5 Tips to market your VR Arcade

FIVE Tips on How to Market your VR Arcade

Boost your sales and get those new customers in your doors.

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The industry is changing, I keep seeing online about how the industry is dying due to at home VR, changes in technology, and lack of interest. Which it is changing, but I would say it’s far from dying. What is dying is businesses that aren’t real businesses, it’s the people who went to Best Buy and spent a couple thousand on Meta Quest’s and suddenly think they have a business. Surprise, you don’t, and you’re making the rest of us look back.

I have been in the VR industry since nearly the very start of the location based virtual reality industry. I registered my corporation in May of 2017 and at the time I was one of the first in my country. Over the years I have done a lot of consulting and research, I have seen tons of these businesses open and close, and I have also made a lot of mistakes along the way. But I want you to learn from my mistakes. 

I have over a decade of experience in the Location Based Entertainment Industry and personally over a decade in the marketing industry including being a marketing professor at my local college. So here are: 5 TIPS ON HOW TO MARKET YOUR VR ARCADE 

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1. Market your experience, not your equipment

The biggest mistake I see business owners make is they focus so much on hyping up the equipment and how they have the “top of the line HTC Focus 3” or whatever their technology of choice is. You know what demographic of people know what that means? People who have researched these headsets and are probably going to go buy their own, or at most they’ll come out to try yours once before deciding if they want to buy it or not. 

What you want to target is people looking to have fun, those people aren’t going to care what your price is as long as they have fun doing it. They want to look at your advertisements and think “woah that looks like it would be a great time” then they share it with their friends, come out to your business, and spend a lot of money. 

The mom booking her kids birthday party at your facility, does not care what equipment you have, how many pixels are in each eye, what the latency is, or any of that bullshit. What they care about is that their kid is going to have fun and have the best birthday ever.

You need to make sure that is visualized in your marketing, showcase pictures and videos of people playing and having fun.

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2. Use paid advertising to target the right audience

I see so many businesses that start out and they’ll use canva or chatgpt to make a shit ton of cookie cutter posts, then schedule them to go out on their social media to their like 35 followers and the only person that likes and shares is their mom. 

You need to utilize paid advertising to attract a new audience and actually get people following you before that cookie cutter bullshit has any real effect. You’ll see a ton of people saying shit like “if you post 3 times a day and use the right hashtags you can grow your online presence”, that may be true if it was 2019 and you had all the time in the world to sit and create content, but it’s not and you don’t.

For VR arcades your demographic will primarily be on Facebook and Instagram, set yourself up with an advertising account and target the right demographic. Two important things to note: DO NOT USE BOOST UNLESS YOU HATE MONEY and the most important thing that I can’t even count how many times I’ve had this argument: NOT EVERYONE IS YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC funnel down your demographic and find who is the highest percentage of people who are actually in your business giving you money. 

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3. Utilize SEO

If someone is looking for something to do in your city and they go on Google and search along the lines of “things to do in ‘city’” or “fun stuff near me” and your business isn’t near the top of that list, you’re missing out. The types of people who google those things, are also the types of people who are into doing new things and having fun. Make sure that you have good SEO on your website, and get those customers finding your business.

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4. Have a clear brand and stay true to it

A clear, personable, relatable, and fun brand is something that is going to attract people to watch to actually follow you and visit your business. If they go and look at your Facebook page, it looks completely different than your Instagram, which also looks completely different from your website, they won’t actually know who you are, what you are, what the vibes are, and what they can expect. Make your brand clear, concise, and consistent.

Side note: Don’t chase trends. Good marketing and good branding isn’t reliant on you making silly TikToks, jumping on NFT’s, or whatever these business influencers are shoving down your throat. Think bigger, if you know your brand and marketing goals and plans, then you never have to second guess what you need to hop onto.

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5. Have a clear website

Your website needs to do three main things, showcase what people can expect, make it easy to book, and tell your story. You don’t need some big complex thing with 18 pages and a ton of bullshit. You need something that aligns with your brand, gets your name out there, and most importantly has online booking. It’s 2024, if you don’t have online booking you might as well go back to the stone age, taking your bookings on pen and paper. The demographic of people interested in VR Arcades have a significant overlap of people who if they can’t book online they just will not book. They’re not picking up the phone and calling you like it’s 1997.

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