For millions of American school children, September signals
a return to the classrooms, a clean slate, a new beginning and the promise of a
brighter year.
For many business people, September also signals the sounds
of the holidays to come. They know, as do you, that before you turn around, the
season will be here.
If you’re a bowling proprietor or the owner /operator of an
FEC, you recognize the importance of capitalizing on Halloween Thanksgiving,
Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa holiday weeks, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Maybe your market celebrates all of these
holidays.
Maybe yes. Maybe no.
Point is you have to get your marketing plans together NOW
to be able to implement effective income generating programs.
Here’s just a quick
game plan of the steps you need to take
1. What
did you do the last several years, during these holidays?
2. Were
they successful?
3. Can
you quantify lineage, revenue, average price per game, revenue per game during
these promotional periods. What’s that, you don’t have that kind of information?
Then base it on open play revenue
4. Ask
your open play bowlers which (ideas you have) programs they might prefer. List your 3 or 4 ideas
in a flier format (doesn’t have to be all that pretty) and show them to open
play bowler families, kids, Moms, 15 to 34 year olds, HS kids and any college
people in your market.
5. Quantify
the data and select the program.
6. Here
is the hard part.
a. How
do you communicate for maximum effectiveness?
b. How
do you reach potential customers and existing non-league customers (No, one or
two emails will not bring your embryonic idea to life, Sorry. It takes a
campaign).
c. How
much will you spend? (“As little as possible” is not a viable answer. Every other
marketer is doing all they can to maximize the season so tell me again how your
flier sitting on the desk, or your two Facebook posts will have them waiting at
the doors is going to compete with them again?).
7. How
will you train your people for handling and servicing more people? (What about the part time kid you hired from
the local high school? Think he really cares? How will you get him or her motivated
to satisfy YOUR customers)?
8. What
will you during the campaign to add some excitement, instant gratification, and
just plain fun to the experience?
9. How
will you make sure to try and gather as much new data base names as possible?
(Oh Fred, we try, but get so busy. We just don’t have the time!)
a. Maybe
hire a part time hostess for the weekends, Larry and make sure she is a happy,
bubbly type that can get people to complete a data base.
10. Did you
lay down a set of goals up front and are now measuring the results against
goal, against expenditure to achieve goal and against last year.
More importantly, please recognize that the myriad ways to
communicate has changes. In the past we pushed messages onto consumers.
Today, consumers have a choice to voluntarily accept it or
turn it off. How will you make sure that
your message gets turned on??
If you have any questions on these steps, we will be happy
to assist. Just give us a call at 516 359 4874 or email us at fredkaplowitz@gmail.com
And have a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Happy Kwanzaa
