Marketing Escape Rooms Differently
In a city brimming with cultural experiences, I saw an opportunity to develop the escape room scene by Marketing a more immersive story-first approach. With a limited supply of resources, the focus would be on Digital Marketing. My journey began in 2016 with an idea to go beyond traditional puzzle-centric escape rooms, inspired by my passion for immersive theatre coupled with my experience in children’s theatre and museums. I set up Modern Fables with the aim of being more creative than my competitors while completely transporting visitors to another realm.
As a one-person business, I aimed to fill a gap in the market: transform the escape room experience from a mere themed puzzle-solving activity into a creatively unique, deeply immersive narrative adventure. This was to be supported by technology to heighten the feeling of being somewhere exciting and magical.
After hard-won success with my initial single-game venue, I decided to expand Modern Fables to a larger three-game site in a more prestigious location. This would enable repeat bookings and a tripling of capacity. I now had to up my Digital Marketing game.
Escape Room Trailers used in Our Digital Marketing
MARKET ANALYSIS
The London escape room scene was bustling with approximately 25 companies, among them early leaders like Hint Hunt and Escape Hunt, setting the stage for a competitive arena. Despite the burgeoning number of offerings, a closer look revealed a trend: technology used to impress rather than augment, and puzzles shoehorned into themes at the expense of narrative engagement. My analysis pointed towards an untapped potential for a story-first approach, leveraging the rising popularity of immersive entertainment across the city. Generally, their websites were unwieldy, with difficulty comparing their different offerings and timeslots. SEO and other Digital marketing efforts also seemed to be lacking, harking back to a time when the concept sold itself and competition was low.
Audience Analysis
With limited resources to work on our Digital Marketing, identifying our main audience was a challenge. To do this, I interviewed our customers and staff at other escape room venues, and made good use of Google Analytics data. I managed to identify a customer persona dubbed ‘London Explorer’. This demographic of 24-35 year-old professionals, predominantly women, craved unique, shareable experiences that transcended the mundane. Their journey often began with a nod from cultural gatekeepers or word-of-mouth recommendations. This underscored the importance of a strong, engaging brand narrative that could capture the imagination while having an exciting experience to match.
Marketing Strategy
The Marketing Strategy was crafted to redefine the escape room experience, anchoring it in immersive storytelling and sensory engagement rather than a race to complete puzzles. Recognising our audience’s appetite for depth and authenticity, we set out to weave intricate narratives that would envelop players, transforming a visit to Modern Fables into a “journey to another realm”. This approach was supported by three pillars:
Sensory Engagement
Utilisation of soundscapes, fragrances, and tactile experiences to enhance immersion.
Narrative Integration
Commitment to stories that resonate, drawing from a diverse cultural well to ensure novelty and intrigue.
Customer-First
Streamlined interactions from booking to gameplay, tailored to the needs of our busy, socially connected explorers.
Digital Marketing Strategy
To communicate the general strategy to our audience, we took a Digital Marketing first approach. This centred on Google Ads for it’s immediacy and was used to drive potential customers at different points in the sales funnel to the relevant pages of the website.
To support adverts and generate interest, we kept a steady social media presence while also reaching out to blogs and reviewers, including TimeOut London and SecretLondon. This made our name more recognisable and provided trusted social proof.
Customer reviews were also a vital aspect of social proof, allowing us to stand out from the crowd. After each game, our hosts would debrief the customers, making sure they knew and agreed on what our USP entailed. We would then ask for reviews both in real life and in follow-up customer service emails. This approach led to our USP being front and centre of most reviews. Trip Advisor reviews were initially important as early adopters used it heavily. To reach a broader market and improve our SEO, we shifted this to asking for Google Reviews, which was much more successful. To sweeten this final physical contact with our customers, we gave out inexpensive goodybags containing some retro sweets and branded stickers.
SEO was also a key part of our Digital Marketing strategy. We focused the website primarily on ‘Escape room London’ and ‘best escape room in London’. Copy, metatags and images all focused on this while still allowing us to convey the immersive, story-driven aspect of our offering. This had to be done very carefully as mystery was a key part of our brand. We had to tell customers all about the experience while not giving any concrete information! Vague, atmospheric images of people having fun in our games were central to this, as was an enticing introduction to each game. This was bolsterd by what customers were writing in their reviews.
Bringing Modern Fables to Market
Giving Life to the Marketing Plan
Narrative and Set Design
I embarked on creating escape rooms where the narrative was central. Each game was a testament to this philosophy, offering players a rich tapestry of interwoven plots and puzzles that demanded not just intellectual engagement but emotional investment.
Our games were Hypersomnia, an 80s sci-fi-inspired journey to parallel universes; The Oracles, a rewriting of historical conspiracy theories drawing on archeological explorer themes; and The Escapist, an eerie investigation inspired by HP Lovecraft in a modern setting. All three stories were connected to inspire customers to come back for more.
Sensory Integration for Enhanced Realism
In Hypersomnia, , the main ‘control room’ scent utilised a mix of ‘Hospital’ to give a feel of clinical cleanliness but also a hint of ‘Factory’ to give an industrial edge.
The soundscape was layered to sound like a complex digital machine at work: as each puzzle to fix the machine was completed, a new layer was added to the soundscape. This gave players a sense they were building towards something while also immersing them in a strange digital-industrial atmosphere when combined with the scent and ‘dirtied sci-fi’ set design.
Operational Excellence and Customer-first Marketing
Actor-led Journeys
Replacing traditional staff with actors, we blurred the lines between reality and fiction, making every interaction a step deeper into our stories.
Seamless Customer Interaction
From flexible booking to personalised service, operational details were honed to ensure that every aspect of the ‘Modern Fables experience’ felt as thoughtfully crafted as the stories themselves.
Technological Integration and Artistic Branding
Purposeful Technology Use
Technology at Modern Fables served the narrative rather than trying to impress, enhancing the magic without overshadowing the story. Our puzzles, integrated into the storyline, offered a seamless blend of traditional mechanisms and innovative tech solutions.
Artistic and Mysterious Branding
The visual identity of Modern Fables spoke of sophistication and intrigue, marrying Edwardian fairytale aesthetics with modern design elements. This branding strategy was not just a visual choice but a narrative device, priming visitors for the unique experiences that awaited them.
Digital Marketing and Engagement
Our marketing efforts were strategically aligned with our target audience’s preferences, emphasising partnerships with cultural influencers and platforms. Special offers and campaigns were designed to intrigue and attract the ‘London Explorers’ to our website, leveraging reviews, location, and pricing to communicate value and exclusivity.
Brand Identity and Messaging
The Modern Fables brand was a story in itself, an invitation to “Escape to Another World.” Through careful branding, from our logo to our tagline, we conveyed the essence of our approach: immersive, narrative-driven adventures that promised not just entertainment but a journey to the extraordinary.
Again, with limited resources, this provided another challenge. My friend, the talented Imogen Barraclough created the logo to my brief and a member of the team suggested the use of marbling visuals (which you can see have stuck!). It was then up to me to translate this into the necessary visual identity (while learning how to use Photoshop!).
Marketing plan Results
- After moving to our new venue, our initial aim was to get Modern Fables fully booked every Saturday. We managed this within a couple of months with an additional 25% increase in bookings on Sundays.
- We achieved an increase in sales of 50% in the quarter leading up to the Coronavirus pandemic. growing a loyal customer base with 4.9 Google Review score.
- Social media grew to 900 Instagram and 700 Facebook followers.
- Our mailing list grew to over 1000 subscribers with a 32% open rate and 3% click through rate.
- Website hits grew from 0 to 1800 per month with the bounce rate reducing from around 80% to around 40%.
Customer Reviews
"Amazing place, the immersion starts the moment you enter the building! Great puzzles and and engaging storyline. We even had the game customised to the birthday girl and got a highlights card which was hilarious. Such a great place. This is how escape rooms should be done."
"I got to try their new adventure Hypersomnia in the new Hackney location, and it's absolutely brilliant! Great storyline, well made props, and even the hint system fits into the surroundings and is fully immersive. Staff were super friendly and engaged as well, overall a fantastic experience, can't recommend them enough!"
"The whole experience was amazing. It was immersive from start to finish and was such good fun. The clues and story made sense and the puzzles had variety. Having been to other escape rooms since, this one is unbeatable, a lot of the others are not as immersive, staff are rude and hurry you along and the stories dont make sense.. Best escape room I have ever been to and well worth the money.. 10/10 . Cant recommend enough."
"My second time playing a Modern Fables escape room-- I did Hypersomnia with a group of 4 early 2019, and back yesterday with a group of 6 for the Escapist. Four of the girls had never played before and they are HOOKED. Great immersive games-- I love the hosts that gets us immersed in the storyline, really good addition to escape rooms! Good puzzles, good set up, just wish we could go on for longer!! Highly recommend-- support independent business!!"
"Imaginative and interactive escape room! Two of us did the sci-fi adventure and made it out with 5 mins to spare, despite one of us having never done an escape room before! The use of tech in the rooms is brilliant and makes it more immersive than a regular escape room. Will be returning 🙂 Thanks!"
"We've visited a bunch of Escape Rooms and Modern Fables' focus on immersion and narrative was really refreshing. Some of the puzzles were pretty clever without getting too tricky. The host was really nice. Would recommend!"
Take a look at the fictional case study I created for my Level 3 Digital Marketing qualification. You can also find out more about my interests here.
