Here at eMUNICATIONS we love to play paintball. The game has a lot to offer: teamwork, adrenaline, exercise, and good old-fashioned sunlight (something usually alien to the eMUNICATIONS team).
Naturally, we also like good quality websites (something usually alien to the paintball community). Most paintball websites I’ve come across are in a state of disrepair -- there’s usually little to no thought of the end-user, core information is hard to find, and very few of them are using social media in a useful way.
Until recently, most field owners I’ve talked with seem to dismiss their website as an afterthought. This wouldn’t have been a major problem five years ago, but in today’s world the quality of your website is just as important as the quality of your field.
Not everyone has an eye for design, but when your online presence is clean and professional, it communicates that your business is clean and professional. You may not want to pay for a professional design in order to cut costs, but avoiding this expense will only help your costs in the short-term; your revenue will suffer in the long-term.
One of the biggest frustrations I’ve experienced with paintball field websites is the lack of pertinent information or poor placement thereof. Within the first five seconds of viewing a website, the user should be able to identify your field’s hours, prices, location, and contact information. Some paintball fields keep whacky hours or will open up on random days and they don’t do a good job of letting their customers know when these things occur. This is where social media comes into play.
Many field owners are reluctant to use social media -- some dismiss it as hype, some are intimidated by it, while others simply don’t care. Facebook, for example, is a great way to let your customers know of any unscheduled open days or last-minute changes of field hours. It’s also a great way to get more people to your field and more people looking at your business.
One of the latest social media services is “location-based”. Companies like Gowalla, Foursquare and now Facebook are all working in the location-based realm and this sort of thing is VERY advantageous for paintball field owners. These services allow users to “check-in” where they are. So they’ll broadcast to every one of their friends, “I’m at Joe’s Paintball Park” which is a clickable link with your field’s contact information. If only five customers check-in, that’s generally at least 300 people who were exposed to your company. You can even create an offer like this: “x% off admission when you check-in using Facebook."
So, paintball field owners, you have a lot of work ahead of you and a lot of new players to catch the attention of. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Want to know more? Drop us a line.
See you on the field!