When you think of
summer marketing, most proprietors first thought is to floor 13 to 17 week summer league bowlers and in
typical fashion they offer what worked last summer, deduct what didn't work and
come up with a few new ideas.
After they get their
leagues on the floor (sometime from late April to mid June, depending on their
locale), they then begin to concentrate on some deeply discounted open play
programs and hope it rains.
Now I know that
sounds simplistic, but trust me, I have been in over a thousand centers in this
country and that’s pretty much the way it goes. And that's all there is until July when fall league start ups rears its head.
So in this blog, I
am going to list nine (9) different strategies that you could implement over
the summer; in fact you have at least 9 different strategies to choose from as a way to approach your summer business.
But before we get
into the summer choices, have you examined and analyzed the last three years of
your business, looked at the trends, seen what kinds of leagues, programs and offerings
have been successful? Do you have a real
understanding of where your business is coming from? What segments? What time periods/day
parts and what kinds of “consumer offers” are being accepted?
Secondly, in
building any league schedule for the summer, do you have offerings for these key
segments?
·
Competitive league bowlers
·
Social bowlers
·
Seniors
·
Adult child bowlers
·
Children
·
New bowlers (couples, adult/child, seniors,
children)
If you don’t have
an offering that is relevant for each of these segments, then you have no
chance of getting them to bowl.
Now with that
being said, here are nine different ways to build summer leagues:
#1 Traditional 12 to 16 week summer season
#2 Traditional and short season leagues only
#3 Short season leagues only
#4 Traditional and short season leagues plus corporate
parties
#5 Traditional league offerings and corporate parties
#6 Short season leagues and corporate parties
#7 Only corporate parties and fund raisers
#8 Open play only (walkina nd organized)
#9 Open play and corporate parties/fund
raisers
I can categorically
tell you that I have seen each of these strategies work in various centers over
the course of many centers. Your
challenge is to decide which of these
strategies fits your market the best
and which will create the most revenue
Therefore you must answer these types of questions
before deciding what strategy to pursue:
·
What is your competition offering?
·
What other summer activities are you competing
with and of these which ones can you partner with to create a great consumer
offer (i.e. Six Flags, Water parks, Casinos, etc)
·
How many companies are in your area and do you
have a sales effort that can be geared up?
·
Do you have a data base to reach non league people
with short season programs?
·
Do you have a commercial data base of fund raising
organizations, religious groups and fraternal groups?
·
Who is going to do the various tasks to implement
these programs and how will you monitor their progress?
·
How much will you spend to reach these various
segments and what is your anticipated return?
Or you can do what
you did last year and pray for more rain?
Please let me know if I
can help. You can reach me at 516 359 4874 or email me at fredkaplowitz@gmail.com
