How much time and money would you spend on the renovation of your physical venue? Would you maybe spend a couple of hours scribbling notes on a napkin about how you think it will look and what you like, and then perhaps $500-$1000 dollars to execute the napkin plan!
Of course not! You spend months planning, researching, financing and then executing it to perfection to deliver the best possible return on your investment.
So, why do most venues put so little thought and budget into their website and their digital presence? It is your online venue. Your virtual storefront, and often, the first touchpoint that a consumer will interact with from your venue. Do you really want that interaction to be a poor one? An underwhelmed consumer will simply scroll past and move onto the next venue that actually put some thought into their site and spend their hard-earned money there!
Let’s take a minute to compare this scenario to a bricks and mortar physical venue! You wouldn’t spend your advertising dollars to attract customers to your venue only to have them so completely underwhelmed visually on arrival, then find it difficult to find what they want, and finally have no support staff or direction about where they can get what they need, ask a question, or even spend money with you? You would probably go bust in no time with that approach!
So, if you can see the value in refurbishing and renovating your physical presence regularly, how can you not see the value in doing the same to your online presence regularly.
You need to invest heavily in your digital ecosystem to compete in today’s rapidly changing and congested market space, especially in the hospitality industry! With venues spending millions on facilities and renovations only to commit a fraction of that to a platform that is a consumers first port of call and so very critical to its success and sustainability is just mind boggling. The reality is, you need to be budgeting between $15,000 to $25,000 and that is just for a medium sized club’s website.
Once you have the foundation of your website in place you can then build your digital ecosystem around it to increase and support your success. You can manage your data more comprehensively, connect your social media channels for more operational use, integrate Google and TripAdvisor for better business visibility, and communicate effectively with your consumers.
Spending the time and money now on your digital infrastructure, starting with your website, should be top of your priority list for 2023. If it isn’t, then your venue will struggle to stay competitive now and into the future.
If you’re thinking of updating your website in 2023, get in touch with our digital advisor, Lauren Neilson on lauren@dws.net.au, to discuss how you can bring your venue better success online to help grow your business offline.
