In an increasingly competitive industry, family entertainment centres (FECs) are seeking more innovative and cost-effective ways to stand out, drive foot traffic, and maximise guest spend. So, what actually works when it comes to marketing?
In the next instalment of our “Ask the Experts” series, blooloop speaks with Sara Paz, CMO at Embed, a global leader in cashless business management systems. She shares how operators can leverage guest data, promote convenience, and utilise integrated tools to create high-yield marketing strategies—without overspending.
1. How can FECs stand out as they market their offerings?
“Family entertainment centres have high marketability. There’s just so much content offering to engage guests. There is a variety of games, food and beverage selections, attractions, and more. In a sea of competitors that offer more or less the same range of games and services, sometimes the best way to stand out is not loud gimmicks or costly marketing spend. A deep understanding of guest data and insights is the game-changer.
“To have such a pool of knowledge, there is a wide selection of integrated solutions with data capture capabilities that operators can leverage.
“Integrated cashless payment systems, such as the Embed Ecosystem, make the collection and extraction of guest data easy, digestible, and actionable. When you understand your audience, you can target the correct segment and set the appropriate key performance indicators for your strategy.
“The marketing strategy for FECs must always include bounce-back offers to drive return visits. Why? It’s 80% less expensive to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. Own the 10-mile radius around your FEC. Engage every community centre, church, school, and most importantly, every business, small or large.
“Invite them to host their team-building events at your FEC, hold board meetings, and end-of-year company parties, among other events. Set a target for the percentage of your business that will be generated by events, from birthday parties to corporate events.”
2. How exactly can FECs use guest data to create marketing campaigns?
“Let’s say you have a kiosk and sales software as a unified POS. The real-time sync from your kiosk transactions to your POS backend provides better business visibility on guest information and activity. This includes demographics, games played, spending habits, visit frequency, and more.
“Such data helps operators focus on key areas that require immediate decision-making. For example, promoting and creating play bundles for low-performing games, running promotions on slow-moving redemption inventory, and more. The more tactical and pointed the marketing is, the better performance it generates.”
“You can all easily identify areas for improvement on smart reporting tools in integrated FEC systems to make a good marketing mix that puts you and your FEC top of mind.
“These integrations are what we have painstakingly added to develop the Embed Ecosystem. These updates give operators hyper-customisation and deeper integrations to their FEC solutions. So, they can generate the results they want, shape the consumer journey they want, and achieve revenue streams they want. It’s exactly how they like it.
“It’s the above that enabled Embed customer Game Over Arcade in the Pacific Northwest to go from operating 7 days a week to only 4 days and be 60% above their best revenue period (before they implemented the Embed system). Additionally, they converted their slowest operating day, Monday, into their highest revenue day.”
3. Aside from games, food and beverage, and attractions, what else can FECs promote to engage guests?
“Convenience is often overlooked. Convenience could be the difference a mom of three is looking for in a venue to be a returning guest with a high spend per visit. It could be what teenagers want once they step inside and see a long line between them and the games they want to play.
“It could be what keeps guests from walking out. At the end of the day, everyone wants to have a good time—and fast.
“Marketing how you make having fun smooth and easy for your guests is a great way to communicate that you deeply value the experience they will have at FECs. Promoting cashless payment options, such as mobile wallets and kiosks, can help increase foot traffic.”
“Our Mobile Wallet metric results show that 60% of game card reloads happen even before guests enter a venue, proving that convenience is a priority.
“Similarly, there’s a 5x increase in average reload value linked to its ease of use and being the preferred way to pay and play, since guests are not afraid of losing their game card or having to keep track of it. Guests tend to add more reload value when they use cashless payment.
“This is why we designed the Embed GoTrain, a free on-site or virtual staff training on how to drive faster adoption of the Mobile Wallet. This comes with a leaderboard where staff can rack up rewards from Embed by converting guests to the Mobile Wallet, incentivising Mobile Wallet promotion without marketing spend.
“Having integrated solutions like a bookings platform in your kiosk software can give guests great value. Imagine if they can book your attractions like bowling or laser tag through kiosks. They’ll have extra time to enjoy your other offerings and instead of being stuck in a queue.”
4. How can operators sustain low-cost, high-yield marketing efforts?
“It all starts with good planning. Not all FECs have a dedicated marketing team, or even the time, to start marketing efforts, let alone sustain them. Starting with small, simple, and attainable goals can be effective. Guest data will help identify which areas to target first. From there, you need to create sustaining efforts aligned with your original goal to maintain momentum.
“For example, you can maximise your unmanned reload kiosks with upsells and bundles. A $20 card reload can become a $27 sale. By offering a $2 bump for an additional $5 value and creating a bundle with a $5 one-hour free video game play, the operator achieves a 35% revenue lift and adds value for the guests’ money.”
“If you have customer email addresses or contact numbers, you can spread promotions, bounce-back offers, birthday promos, and other marketing communications if these details are linked to a card reload system or mobile wallet. Guests can redeem their offers during their next visit or on special occasions.
“It’s all about consistency and knowing how to maximise the solutions you already have and the data in the backend. Additionally, careful evaluation after the campaign can improve results for the next run.
“And if spontaneity is your thing, you can use social media to create a splash and see which moves the revenue needle best and program them into specific days so it turns into a ritual for your customers.”
5. Why are integrated cashless systems a marketing must-have for FECs?
“The only way operators can align guests’ needs and expectations, experiences, staff, operations, bookings, payments, sales, and reports is to have a strong, seamless, and central element to change the way these components interact with each other.
“When you’re on cashless, you can have it all without needing to plug it all. You can connect it all to sync it all. And what you have then is an infallible marketing machine.”
