It’s All About the Numbers.

How to increase your experience attraction’s numbers using technology.

Today is international mathematics day so what better time to jump in and talk about numbers. In the visitor attraction world, some would say it’s all about the numbers - how many people can you reach with your key messages, of these, how many can you convert into visitors, and then, even better, how many can you retain and turn into loyal fans?  These numbers then affect another big number - the bottom line….

Getting more people through the doors and then keeping them engaged after they’ve left, is part of the grand prize for visitor attractions and marketers alike.  More engaged visitors and audiences usually means more revenue.  

Easier said than done, you might think?

Technology has made it possible for visitor attraction venues – like museums, cultural and heritage sites, art galleries, aquariums, zoos, wildlife and theme parks, sports stadia and even towns and cities - to form interactive and sustainable relationships with their ‘audiences’.  

Audience engagement platforms (AEPs), like n-gage.io, are simple to set-up and easy to operate tools that can literally engage/interact with your desired audience pre, during and even post their visit, to increase the chances of improving your numbers - whatever the metrics are. 

Imagine attracting would-be visitors to your experience, offering them the opportunity to purchase tickets in your own environment, then help them navigate around your venue, let them learn more as they go, and when they leave, stay in touch with them through a continuous cycle of engagement.  It’s so doable in this technological era, and what’s more, every step of the way, you are gathering information and building valuable insights, not only about your customers, but about how they engage with you. 

Practical example:

Let’s take a zoo, a museum or any other kind of attraction.  You’ve marketed your venue and you have people coming to your website to find out more – like opening times, ticket prices, whether you do school outings, your latest attractions and exhibits etc.  

However, it is once through the doors that technology can make the one of the biggest differences to your visitor experience offering, making your venue even more attractive, and for the long term too.  

How?

N-gage.io runs over either a native app,or a progressive web app (PWA) - we are client directed but will also advise our operators as to the best solution for their needs.  PWAs, for example, are still maturing in certain areas, particularly when using iOS devices, with areas such as push notifications and web Bluetooth technology yet to become fully available. 

However, PWAs also have many advantages, as highlighted in our recent post: PWA – a Visitor Attractions New Best Friend.

Two immediate ones that spring to mind are their searchability and the one size fits all approach.  Native apps lack searchability online and when you’re a visitor attraction you want to be discovered!  If you have a PWA, therefore, you increase your chances of being found and consequently the likelihood of a sale. Also being cross platform compatible means you don’t need to create a version for each of the different mobile phone operating systems – usually at vast expense.  One PWA does the job.

The n-gage.io platform is packed with functionality to help you increase and track your numbers. Both location based heat mapping and powerful data gathering tools and insights help you to see how audiences are engaging with your venue and content both on and off site. n-gage.io is also leading the way in 3D object recognition, triggering and gamification. Think along the lines of delivering a deeper learning experience by giving your audiences the ability to scroll over an object (from any angle, and in the case of a zoo, even a passing Zebra) with a mobile phone through your branded PWA or Native n-gage.io app, triggering additional information including, text, images, video and audio etc you have uploaded through the platform. Edutainment brings attractions further to life.

With inbuilt lesson planning functionality, picture an educator planning a student trip to your attraction or venue.  Right up front, they can work with you (the operator), to flesh out their project. Together on the platform you can incorporate quizzes, a trail or tour and even use gamification to deepen the learning experience, all through the audience app.  The student (and educator) can continue to access their content, once home or back at school.  Keeping them in your environment as the operator and improving your engagement numbers to boot.. 

Why is that important?

Back to the numbers:

Engaging with your visitors at every point in their journey through your experience, has several benefits:

• You can track which parts of your collection attract more engagement than others. This can then help you with future planning and curation, which saves on expensive experiments
• Derive revenue from additional ticket sales (and create an extended database for future direct annual membership marketing drives)
• Offer incentives, discounts and pre-booking of on the day available extras (if you have this facility), generating advanced revenue
• Offer merchandise online through your ‘shop’ or marketplace through our API friendly connectivity into your other software.
• Instantly adapt your online content to the needs and desires of your audience – whose habits and preferences you have learnt about through their tracking their engagement via the platform
• Widen your marketing efforts to attract yet more visitors
• Communicate and educate a younger cohort who are your audience of tomorrow.

In short, technology has the effect of a 360-degree perpetual audience engagement cycle – if done correctly – that can make the numbers more than just stack up.

To find out more about how the n-gage.io platform can help to boost your numbers get in touch. 

Image courtesy of Pexels