Roller Skating and Marketing!
Years ago in the distance mists of time my home town of Wigan had a Roller Rink that was open 7 nights a week and many afternoons. I first went when I was seven and continued up until at least my late teenage years. In fact it was Wigan Roller Rink where I first started my DJ career! (but that's another story:-) However 20+ years ago it shut it doors for good and the building has been used as a warehouse, storage and even an indoor Go Karting track over the years. A couple of years ago two of the original DJ's from the Rink held a reunion night at a local bar. They hired a private room, sold tickets and the night was a great success with over 150 people attending. However, there was no roller skating of course! I went and it was a fantastic evening of meeting old friends and reminiscing about the 'glory' days of 'The Rink' :-) ** The Marketing Lesson ** I know the organisers personally and started chatting with them about how they could make the night better and start a regular event. To cut a long story short when marketing the next event I got them to collect names, addresses and emails (simple, but very effective at marketing the next event!) I also told them to sell tickets for the next event on the night of the current event. The reason for this is people are enjoying themselves, are in a good mood and will be more likely to buy a ticket for the next event there and then. They went on to hold several events and each time they sold out when fate intervened with an opportunity that was too good to miss. The ORIGINAL building where the Roller Rink was held had become empty and they had the opportunity to use it. Now, this is an OLD warehouse building and the work involved to get it ready for an actual roller rink where people could skate freely was immense. They got to work making the building ready and through the names, addresses and emails they had collected over the last events they started marketing the evening as a 'Special Reunion Evening'. The marketing worked and they pre sold 300 tickets with another 100 being sold on the night.....it was a HUGE success. I even dug out my old skates and went along with the friends I used to go skating with. Here's a picture from the evening!
The photographer may have had a drink or two....or they were on skates as well!
Who says you can't skate and drink! :-) Spot the young girl to the right on the much cooler (and modern) roller blades!
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The lesson to take away from this story is to ensure that you are collecting your customers, and web visitors, contact details at every opportunity and then marketing to them. The guys who organised the Roller Rink night still have a lot to learn BUT they listened and put in place a way to capture contact details which enabled them to hold a very successful first actual skating reunion night. Are you collecting contact information?
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Getting Started
