interaction with guests. There are a few ways to accomplish this:

• Add upselling prompts to your point of sale. Customize your POS item modifiers to help prompt your staff to suggestively sell products.
  Teach staff the specific language to use during conversations with guests that help encourage upsells. Then train them to use their new skills with every guest, every shift. Here’s how.
• Conduct upselling competitions. Set goals for anything you want team members to upsell, such as a specific product you want to focus on or any overall dollar or percentage increase. Set up the terms of the competition, timeframe, and reward for winners. Then, remind team members of the goal each shift and provide coaching and feedback throughout the competition.
• Use your CenterEdge cashier reports to help measure team member and promotion performance during and after the term. Once ended, publicly present awards to winners, solicit feedback from the team about the competition, and consider what changes you’d like to make for the next one. And as they say, rinse and repeat.

No. 4: Send targeted marketing emails with compelling links to purchase.

Email and text marketing is an effective way to drive revenue. Besides segmenting customer data into groups, as we covered earlier, carefully plan your message content. Every marketing email, ad, or text message you send should have a clear call to action.

Provide “purchase now” calls to action such as links and buttons that take recipients directly to your online store. If you’re testing different offers or only want email participants, such as VIP members, to access the offer, consider creating hidden links. You can create a link that is accessible only to recipients of the marketing message. This can also be a great way to promote spirit nights and charitable events. And, by creating different item types, you’ll be able to see which offers were redeemed the most and thus which messaging was the most effective.

No. 5: Create a membership program.

While a membership program isn’t necessarily something that you can implement right this minute, now might still be a good time to think about how doing so can benefit your facility. Membership programs offer guaranteed recurring revenue, drive repeat visits and income, and provide you with a captive audience to solicit feedback from and to help test new products. But don’t take our word for it; learn how memberships benefitted CenterEdge client Rev’d Up Fun in this blog.

These are just a few of the ways to increase revenue quickly. Have other ideas? Share them in the comments or on Twitter.