10 Revenue Generating Emails Every Escape Room Should Send
Almost every escape room has a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account. Far fewer invest in email marketing to drive sales. And the ones that do are cashing in on a great opportunity.
According to a Mckinsey study,
“E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.”
Why is email so profitable? Because it’s personal. It gives you a direct line from your business to the customer’s inbox. It’s a vehicle for conversation and a way to keep customers engaged.
Want to get started with email marketing? Here are the top 10 revenue generating emails every escape room owner should send…
1. The Abandoned Booking Recovery Email
Imagine if 3/4ths of your walk-in bookings left before finishing their purchase… Imagine if they approached your desk, pulled out their wallet, then suddenly turned around and walked away!
It might sound strange, but in the online world this happens every day. It’s called an abandoned booking.
When a booking is abandoned, a website visitors clicks the Book Now button on your website, enters their contact information, and then leaves… never completing their purchase.
This sort of behavior is incredibly common online.
In fact, according to the SaleCycle, 74.52% of consumers start the checkout process but never complete their purchase.
Now, you may think this only happens to other businesses – that it doesn’t happen to you… but it does.
The Baymard Institute aggregated hundreds of thousands of data points across different industries, and the findings are all the same: abandonment is a chronic issue across the web.
But don’t worry, it’s not (necessarily) because you’re doing something wrong.
(It’s true that a simpler checkout process reduces abandonment and boosts revenue. But a streamlined checkout still suffers from booking abandonment.)
Luckily, there’s a simple way to recover those “almost customers” and get back the money you lost.
All you need to do is send an abandoned booking recovery email.
This automated email is sent to abandoners a few hours after they leave your checkout. The email reminds them about their purchase and gives them a reason to come back and finish their booking.
This one email is extremely effective. A well designed abandoned booking email turns abandoners into customers 10-15% of the time.
Now that’s a big win…
If you decided to focus on just one email, the abandoned booking email is far and away the best investment you can make.
Rejoiner, an enterprise-level email marketing software company, analyzed hundreds of thousands of data points. Their analysis suggests that the most powerful abandonment emails are simple, use plain- text, and have a customer service focus.
2. The Confirmation Email
Normally marketers struggle to get their customers to open emails. But the confirmation email is an important exception.
According to Silverpop, transactional emails get opened and read more than 2X as often as the average marketing email.
A good confirmation email makes communicating with your guests easier and saves your staff a lot of headaches.
Think about it… how many times have customers called to clarify a payment question or have given you grief over your cancellation policy? How many times have groups shown up late and messed up your game schedule?
The confirmation email is your first line of defense against predictable customer issues.
Including customer and payment details help reduce the number of customer service inquiries. Adding a cancellation policy helps protect against otherwise stubborn guests. Including location details reduce late arrivals and improve transition times between games.
These solutions might sound simple and trivial, but a little information goes a long way.
A great confirmation email includes your brand logo so it is easy to identify. The email should include booking & customer details, payment details, meeting location info, contact info, your cancellation policy, and room for any other considerations. Customers should be able to access, sign, and share their liability waiver from the confirmation email.
3. The Reminder Email
The 2016 Escape Room Conference showed everyone that late and just-in-time arrivals are a common problem in the escape room industry.
Late arrivals force game-masters to skip introductions meant to intrigue and immerse gamers.
Some game masters cut precious minutes off the group’s timer, leading to a less than satisfactory game experience.
Others have to increase turnaround times (sometimes leaving up to 45 minutes between groups!) to ensure late arrivals get their 60 minutes and that game masters have time to reset rooms before the next round. This leads to a decrease in bookable room times and lost revenue.
A good reminder email clearly lays out arrival expectations, reducing late arrivals and improving the turnaround process. Plus, it gets the customer excited for the upcoming game!
4. The Review Request Email
Reviews are the lifeblood of any business, especially escape rooms.
Unlike other activities, your customers can’t know what your room looks like when they buy. They rely even more than usual on reviews to validate their purchase.
Sending an automated review request email is the easiest and most effective way to increase your review count and build trust with future buyers.
Fun fact: 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business, and are likely to spend 31% more on a business with “excellent” reviews. (business2community)
5. The Social Email
Escape rooms owners are the savviest social media marketers I’ve seen.
Every escape room knows to take advantage of the group photo op after each game. They post the photos on their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, and invite customers to tag and share.
This “social amplification” exposes your business to your customer’s friends and colleagues. Tagging and sharing leads to improved awareness and is a free source of new customers
A simple way to increase your social sharing is to include a link in a follow-up email. Then, invite customers to find their photo, tag themselves, and share with friends.
Did you know the P.S. line is one of the most read sections of an email? That makes it a great place to offer a cross-sell (i.e. sell another game) or repeat your Call To Action (i.e. find your photo).
6. The Anticipation Email
If you offer more than one room, find out how long your customers wait before trying another game.
Anticipate the next purchase, and encourage them to try your other rooms (instead of your competitors’).
Timing is everything here. To find the optimal date to send the email, analyze your customer data and look for trends in the time it takes for customers to come back for a 2nd game.. Then, try testing a few send-time variations. Look for the email with the highest click-through rates or attributed revenue.
7. The Time-Sensitive Promotion Email
If the anticipation email doesn’t hit home and your customer still hasn’t come back for a 2nd game, try offering a discount.
When you offer a discount, always consider setting a deadline. Stating an expiration date (even if it’s artificial) creates urgency and prevents your readers from saying “I’ll get to it tomorrow,” and forgetting.
8. The Promotion Reminder Email
Let’s be honest, we all miss deadlines every once in awhile. It’s human nature!
Prevent your readers from missing out on your promotion. Follow up with a reminder email 24 hours before the deal expires.
9. The “Shameless” Win-Back Email
Sometimes it helps to be honest, even if you have to get a little shameless.
This is your last-ditch effort to win the gamer back, so don’t be shy!
Try sending a “We Miss You” email with a higher discount, and make the offer impossible to escape…
Want to know how to craft the perfect coupon? Download our ebook to learn more.
10. The New Room Announcement Newsletter
Even if you operate a single room (and can’t get immediate repeat business), it’s still important to build your customer email list.
Collect as many customer emails as you can, and notify them directly when you change your room or add a new one.
Conclusion
In email marketing, it’s better to send 1 amazing email than 10 mediocre ones.
We hope these templates help fuel your marketing strategy and inspire your creativity. But tackling all these emails at once can be overwhelming.
If you start anywhere, we recommend you focus on the Abandoned Booking email first. It consistently provides the highest ROI for hundreds of thousands of online sellers, including Xola customers.
Have questions about Abandoned Booking emails? Give us a call at +1 (855) 909-9652, or arrange a consultation by filling out the form below. Our team is happy to help!
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