Little Hinges Swing Big Doors

Emerging from the pandemic, many bowling centers and FECs have experienced stronger than normal business, with many facilities full and running long waiting lists. This trend goes way beyond our industry and transcends to other recreational and hospitality businesses that are also trying to service pent-up demand.

While the current rush of business has been great, most savvy operators expect the pace will slow a bit as things go back toward more normal consumer demand. Keeping your marketing skills sharpened will be the best way to continue maintaining and growing your business.

Challenges to growth and addressing ever-emerging competition mean marketing skills need to be employed on a regular basis. In prior editions of IBI, I have detailed the starting points of making good offers: strong headlines and sub-headlines, copy filled with customer benefits, the use of testimonials, and guarantees. These are all important elements for sure, but sometimes it’s the little things that make a big impact.

Think of this month’s marketing suggestions as add-ons that help an offer perform to the max. Two key fundamentals that are often missing from an offer are the inclusion of premiums and coupons.  When spending time and money to build and send marketing offers, it is a major error not to consider how the addition of a coupon and/or a premium might result in the offer performing significantly better.

Coupons

No matter if you are marketing through social media, email, text, direct mail, in-house flyer or another method, if your offer can accommodate a coupon you should strive to include one or more.

From a marketing standpoint, the number one reason to embed a coupon in an offer is that it can keep the proposition “alive” at the consumer level longer, because the coupon is seen as a possible value in and of itself.  When the offer and coupon stick around a bit longer, the chance that another family member or friend finds it attractive increases. Coupons keep the offer alive for extra minutes, hours, days, or weeks and can be critical to the overall response of your offer.

Keep in mind that the purpose of the coupon is not necessarily to be redeemed.  Its purpose is to keep your marketing offer alive and shouldn’t be measured by coupons redeemed. Coupons are part of the support-system for your offer, not the main attraction.

That’s not to say the coupons won’t get used. Sometimes, even if the consumer doesn’t take you up on the specific offer you extended, the coupon might still result in some traffic and spending for you. Don’t be too wimpy with your coupon offer; the more valuable the coupon is the better it will perform to help your main offer produce. 

The costs of including coupons in your offers are very low, and chances of improving visits or spending because your offer was alive longer are very high!

Premiums

The use of premiums in marketing is a proven winner. “Purchase the expensive sweeper and get a Dustbuster free!” Or remember the toy in the Cracker Jack’s box?  The bowling ball in a Have-A-Ball League?  These are all examples of premiums that have helped sell the main product of an offer.

Premiums flat-out work!

They elevate an everyday offer to one that consumers take a second look at, and that second look can mean a much stronger ROI for an offer.  If you apply a little creative thinking, you can find a premium to help boost the response to any offer. Learn-how-to-bowl-better booklets, toys for kids, food and/or drink as add-ons, game cards, T-shirts, hats, practice passes, logo merchandise — the list is endless. 

The cost of a premium is recovered from the price that you set for the product or experience.  Many times, consumers are in a quandary, divided between two or three ways to spend their time and money. The right premium might just be the tiebreaker that helps consumers consider your offer over another.

From attracting customers to segments that are tough to fill, to selling other products at your center, premiums and coupons can boost response. These often-forgotten tools are great marketing gas for your offers, are low-to-no cost to employ, and offer numerous secondary benefits.

Bottom line: they work!