Creating emotional connections through audience engagement.

Attraction management software is revolutionising how visitor attractions increase revenue, build loyalty, and cultivate lasting relationships. This transformation hinges on understanding how visitors truly feel about their experience and leveraging this insight for commercial success.

While we agree that connecting with emotions is crucial for forming relationships, we dispute the notion that these connections are purely conjectural or unmeasurable. In the visitor attraction sector, gauging audience reaction, perception, and engagement levels is increasingly vital for determining a venture's commercial viability.

A powerful solution gaining traction is cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) Audience Engagement Platforms (AEPs). These out-of-the-box, plug-and-play platforms blend content management with consumer marketing, offering a customisable tool to reach more people and deepen their engagement – before, during, and after their visit. AEPs are also key for understanding visitor sentiment towards your overall offering and specific aspects, whether it's a museum, zoo, wildlife park, or event.

Why emotional connections matter

Understanding visitor thoughts is invaluable for planning future exhibits, displays, or events, as well as for curating existing content. Immediate feedback on on-site talks or discussions provides honest evaluations of your efforts.

As a consumer-focused brand, your attraction can significantly boost revenue by emotionally connecting with visitors. This not only increases ticket sales but also on-site merchandise purchases and event attendance. Emotionally connected visitors are more likely to recommend your attraction, expanding your audience. Furthermore, an emotionally invested visitor is less price-sensitive, increasing spending and supporting initiatives that may require additional funding.

Using technology to build bonds

The AEP, deployed as a branded app, acts as a dynamic, intelligent, and interactive system for presenting content, gathering live data, and transforming it into real-time insights that promote engagement. Here’s a snapshot of how an AEP can help create emotional connections and long-term engagement:

Gathering real-time visitor insights

To create emotional connections, you need to know your audience. While asking every visitor directly is impractical, digital solutions overcome these challenges. The AEP allows operators to upload rich multimedia content, which is then delivered to visitors via an automatically configured app. Once installed on a visitor’s mobile, the app can legitimately track their movement within your attraction, initiating a journey of discovery into their physical interactions.

This tracking, enabled by GPS synced with the app, utilises a phone’s unique signature to detect visitor locations. Mechanisms like ‘heat mapping’ can then determine ‘dwell time’ – where visitors spent most of their time and, conversely, where they didn’t. This is a valuable metric for understanding visitor behaviour. The AEP allows you, the operator, to send specific, personalised messages, such as asking if they enjoyed a particular exhibit. This direct, individual communication immediately begins to forge a connection.

These initial questions and answers build a picture, laying the groundwork for future engagements, driven by the platform's AI and ML programming.

Personalised content delivery

Consider a scenario: a visitor and their grandchild spend significant time at a giraffe enclosure, captivated by the animals. The AEP registers this dwell time. Programmed to understand curiosity, it sends a prompt to find out why, along with additional information about the giraffes, perhaps a video of a calf's birth. This content, inaccessible through traditional display boards, captivates the visitor, who may then share it, becoming emotionally connected to the animals and eager for updates, even after leaving the park. This can lead to exclusive invitations, like meeting the animals up close, further cementing a bond.

Enhancing the on-site experience

The AEP-powered app also assists with navigation and triggers more on-site content via proprietary beacon technology. It enables operators to create interactive experiences, such as clue-based treasure hunts or mystery tours that incorporate reward and recognition programmes. The more sophisticated the app becomes, gathering and interpreting data, the more detailed and targeted communications with visitors can be.