As a family entertainment center (FEC) owner, you want all processes in your facility to be as smooth and efficient as possible. The same goes for your marketing strategy. Understanding and establishing your target market is perhaps the most important step in running an efficient and effective marketing campaign for your FEC.

In this blog, we will define a target market, explain why it’s so important and then guide you on how to establish your FEC target market.

What Is a Target Market?

There are many definitions for what a target market is. In simple terms, a target market is the group of people most likely to purchase your product or service. It is the people who are most willing to come into your FEC, spend money, and have a great time doing it.

Why Is an FEC Target Market So Important?

Establishing a target market is the key to boosting efficiency of your marketing operations. It will help you attract new customers, boost your revenues, and save you time and money.

As an entertainment center, you see a wide variety of guests in your facility every day. That’s the reason why you should have a wide variety of attractions to entertain people of different ages, hobbies and interests.

But this doesn’t mean you should market to all ages and demographics. Instead, it’s incredibly important to narrow down the marketing net that you cast, in order to find the big fish that will produce the most revenue for you.

The same messages do not work for every customer. This is why you must segment your messages to the people who will produce the greatest return on your marketing investments.

Additionally, target markets create brand loyalty. Once you’ve established a target market, you can direct promotional materials and coupons towards them, knowing they will make effective use of them. Continued promotional campaigns will ensure happy experiences for your customers and keep them coming back to your facility.

So now that we know what a target market is and why it’s so important, how exactly do you define your target market?

How To Establish an FEC Target Market

There are several strategies that can help you establish your target market. They require time and research, but when done correctly, it will provide an exceptional long-term payoff.

The first strategy to establish your target market is to create personas. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer. Let’s look at two examples of personas below:

Corporate Kelly is an event planner for a large corporation. She is involved in building culture for her company. Part of her job is to book company outings. She would be a perfect persona for a facility that books a lot of large corporate events. This facility has plenty of space to accommodate these events, and likely is able to host several large parties at once.

Another example of a persona is Birthday Barbara. Birthday Barbara is a middle-aged mom looking to book birthday parties for kids at a fun and safe place. She would be an ideal persona for a facility that has plenty of space and supplies to provide a great birthday party experience. This facility also has plenty of fun attractions for younger kids.

Establishing personas requires research and analysis. Here are a couple of questions that can help you start your research process.

• Why do people come to my facility?
• Who are the people who spend the most time and money at my facility?
• What are common characteristics or interests of my ideal customer?
• Who are the customers I don’t want?

Wait, there are people I DON’T want in my facility? Yes. Here’s an example: a facility that has axe throwing and escape rooms would probably not want little children in their center.

While considering these ideas, do not be afraid to interview customers or send them surveys. In fact, this is highly encouraged. You want the data to be driven by your customers, not you. Oftentimes, the owners of a business and the customers of a business have very different perceptions of the business.

Ultimately, you want your customers perception of your facility to align with your own. First, ask yourself the questions above. Then, survey your customers to get their thoughts on your facility. Below are some sample questions to ask customers. You want these to be deeper questions in order to get detailed answers.

• What is the number 1 reason you visit our facility?
• Has your company hosted a corporate event here? If not, would you recommend us to your company’s event planner?
• Have you booked a birthday party with us before? If not, would you book one in the future?

If the answers do not align, value is not being communicated effectively. Aligning these views will help you better market your business and find the people who value the strengths of your business.

Another necessary step to establishing your target market is researching and analyzing the competition. Most likely, there are other FECs fairly close to yours. Go out and research them. Put yourself in the shoes of a customer and pay attention to every detail of your experience there. You can determine things you liked and didn’t like about your experience and then implement this knowledge in your own facility.

Most importantly, a “competition shop” will give you an idea of how other businesses are positioning themselves to customers. This will allow you to differentiate yourself from the competition, and find markets and demographics that they are ignoring.

Don’t Stop

After you’ve used these strategies to find your market, you’re not done. It’s important to stay proactive. You must stay on top of customers’ perceptions of your facility. You need to continue to do competition shops occasionally. If you remain diligent and avoid complacency, your FEC will blow past the competition and continue to stay ahead.