Escape Room Business in Largo for Sale

BBF Listing # 919221: An Escape Room – the popular immersive gaming experience – in Largo for sale. Perfect location on corner with a BEAUTIFUL BUILD OUT! Over $150,000 in build out with 4 escape rooms and a conference room for corporate events . This is a great opportunity for a full-time operator. Seller currently spends 100 hours a week at her profession and does not have time for the marketing this business requires to grow. Must see inside; the intricacies for game play are truly spectacular! Owner willing to finance a qualified buyer.

Asking Price: $39,900
Cash Down: $25,000

Pinellas County Business for Sale

Marketing An Escape Room Business

There are some challenges to be overcome when marketing an escape room business, not the least of which is that the whole thing is supposed to SECRET. As soon as you explain the setup, you’ve given a lot of the fun away.

While the concept of an Escape Room is not new to gamers, it is new the American Public as a leisure activity that you can go do. For birthday parties, for corporate team building, for fun on a Saturday night with a bunch of friends.

Game masters – not as easy to locate as a barista –

Basics

These tactics will feel like Digital Marketing 101, but they are the best way to reach a Millennial target audience.

List on Google My Business, Yelp, wherever you can get reviewed.
Promote with a content rich blog — here are some potential blog post topics-according to the online booking website Checkfront
- Tips and tricks to a successful escape
- A behind-the-scenes look into a favorite room that’s no longer available.
- Success stories — how a group managed to beat a record
- The funny failure moments
- Introduction of a new room with its unique story line
- Teamwork advice
- Starting an escape room business
- Get to know your Game Masters
- The process of designing an escape room
Feature players on your social media accounts, tagging them and asking them to tag the rest of their friends in the photo.
Email Marketing – to follow up – ask for reviews and referrals, and to introduce new rooms, seasonal discounts, etc.
Look for vertically aligned partners for joint promotions.

REVIEWS

Reviews are ridiculously important. And you want to asking for them from everyone who has come into the facility. Don’t forget vendor partners, too. And more than just on Google and Yelp.

Here are some websites that publish escape room reviews:

However, ask everyone to hang on to the surprise… the way they do with ‘Wheel of Fortune and ‘Jeopardy’ where winners hapen weeks before th episode has aired, but eveyrone keeps it quiet.

Escape Room Business Directories

Here are a few that were easy to get listed on earlier this year. Just keep in mind that internet directories come and go. The business directories for Largo and the greater Tampa Bay Area are worth checking out too.

Building Corporate Referrals

When you are looking at social networks to focus on for your social media marketing strategy, don’t forget Linkedin. This is where the corporate folks and HR managers hang out. This is the platform where you can promote interesting and new locations for team building and corporate celebrations.

If you are looking to attract young professionals on their down time, consider Instagram. High school age kids are thought to be on Snapchat. That will likely change, so ask your most hip high school friends and ask them where the “it” kids are today. Families tend to be on Facebook.

You don’t have to be everywhere, though it helps if you can keep 2 or 3 social channels updated consistently.

The Escape Room Industry Stats

The concept started as a video game in Japan. Now growing in popularity to where there are over 5,000 game rooms in 90+ countries offering “IRL” (in real life) experiences. The United States had just over 2,300 of those as of July 2018.

Escape Room Business Growth Chart

Source: Room Escape Artist

Escape Room Industry Report – produced by the booking service Xola – offers dep insight and some interesting finding:

68% of Escape Room Locations have 3+ rooms for action to take place in. Where Room owners used to partner with competitors to refer customers back and forth, now, the trend is for one single location to have their players come back to play another room where the players have confidence they will have a good time, and be safe.Another motivation is that most corporations booking an Escape room as a team building exercise want to have at least 3 rooms onsite.