Don't wait for the weekend! How to utilize weekday promotions to combat lower traffic nights at your Family Entertainment Center.
It’s the weekend! Kids are enjoying their highly anticipated two days off school. Parents are off work and looking for a place to have fun with their family. Everyone has a little bit more free time and they are spending it at your family fun center. Business is booming! Come Monday though, you may find that things are looking a little different.
For a great deal of fun centers, weekdays tend to be lower traffic days. Many people have school, work, and other life obligations during the week. With all of these different commitments, a trip to your family entertainment center may not be top of mind. Having one or more weekday promotions, and marketing them well, is a great way to get more traffic through your door on those traditionally lower traffic nights.
Weekday Promotion Ideas
All You Can Play
An All You Can Play (AYCP) offer could be handled in several different ways.
- Pick a night of the week where you offer AYCP laser tag games for a certain time frame for one price. For example, you may consider AYCP laser tag from 3pm –6pm on Tuesday for a set price.
- Set a nightly time where you offer AYCP laser tag for one price after that time. For example, you may consider AYCP laser tag from 8pm – Close, Monday – Wednesday.
- Offer AYCP for a variety of attractions at your center for a single price. For example, AYCP laser tag, go carts, and putt-putt golf from 5pm – 8pm on Wednesday for a set price.
Reduced Price Attractions
This type of offer would generally be a percentage off of standard pricing. Here are some ideas on how this offer could be executed.
- Offer a percentage off laser tag games during a certain time on a specific night or nights of the week. For example, 50% off laser tag games from 3pm-6pm on Mondays and Tuesdays.
- Offer a percentage off laser tag games for an entire day of the week. For example, 40% off all laser tag games on Tuesdays.
- Encourage the purchase of more games or multiple attractions with an increasing discount for multiple purchases. For example, Monday – Wednesday receive 30% off the purchase of 1 game/attraction, 40% off the purchase of 2 games/attraction, and 50% off the purchase of 3 or more games/attractions.
Buy One, Get One
Buy One, Get One (BOGO) offers are generally done as either BOGO free of BOGO with a discount on the second item.
- Offer BOGO free laser tag on a certain day of the week. For example, BOGO Free Laser Tag Tuesdays.
- To encourage more people to try a new or less popular attraction, consider BOGO Free with a more popular attraction. For example, buy a game of laser tag and receive another attraction for free on a specified day of the week.
- Offer a time frame where attractions are BOGO half off. For example, on Wednesdays from 6pm to close, buy one attraction and get a second attraction half off.
The best offer for your fun center will depend on a variety of factors such as the attractions you offer, your location, and the client base in your area. If you aren’t sure what will work best for you, consider trying something out for a few weeks. If you don’t see the success you were hoping for, you can always make adjustments and run a new offer later on.
Marketing Your Midweek Promotion
Now that you have established a midweek promotion, you’re going to want to make sure your client base knows about it. There are many great ways that you can get the word out about new promotions you are running.
Social media is an excellent resource to leverage. Make an announcement post regarding a new promotion you are running and continue to post about that promotion regularly to get as many eyes on it as possible. To increase the views, don’t forget to share offers from your fun center’s social media to your own personal page and encourage your staff to do the same. Keep in mind that we have a social media template to get you started in your operator resources folder.
Make sure your offer is prominently posted on your website. You will want to include it in multiple places that your guests may visit when viewing your sight. Consider adding it directly to your home page, creating an offers tab to add it to (along with any other offers you may be running), and making a note about it on your hours of operation and pricing pages.
Be sure your guests that come in on the weekend leave your fun center knowing about your weekday offers. In addition to having signage prominently posted throughout your fun center, consider giving them a flyer or coupon they can take home with them as a reminder. Even if no coupon is needed, a coupon or voucher can help to build excitement for your offer. For example, give a voucher to everyone that comes to your fun center on Sunday and let know that “Today we are giving all our guests a voucher to visit us for half off laser tag any Wednesday this month!”
Though your weekend traffic will, at least for the most part, always be your heaviest traffic, that doesn’t mean you can’t increase your weekday
audience. Consider launching a weekday promotion and start getting the word out with your midweek promotion social media template located in your operator resources folder.
Looking for more marketing assistance? Check out our recent blog post “5 Marketing Tips For Your Laser Tag Attraction”.
