After managing the logistics of your new business, you can turn your attention to marketing. You need to get your name out there and let your community know about your offerings so you can build your customer base. You can get a strong group of families to come to your indoor playground when you first open by using a variety of marketing tactics.

Email marketing for indoor playgrounds

If you have done outreach to your community in the past or you have run programming in the past, you might already have a list of email addresses for families in your community. If that’s the case, email marketing can be a great way to announce your new venture and entice customers to stop by. 

When you send marketing emails, you are fighting for visibility in busy inboxes. Keep these tricks and tips in mind to be successful with email marketing for your indoor playground.

• Get the reader’s attention with your subject line. The first battle of email marketing is getting your reader to open your email. Create a sense of urgency, intrigue the reader, and/or showcase your value with a strong subject line. Here are a couple of examples:

• ~Only 10 spots left for adult/child gymnastics!
• ~Book now! Open play is almost full
• ~See what families have to say about our play space!

• Provide incentives. If you can offer incentives like promo codes or discounts, make sure you include them in your emails, especially the subject line!
• Stick to the point. People are busy. Keep your marketing emails short so you can hold their attention. Tell them why you are emailing, show them your value, and give them an easy way to purchase.‍
• Close with a call-to-action (CTA). At the end of your email, use a strong CTA that encourages the reader to make a decision. Sometimes, the decision will be registering for your activities and other times it will be learning more about your offerings.

Review our guide for more in depth information on email marketing for small businesses.

Social media marketing for indoor playgrounds

Social media is a very important platform when marketing a business to parents and families. Pew Research found that 83% of parents use social media. Therefore, social media is an important medium to reach families in your community. Consider these recommendations when you use social media for marketing your indoor playground or play space.

• Post high quality photos. The images you post on social media can be the first impression a customer sees of your space, so make sure they are high quality, bright, saturated (but not overly saturated), and full of smiling faces! Smartphone photography is a great and less expensive alternative to professional pictures. Remember: If you use photos of children, always get permission from a parent or guardian beforehand. 
• Utilize user-generated content (UGC). Millennial parents trust UGC more than brand-created content. Ask customers to share pictures in photo contests, reshare positive reviews, and get the excitement flowing with social media takeovers. Check out our full guide on user-generated content to see even more ideas.‍
• Make connections with potential and current customers. Interact with your community on social media! By making connections, you are increasing the likelihood that they sign up for your classes and refer friends.

For more guidance on social media marketing for camps, check out our article, which includes helpful information about setting up business accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

Advertising for indoor playgrounds

Google Ads are a useful, and often cost-efficient, marketing tool. You can bid on search terms, and pay for the clicks that you receive. This is called a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising model. There is no spending requirement, which means you can set your own budget. Follow these steps when setting up your Google Ads strategy.

• Start with research. The first step of creating Google Ads is deciding which keywords you want to target. Keywords are the words or phrases that people search for on Google that trigger an ad. Research which keywords your competitors are targeting. You can find this information by searching those words to see what ads appear.
• Build your budget. You need to consider two different elements that go into your account’s overall spend: daily budget (the amount of money you spend on each campaign each day) and bid (the cost when someone who searches for your keyword actually clicks on your ad).
• Choose your keywords. Google Ads has a free Keyword Planner, which can help you generate a list of keywords for your campaigns and their costs. You also need to decide the match type, which refines where your ads appear. 
• Pick your devices. Do you want your ads to appear on mobile, desktop, tablet, or all three? In our 2022 Children’s Activity Business Trend Report, we found that 60% of parents booked activities on mobile, 39% on desktop, and 1% on tablet.
• Create your copy. Write something catchy and enticing! Of course, don’t forget to include the keywords in your ad copy. Make sure you add a call-to-action (CTA) like “Sign up today” or “Learn more”.‍
• Activate and monitor. It’s time to go! Activate your ads, then track your progress with Google Analytics, which is free and connected to Google Ads. For more advanced tracking, you can also install a Google Ads pixel on your site.

Looking for more details on setting up Google Google advertising for your business? Check out our guide!

Making connections with schools

When you run a children’s activity business like an indoor playground, making connections with schools can help you build customer trust, increase your enrollment numbers, and find new families in your community. Plus, these connections can help you get your first batch of families! Here are some of our top tips to help you make connections with schools.

• Focus on the right contacts. Don’t let your outreach email go into a black hole. Find members of the school board, administrators at the school, and/or the PTA to start the conversation.
• Write a strong outreach email. Be straightforward but polite. Write a strong subject line, then in the body, introduce yourself and explain what you are offering. Let them know why their students would benefit from activities at your space. End your email by thanking them for their time and let them know how they can get in touch with you to continue the conversation.‍
• Use our outreach email generator. With our outreach email generator, you can easily input the above information and create an email that will help you make strong connections with local schools.

Use our guide to learn more about how to make connections with schools.