Improve Your FEC’s Marketing Through “Targeting”

We are all assaulted in our mailboxes and inboxes with an endless stream of advertisements and coupons, most of which are pretty easy to ignore. Some seem to jump out at us (those are frequently the coupons that we use) but what makes them different? It all hit me last weekend while I was driving 30 minutes out of my way to use a coupon that my wife and I had received in the mail. This coupon stood out from the pack because it seemed like something special and exclusive, just for us.

You see we have only been married for a few months now. The coupon was from a department store where we had registered and it was offering 20% off our entire purchase to “complete our registry.” Thinking back on it, the store might have offered everyone 20% off that weekend but it seemed like we were getting a special, unique deal, so we jumped at the opportunity.

Sending specialized coupons, deals or ads to a small, specific group of your customers is what we call “targeted” advertising. Using targeted advertising you’ll get a better return than you would by blasting out a coupon to everyone on your massive mailing list. What are some ways that an entertainment business can benefit by targeting their advertising?

1. Advertising Your Birthday Bookings: Most birthday software offers some ability to track the children who have had parties so that you can send them email reminders in future. If your birthday management software lets you create separate mailing lists based on the children’s ages and birth months, then an obvious way to target your advertising would be to send an ad in August to parents of children with September birthdays. We can do better, though. If you send one ad to parents of 7 to 9 year olds and another mailing to 10 to 12 year olds, then you can focus on different party packages or use themes that better reflect their age groups. Most importantly, mention the child’s name, age or birth date in the ad. This is what makes the ad specialized and lets the parent know that their child is important to you.
2. Advertising to Your Best Customers: If your facility tracks a significant portion of your customers’ transactions, either because of tracking waivers or offering a customer loyalty program, you will have lots of opportunities for targeted marketing. One of the best is to advertise differently to frequent customers and customers who have only come once or twice. Frequent customers will likely visit without a discount but you could send them an email offering them exclusive access to a new attraction before the general public. Customers that have only visited once or twice, on the other hand, are perfect candidates for an email saying “we haven’t seen you in a while” with a discount to get them to come back.
3. Advertising to Customers On Their Birthday: Whether or not a child has their party with you, you can still use a customer’s birthday as an opportunity to target your advertisements (this goes for adults, too). On the first day of each month, send out a coupon to everyone whose birthday is in that month, offering them a special discount or coupon that expires at the end of the month. They will be impressed that you took the time to think of them and the coupon will seem like a special deal: not something just anyone could get. Your customer will then be much more likely to use the coupon.

Sure, sending out a mass email to everyone in your list works. When you get a new attraction or want to announce your summer promotions, it’s the way to go. But for some advertisements, especially when coupons are involved, narrowing down your audience can greatly improve the number of coupons that get redeemed, bringing you business that you would have missed.

For more information on how CenterEdge Software can help you grow your business or to schedule a demo, give us a call at (336) 598-5934.

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