vrCAVE Marketing Guide: Platforms and Strategies

Summary

In the Customers document, we discussed how to understand the audience you’re trying to reach. In this one, we’ll talk about platforms and strategies and what makes them useful. We’ll save the final step, combining your audience with the platforms through compelling messaging and content, for How.

We’ll cover:

Table of contents

Paid media refers to coverage or content you have to pay for. That means there’s a hard monetary cost, of course, but what you get in return is the guarantee of exposure.

Most companies will need to invest in paid media on an ongoing basis, as it allows you to reach audiences that aren’t looking for you. Broadly, we can talk about paid media that helps with brand awareness (leading less directly to sales), and paid media that helps with direct sales. There are times where you might choose one, the other, or both.

Digital versus traditional

The other big distinction is between digital and traditional advertising. The big advantage of digital is, set up right, you will typically be able to trace a booking back to an ad and easily understand your cost per customer acquisition (which lets you quickly understand if an ad has made you money, or cost you).

But there are still ways to rate the effectiveness of traditional advertising, and there are often many opportunities you will want to consider.

Google offers a lot of different advertising options. To keep things simple, we’ll split them into Search and Display.

Search ads show up when a user makes a search query. Google will attempt to match a query with as relevant an ad as possible (taking into account the budget and bids of the advertiser).

So, if your ad reads “The best VR escape rooms in London!” and you’re targeting London, Google will take all of those words, targeted keywords, the content of your website, and your location targeting into account. Then, as search queries come in, it may or may not show your ad.

Search Query Location of User Google likely to show ad?
VR escape rooms London Yes
VR escape rooms New York No
Where to buy VR headsets London No

To get the best results with Google search ads, you want to consider all the types of queries users might use to find a business like yours. Then, not only do you want to use those keywords in your ads, but you’ll want to target those keywords, and spread them out over your website.

The big advantage here is by doing this, you can be confident that a lot of the traffic that then clicks on those ads have reasonable buying intent: they’re already looking for something like your activities to do when they land on your page.

Display

Display ads are ads that run in Google’s Ad Network (and we can include YouTube in here). Google has access to show these ads on any website that has opted into their network (and that is an enormous number). You can target these ads based on individual websites, types of websites, user interests, and so on.

This advertising is more passive than search. It’s much less likely that someone seeing these ads has a high buying intent at that moment. But, with good targeting, it can still drive activity and brand awareness. You could, for instance, decide to show ads on websites related to gaming, to people in your city.

You also have much more freedom to design your ads, as you’re not limited to text.

To start your advertising program, you might want to focus just on Search when it comes to Google. You can then expand later.

Conversion Tracking

The concepts explained here are equally valid for Facebook and other platforms, though they’ll be set up differently.

By default, an ad platform will tell you how many impressions you got (every time someone sees the ad) and how many clicks. What you’re interested in ultimately is, of course, your sales. For that, you need conversion tracking.

This requires connecting your website with the ad platform, so that the ad platform knows when a user it sent to the ad books a game on your site, because your site sent a message back to the platform saying that it happened.

If you want to run your ads seriously, this step can be a technical challenge with some setups, but it’s a necessity. Allowing the platform to know when traffic has converted to becoming your customer means that it can automatically optimize the types of person it shows the ads to. Meaning, you get more conversions.

Setting Up Google Ads

Ideally, this is something you can ask of your web developer. If you’re doing it all in-house, these steps may help.

Setting up a conversion event for Google can be a bit tricky. This page explains how Google’s conversion events work https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9267568?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article

These steps are also for the GA4 version of Google Analytics. If you have been using Google Analytics for a while, you may be using an older version called UA, or Universal Analytics. Google is transitioning away from UA, so it would be best to update to GA4 if you are not already using that version. If you’re starting new, start with GA4.

Then inside Google Ads, you can go to Tools and Settings -> Measurement -> Conversions, click New, and you can import your Google Analytics conversion here as the fourth option:

As you set up your ads, you’ll now be able to select these conversion events you’ve set up as your goals.

  • Set up your account
  • Set up conversion tracking
  • Do your keyword research
  • Specify your keyword, demographic, and location targeting
  • Create your ads

Facebook Ads

Facebook serves ads across both Facebook and Instagram in one user interface. While you might want to test out different approaches on each platform, what’s possible is largely the same, so this document won’t generally go into the details.

Facebook doesn’t offer Search ads like Google does, but it does run the equivalent to display. It has a high degree of customizability when it comes to the targeting. So while the ads are more passive than a Google search, what you might lack in immediate buying intent you’ll make up for in more relevance. There’s also the social aspect: Facebook ads come with Likes, Shares, and Comments. So if you’ve got a good ad going and people are engaging, you get a little extra social authority that you don’t get on a website banner ad.

A Facebook ad, in fact, looks very much like a Facebook post. And while you can run your ads as separate posts entirely, you can also boost already existing posts.

In all cases, you can certainly run text and image ads (though be aware Facebook highly prefers your images to be mostly, if not entirely, text-free). But in most cases, video will outperform.

Setting up Facebook Ads

Ideally, your web developer can help you out with this, but you can also do it yourself. Conversion tracking involves placing some code for the Facebook Pixel in your website header and then setting up an action as a conversion. Depending on the system you’re using, you may be able to use Facebook’s Event Manager to define a conversion as a click of a button, such as the final button in the booking process. You would want to set this up for each and every booking and other contact form. This may be a lot to set up — or Facebook may not work with your booking system — but in many cases, it’s relatively straightforward.

The alternative is to set your conversion tracking up via a URL. If you’re able to direct people to a single thank you page after filling in any of your forms and make this page inaccessible otherwise, you could then tell Facebook to count anyone hitting that page as a conversion.

Example: If all bookings direct someone to a page like yoursite.com/thank-you, you can then tell Facebook that all customers hitting that page after clicking a Facebook ad are conversions. Knowing this is not only directly useful for you when evaluating performance, but to Facebook, which will better be able to target based on who is converting.

Facebook Ads Checklist

  • Set up your ads account
  • Set up your conversion tracking
  • Specify your demographic and location targeting
  • Create your ads

Other Digital Platforms

You might be wondering, what about Twitter? What about TikTok? Others?

Our advice is to start with a manageable number of ad platforms until you’ve successfully got some results. Google and Facebook/Instagram are in most cases the best starting point. Google to capture those with buying intent actively searching for activities, and Facebook for finding people more passively.

We are hearing and seeing other location-based entertainment businesses looking at TikTok. We’ll likely have more advice in the future, but it could certainly be worth a try, with a caveat. Regular TikTok content requires a high amount of effort compared to things like Facebook because you have to continuously create. As an example of a (non-VR) location-based business using TikTok, check out https://www.tiktok.com/@winchestermysteryhouse (and keep in mind they have an in-house marketing team of at least two people). This may also work best as organic, rather than using the ad tools.

Traditional Advertising

There are several options here that may be useful to you. The disadvantage of traditional advertising is that it can be harder to attribute a customer to an ad — plus, they tend to be more expensive. That said, there are benefits. You’ll be reaching people in different contexts, and there are steps you can take to understand how each is working.

Tracking

There are a couple of options you can use here. One is to offer a particular coupon code that you only distribute via one medium. While there’s no guarantee the person remembers that code, it will still give you a minimum number.

On your booking system, you may be able to add an extra question or two. If so, you could have a checkbox asking people where they heard about you. It won’t be perfect, but it’s still something.

You can also ask people to fill in a quick customer survey. You will of course not be able to get everyone to do this, but if nothing else, you could ask them the “Where did you hear about us” question.

Print

You’re not likely to see results from newspapers these days, but there are other print opportunities that may work. If you’re in an area with a high number of tourists, there are typically tourist activity brochures offered in various locations. Even if you don’t think people would want to do VR if you’re in an area where tourists are coming for say, the outdoors, there’s always the risk of a rainy day.

Radio

Despite the rise of other audio alternatives, local radio is still generally going strong. As a local business yourself, you can give radio a try and may find it works quite well. Some radio stations will also have bigger sponsorship opportunities as well, besides the spot between songs. These may only make sense if you’re a bigger FEC, but you could potentially run a charity giveaway, sponsor a contest, or even have them out at your location one day.

Broadcast commercials

At this level, the cost is likely going to exceed the value, especially compared to comparable channels. Still, again, for a larger FEC it might be worth it. And we can talk more about this under Earned Media.

Billboards/Posters/Etc.

These can work in some cases. A billboard that happens to be near your location, on a major road? That’s going to have an effect on someone who drives the same route to work every day. Similarly, on a smaller scale, many organizations and businesses may have space for posters. If you see anything as you go about your day, make note of it!

Influencers

As with many things, the line between paid/earned/owned media can be blurry. An influencer could well find your business and post a picture just because they happened to be there and liked it. But also, an influencer will often have paid promotion options.

Should you work with an influencer?

You don’t have to give free games to anyone with 200 Instagram followers who asks. But there will come a point where the cost of a free game, or even paid post or collaboration, is worth the reach you’ll get.

Rather than wait for the right one to come to you, do some research yourself. If this is something you want to try, you’ll do better finding one yourself.

  • Do they cover local events?
  • Do they recommend local activities and businesses?
  • Do they have an existing record of collaboration with local businesses?
    • Ask that business: “was it worth it?”
  • Do they regularly post content that would generally be of interest to the demographics you target in a broad sense?
    • Someone who does fashion, for instance, is probably too focused on a niche

A deal with an influencer could run anywhere from giving them a free game and hoping their coverage is positive to giving them an affiliate percentage, to paying $X for X amount of coverage and posts.

Whatever it is, calculate the effective cost to you, estimate the return you expect to make it worth it, and make sure it’s achievable and comparable to other advertising channels.

Influencers may reach their audience through social media channels, streaming, newsletters, and more.

Owned Media

Owned media is yours. It’s all the channels you have control over. You don’t have to pay anyone to use it (besides the costs of creating and maintaining it). This can be very powerful. Here are the common ones for escape rooms, FECs, etc.

Website

Your website is your digital storefront. Many location-based entertainment businesses operate based off of primarily bookings these days. This means that your website must be as easy as possible to navigate and book on.

It used to be people wouldn’t think twice about driving to Blockbuster, spending time picking out a movie (if it’s in stock!), paying for it, driving home to watch it, driving back to return it — and sometimes, paying a late fee.

Now, of course? Streaming was so much easier. The public refused to do what became perceived as the hard way, and we saw how that ended for Blockbuster.

In the same way, you’ve got to keep up with what the public expects from a website. The expectation is that with a couple of clicks they should be done and fully paid, whatever device they’re on. Even better if the system remembers they’re a customer, remembers their credit card information, and so on.

Keep this in mind as well. The more they’ve spent before they step into your location, the more likely they are to spend more. If you’ve got the whole VR payment done a few weeks early, when they arrive, the impact of that spend is much, much less to them. They’ll be more likely to buy some snacks, try another attraction, or even book their next session.

So not only is a good website important for getting the booking in the first place — the more you get done on the site, the more you can get from the booking overall.

Mailing List

The most powerful way to get results from reaching out to people is to reach out to your existing customers. It’s far cheaper to get repeat business from a happy customer than to acquire a whole new one.

Some mailing list platforms will charge a bit of money when your list grows really large, but in most cases, it’s going to be worth it because a few bounces and unsubscribes aside, these people will get the email in their inbox for pennies. You won’t have Facebook deciding to only show your email to 5% of your followers, or Google deciding your ad lost the auction.

But you do need to build your list. If someone’s going to give you their email address, they need something in exchange. Here are a few ideas:

  • Exclusive news and updates: this might be enough to get some people interested. You should definitely do this, but if you only do this, you won’t have great results
  • Exclusive discounts: this is much more compelling, and it can be in line with the other discounts you offer (do a really big one with limited numbers every so often if you really want to get some attention)
  • Contests: people like to win things, and you’ve likely got some flexibility in what you can give away, especially on non-peak days
  • Phrase it as an insider club, etc.: this can help it feel distinct from the dozens of other mailing lists people are often signed up for
  • Waiver opt-in: have a checkbox on your waivers, whether digital or paper, and add anyone who opts in (and make sure you sell it on the page!)

Organic Social Media

Technically this is owned media, but the days of effective, reliable social media reach are long behind us. Still, there are benefits to continuing to make organic posts.

  • You will get some reach — especially when you’re able to tag people
  • People will land on your social media page either organically or through ads, and you’ll look better if you’re posting constantly and engaging with comments
  • Driving a follower count up whether paid or organic does add to your social authority
  • If you feel like you’ve got a really good organic post, you can always pay to boost it
  • You can’t and shouldn’t boost every post! Many escape rooms in particular post pictures of groups after the rooms. These are only really of interest to the people in the group (but it will encourage them to go on your page, and hopefully follow it)
  • Some things, like a short video clip, just aren’t going to perform as an ad — but will still look great to those who see it!

Earned Media

Finally, there’s Earned Media. This is the hardest to get — but the most powerful, because it’s ultimately a measure of how much people are naturally valuing your business.

Press

Getting a local TV news crew out can really feel amazing. Best case scenario, you get a professionally produced piece on local TV that extensively shows off how cool your business is. But it’s not easy. It’s also not easy to even convince, say, a local blogger to write about you. If you want to get some media coverage? Think like the media.

  • The more unusual something is, the more it’s of interest
    • They’re not going to cover just another day at your business. But maybe they’ll cover a business launch, or a new location, or a product launch, or a charity event
  • The more people it affects, the greater the news value
  • Broadcast needs good visuals
  • Print or online writing needs good quotes
  • Radio needs a colorful storyteller

So if you make a pitch, think about all that. What’s important about your event? Who cares (or should care!) about it? And what’s in it for the journalist?

A journalist doesn’t want to cover something that’s boring, dull, complicated, or difficult. So show them how fun it looks, let them know they can try it, and let them know you’ve got someone ready to tell them a great story, any time they need.

If you don’t think you’ve got a good story right now, don’t do this. If there’s ever a chance of getting media coverage, don’t waste your time or theirs until you’ve got a strong case, or they’ll assume your next ask isn’t worth their time either.

Do write a press release. Even if you’ve got a good personal relationship with a reporter and they’re eager to cover you, they still need to convince their editor, and a press release is the formality that can seal that deal.

And finally, remember that everything is in play, even if they say that something’s off the record. Keep your story on point, and don’t meander into giving things away like, “boy, it’s hard to find good help these days.” You don’t want them to think there’s a story there.

Reviews/Testimonials

A good review is a must-have. You don’t want to just buy good reviews, but you can certainly verbally encourage people to leave reviews, as well as remind them in your emails.

On top of that, and especially if you’re having trouble getting people to leave them, you can get some video testimonials. Have a basic video setup you can use with a few moments notice, and wait for a group that’s really having a good time. When they’re done, ask if they’d mind saying a few things on the camera, and have them sign releases.

You can use written reviews, video testimonials, or both, across your content. There’s nothing better than word-of-mouth with a trusted friend telling you to try something. But second best is often still a stranger telling you to try something.

If you get bad reviews, be attentive and as understanding as you can be. Never get into an argument, but try to hear them out and if it looks like something went wrong, ask them how you can make it right. Take it to private communication when you get to the details, but you can expect to improve at least a few of the bad reviews by listening and being open to their situation. Of course, some people are not looking for a resolution, so don’t waste more of your time if it’s going nowhere.

Organic Social Media

The points about organic social media having limited reach aside, sometimes, something can still just go viral. Hopefully if that happens for you, it’s something positive! Other times, someone might just randomly post something nice about you and tag you.

If this happens, do your best to capture the opportunity. Thank the person if relevant, share the post yourself, engage in the comments, let people know where they can go to have just as amazing a time as the poster.