The increasing importance of personalisation in leisure and entertainment industries

Customer personalisation is important in all industries. Customers expect companies to offer them promotions, discounts, or packages based on their interests and past purchases and activities. How vital is personalisation? More than half (51%) of people in the UK would leave a brand if it did not offer personalised experiences.

Some examples of personalisation are Netflix show recommendations or product suggestions on e-commerce sites. These come from algorithms that collect data on your activity and browsing history and use it to choose the content you see on a web page.

Personalisation in the entertainment industry and leisure sector can improve customer loyalty and help businesses stand out. For example, a family entertainment centre (FEC) might offer special packages to customers based on their past visits or ticket purchases. Loyalty programs and curated experiences can also help venues stand out from their competitors.

This type of user experience (UX) requires lots of data, analytics, and a system that can help you use the information you get. You can't use just any software that promises to individualise UX. You need something that gives you these insights specifically for the leisure industry.

Benefits of personalisation

Why try to personalise communication and services for your guests? As we already pointed out, half of UK consumers want services that are tailored for them. However, if you're going to invest time and money in a system to help with personalised content and experiences, you should understand that the advantages of this type of software go well beyond keeping customers.

Here are the other benefits of pursuing personalisation for leisure venues:

•           Convenience: Recommendations and offers put products and experiences the customer wants at their fingertips. They don't have to search or call to get what they want. This provides them with a level of convenience and ease of use they wouldn't get otherwise.

•           A deeper connection: Customers may appreciate that you offer personalised experiences, which could increase their loyalty to your venue. In some cases, such as special deals for birthdays or other important events, it could make them feel an emotional connection to your business.

•           Long-term loyalty: Offers for special occasions, loyalty programs, and personalised emails can help build long-term loyalty. Customers may return again and again thanks to personalised offers and experiences.

•           Increased recommendations and social proof: A customer's loyalty might lead them to tell others about your place. These could be word-of-mouth recommendations, sharing on social media, or even writing good reviews on your site or another site.

•           Easier marketing: You can increase your marketing ROI by offering targeted offers through email, text, chatbot, or on your website. If you focus on what your customer wants, you can send targeted ads that will be more likely to lead to sales.

•           Get ahead of the competition: Personalised content helps you stand apart from your competitors. All the other benefits of personalisation can help you attract and retain customers in a way that your competitors cannot.

If you want these benefits, you need the right tools and strategies. For instance, a high-quality platform, like Smeetz, can automate data collection and analysis. You don't have to do any manual work for personalisation. 

Which types of personalisation work best for leisure venues?

Before we talk about the tools necessary for personalisation, let's take a quick look at some ways you can personalise content, offers, and experiences for your guests.

•           Segmentation: Divide customers into groups based on the attractions they are interested in, age, whether they have children, the food they order, or any other traits you find important. You can then make special offers for each group.

•           Customised promotions: Offer special discounts for birthdays, anniversaries, or other special dates. Or customise packages for families, adult friend groups, or corporate groups.

•           VIP experiences: Offer VIP packages that give customers a premium version of the experiences, merchandise, or food and beverages they like. This could work in two situations. First, it could help you upsell and get guests to spend more on premium services. Second, it could be used as a reward for customers who give you repeat business.

•           Communications: Personalise communications with guests. Yes, this can include targeted marketing emails or text messages. But it can also involve sending thank-you emails after a purchase, reminding guests about upcoming visits, and sharing additional info based on their data.

Using mobile apps, offering different membership or subscription levels, and having on-site personalised marketing via mobile apps are other options you might want to try.

Choosing the right personalisation tools

Smeetz puts the tools necessary for personalisation on one unified platform.

As a unified commerce platform, Smeetz can keep all data from guests in one place, regardless of the channels they use. Why is this important? The more data you have on each customer, the more personalised your communications, offers, and rewards.

Smeetz can also collect and organise data for segmentation. You can divide customers into categories based on their behaviours, demographics, or any other things you think are important.

The importance of automation

You can also automate communications, sending marketing emails or promotions based on a customer's segment or individual data. The automated messages can also carry over to previsit communications. These can add to the convenience and personalisation by telling guests how to collect tickets or check in to your venue.

Remember that one of the main goals of personalisation is to improve loyalty and encourage more visits to your venue. Features like automated follow-up emails after the visit and recommendations based on past purchases and activity can help you stay in contact with guests so that they are more likely to come again.

One of the most important features offered by Smeetz is that it automates many of these processes. Personalisation wouldn't be possible if you had to handle any of the above tasks by hand. However, with automation, you can spend your time on your guests while they are at your venue, ensuring they have fun and have their needs met while they are there.

Contact us to learn more about our tools, or book a demo to see them in action for yourself.