The Game Is On - Playing the Long Term Game
In May this year I organised Game On a mini conference for escape room owners. The event was attended by almost 50 people from both side of the pond. We played games, listened to talks, networked and had a fab time.
I did a talk on the state of the industry and how to prep for the long term game. This is a recap of that talk which you can also watch below.
Video Recap
The UK and US escape room markets got saturated
According to two major escape room review sites who publish analytical data - Escape the Review in the UK and Room Escape Artist in the US - both of these markets got saturated in the past few years. This doesn’t mean that there are no escape room opening up but simply means that roughly as many closes each year as many new venues open.
This isn’t necceseraly a good or a bad thing it simply means that we have reached the first maturity stage in our industry’s lifecycle. And what this mostly means for the future is that:
We will have to invest more in and focus on traditional marketing
We will have to come up with long term business strategies to stay relevant
We will have to look after our existing customers more than ever before
Branding will become more crucial than ever
It’s a testament to our industry that most escape rooms are boasting a 4.7+ star reviews on Google, Facebook and Tripadvisor. This is something we can be truly proud! On the other hand this also means that it’s becoming more and more difficult for customers to tell us apart:
Most escape room venues have a TripAdvisor’s Traveller Choice Badge
Escape room logos are very similar around the world
Website are also quite similar to each other
To help our customers choose us on a market like this we will have to go out of our way to create memorable brands that people build an emotinal attachment to. On a saturated market customers tend to primarily base their decision on availability and price. To combat this, we will need strong and memorable brands.
💡 Memorable branding is a topic I did a talk about at TransWorld 2024 and I have a workshop starting later this year that you can check out here.
Immersive is still on the rise
The escape room market getting saturated doesn’t mean at all that the immersive market got saturated too. Quite the opposite is happening. There are more immersive venues from escape arcades to games shows are popping up around the world.
This is both an opportunity for us and a threat. It’s an opportunity as these venues will attract an even wider audience to immersive games but also can be a threat as they are also eating up the exact same customers that we are after.
How to navigate this new landscape
Only you can decide on how you are planning to tackle this new situation. Heck, your market might still be on the rise. (For now.) Whether you are planning to keep doing what you’re doing just better, try new formats for your escape room, add a cafe to your venue or open an outdoor game, one thing is clear: We will have to adapt to this new situation.
You need three founding blocks in your escape room business to be in order to secure a future where you can florish in the long run. These are:
Stable Core Business
Self Sustaining Staff
Memorable Brand
These threee founding blocks will allow you the CEO of your company to truly focus on what’s important which is your long term business strategy.
Stable Core Business
We need a quality product. Duh, I know. But when you are thinking about your product it’s important that your escape room game is not the product, it’s just the very core of it. Everything in your business the website, the booking process, the automated emails, etc. are all part of your product.
Once you have a quality product in place you have to make sure you protect that quality from falling behind. To do this you will need:
Thorough and detailed documentation of your processes and best practices
Regular quality checks on your team
Regular and preventive maintenance
Refresher trainings (Update your documentation based on new knowledge)
Optional: Mystery shopper to keep your team on their toes
Self Sustaining Staff
Leave your ego at the door and start delegating to your staff. I know that this is easier said than done but it's a curcial piece of the puzzle to free up your on time so you can focus on the big picture and long term planning.
Even if you don’t have the cash to hire full time employees you should aim to recruit multi talented people and/or college students who can help you with operational management, marketing and maintenance. Figure out your own strong suites and what you enjoy the most and delegate the rest.
And last but not least, try to think about your team’s career paths in the company. People who like working for you now will need a path so they can grow with you in the long run.
Memorable Brand
While you are on your own in the business, it’s easy to have a brand because everything you do is the brand. Every email, every call, every briefing. But as soon as you start employing people they will have a slightly different twist on what you do, how they deliver a briefing or how they reply to customer’s email. And to battle this, you need to keep everyone on the same page about your brand:
Create brand documentation
Use canned responses
Use procedures and flowcharts
Train your team on the brand’s tone of voice
Use pre-written scripts
The more you can keep everyone on the same page the more your escape room will feel as a cohesive brand for your customers and thus they will have a much easier time to recall you the next time they are thinking about what to do with their friends.
Play the long term game
Escape rooms are not going anywhere, at this point we have proven that we have a long term spot on the immersive market. Now it’s time though to figure out how we stay relevant on this market 5, 10, 20 years from now.
Get your ducks in a row with a stable core business, a self sustaining team, and a memorable brand so you can focus on what comes next for your escape room business as only you can decide the path you step on.
Join fellow owners for a roundtable discussion to discuss additional revenue streams for your escape room business. Free to attend.
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