You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how nonprofit attractions
are increasing attendance and sharing their missions through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media.
Jenny, today’s episode, guest experience, employee retention and marketing.
That’s a lot.
One of the things that we’ve learned in our conversations with marketing directors is,
and we all know they wear many hats at nonprofit attractions, but these three things can
all funnel up under one team lead, right? The marketing department can often be responsible
for guest experience and employee retention, and sometimes all three of these sit completely
separate.
We wanted to really have a conversation today about bringing in some experts about these
two divisions and really what marketing needs to know about guest experience and employee
retention.
Yeah, so we brought in Josh Lieben and Matt Heller from the Attraction Pros podcast.
Josh runs LiebenLeisure.com, which specializes in guest experience, and then Matt runs performance
optimist consulting with a focus on leadership and human resources.
So both of these guys are consultants to the attraction world. What better guys to talk
to?
Can’t wait to talk about it.
All right, let’s get into the episode.
All right, Jenny.
We are joined by Matt and Josh from the Attraction Pros podcast.
Guys, thank you so much for making the time.
We appreciate it.
Thanks so much for having us.
So let’s do some interest.
We’ve already given the bios and stuff before, but let’s hear it from you guys.
Matt, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Sure.
I’ve been in the attractions industry for I think 35 years this year.
We’ve kind of started on the front lines to work my way up and really found a niche in helping
organizations on the people side of the business.
So don’t ask me about food and beverage.
Don’t ask me about, you know, what ride to put in.
But you know, when we talk about the people side of the business, team members engaging
with guests or engaging with each other’s leadership, those kind of things, that’s kind
of where I’ve found my niche.
So I’ve written two books on leadership for the attractions industry.
One is called All Clear.
The practical guide for first time leaders in the people who support them.
And the other one is called the myth of employee burnout.
And that’s really about employee engagement.
And then in 2017, Josh and I got together to form the attraction pros podcast.
And that has been just a whirlwind of a journey for us to meet lots of great people.
We met you guys through that platform first and now we’re on yours.
So this is super exciting.
So just glad to be here and really excited to talk about marketing and attractions.
Awesome.
And Josh, tell us a little bit about yourself.
So I’ve been in the attractions industry for just shy of 20 years next year, actually,
be 20 years in the industry started out in attractions operations.
So I had the opportunity to work for Cedar Fair, Disney, Universal, Merlin Entertainment.
So a lot of the top tier operators opened several parks as well.
And after I got my masters in hospitality and tourism from UCF in Orlando, I went into
consulting and was initially hired by a consulting firm working with luxury hotels
and resorts.
Kind of a sidestepped out of theme parks and then into the world of top tier premium hospitality.
So Ritz Carlton, Waldorf Astoria, four seasons, a lot of the big names in the lodging industry.
But for the last 10, 11 years or so ago, I’ve been working primarily with attractions of all
scopes and sizes.
So I work with theme and amusement parks and zoos, museums, aquariums, family entertainment
centers, trampoline parks, helping to amplify the guest experience through hospitality.
This recently, I just published my first book called The Hospitality Mentality, which focuses
on creating raving fans through the guest experience.
And like Matt mentioned, he and I have been hosting the attraction pros podcast since 2017.
>> Excellent, excellent.
And I think that’s what we’re talking about today, right guys?
We wanted to bring you guys on as the experts that maybe you’re like one or two steps away
from marketing, employee retention, guest experience, all of this funnels up.
But if you could get into a room with a marketing director, what are we going to say to them?
What do they need to hear from your perspective, from your teams?
And Josh, maybe we can start with you.
You mentioned hospitality mentality.
Give us a quick overview of that.
>> Sure.
So the hospitality mentality is a culmination, a lot of the consulting that I’ve been doing
over the years, focusing on guest experience and particularly the service culture within
an organization.
So the mindset behind the hospitality mentality is that we recognize that our guests don’t
need us.
They can do anything else aside from visiting our attraction or doing business with us.
And our actions show them that we recognize both of those.
And you talk about the tie-in with marketing.
And I think there’s a huge connection between them because marketing and guest experience,
I think are two sides of the same coin.
Marketing is the guest experience prior to the visit.
In many cases after the visit.
And then the hospitality is the guest experience that is within the visit and on site.
So I think it’s all interconnected and all intertwined.
>> So, yeah, I think you make some great points there.
But what does marketing need to know from the guest experience side of the coin, if you
will?
>> So it’s interesting.
I do a lot of work with guest feedback and whether it’s internal feedback that comes
in or with online reviews as well and managing feedback from that standpoint.
And a lot of times when I’m talking to people about their online reviews, I might be talking
to the guest experience and the operations team.
And they say, oh, well, marketing handles all of our online reviews.
So, okay, well, I guess that makes sense because that’s part of the post visit guest experience.
But it is about the experience that the operations team delivered on site.
So there needs to be a strong connection between marketing and operations under this umbrella
of guest experience to make sure that if our goal of achieving satisfaction is exceeding
expectations, we all need to be aligned on what that expectation is.
And a lot of that expectation comes from marketing and something like online reviews, that is,
yes, if it’s channeled into marketing, it’s based on the guest experience of previous guests
aligning with their satisfaction.
So tying all of this together is what do our guests expect?
It is in part based on what marketing is delivering.
And it is in part and largely due to what previous guests are saying about their visit
and their experience.
And connecting all of that together helps to understand what is this expectation that the
operations teams can focus on now matching that meeting it and then exceeding it.
And you kind of talk about working in concert together, we can envision some of these organizations
and this happens across the board is somewhat siloed, right?
The guest experience team sits over here and then across the wall is the marketing team.
Sometimes they’re intertwined, but sometimes they’re not.
Matt, have you seen any kind of best practices, whether within the attraction space or just
even broader on building a little bit more cooperation between interdepartment teams?
Absolutely.
And I think it starts with understanding kind of that intersectionality that Josh was talking
about and how each department needs one another, even if you can’t see it right away.
And sometimes that comes from a CEO or a CEO or someone that’s able to see the entire picture
and they can see, okay, here’s HR, here’s marketing, here’s operations.
You’re all kind of working in the same soup, so to speak, but you haven’t come together
to marry all those ingredients.
One thing I would say is, again, to really focus on how much, not only you need each other
about how you can benefit from the relationship that you have with another department, and
I’ll just take human resources and marketing.
I know from my experience as a human resources professional for many, many years, we don’t
know how to market to people.
I mean, yes, we put out the recruiting posters and things like that, but from a, hey, let’s
get people’s attention, let’s inspire them to come from a marketing standpoint, come to
the park or to buy a ticket or whatever.
There’s a certain psychology behind that that I think, and this is no disrespect to HR
folks, but that’s not typically where their wheelhouse is, but that’s where marketing people
really excel.
So why aren’t we leaning on marketing to help us attract team members just like we would
attract guests?
And so I think there’s that synergy there that I think we can foster.
And then I think it’s really understanding how they again all work together.
So if marketing is helping to recruit the people that are going to be working in operations,
and they have a better understanding of what those operations people probably go through,
and then they can adjust their marketing accordingly or they can see why those reviews are the way
they are, and they can have a better understanding of the entire process.
Jenny, I’m kind of thinking we don’t do a ton of recruitment marketing specifically for
the nonprofit space, right?
There’s just so many limited dollars, but I’m kind of thinking if I was a marketing director
and I’ve got HR over here saying, hey, we need a little bit of recruitment push, especially
a couple years ago when I couldn’t hire anybody.
I’m thinking, and I’m using our internal lingo here, but I’m thinking impactful channels
can also lift the high tives, lift the boat with recruitment as well, right?
Like if I see a TV commercial, that sounds like a fun place to work.
Yeah, I think you’re impactful channels and kind of keep that messaging going year-round,
but really some more of your kind of opportunistic channels, especially in paid social, both
your organic and your paid can work together, kind of recreating some of that organic content
of why you should want to work here, what is like to work here.
And we talked a little bit about Matt and Josh on your podcast about kind of the day in the
life, right?
Like what does it look like as part of one of these members, or to be a member of kind of
our team here?
So I think there’s a lot of ways that you can kind of weave that in, but recruitment, absolutely
seasonally hiring staff during Parker and Big Summer rushes is always important.
So just something that we do see incorporated on the paid side as well too.
But yeah, it’s got to be a little bit more than just maybe some text copy in a paid search
ad for hiring.
You’ve really got a lot of competition in these markets, so you’ve got to create some excitement
and desire to wanting to work there as well too.
You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions Podcast.
Conversations on how non-profit attractions are increasing attendance and sharing their
mission through marketing.
Your hosts are Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Atend Media.
Atend Media is a media planning and buying agency specializing in zoos, aquariums, gardens
and museums.
For more information, please visit attend.media.
Now back to Ryan and Jenny.
All right, Matt.
So yeah, we’re going to put your marketing hat on.
I know this isn’t your willhouse, but you know, if you had an unlimited creative budget,
an unlimited, you know, way of the magic wand, what would you want your marketing team to
do to help boost recruitment, to help find that top talent within the world of within
their world, what they’re actually capable of doing?
Sure.
Well, I think the first thing that I would want the marketing team to do is spend some
time in the operation so that they can see what those folks are doing.
You know, I’ve got a story that I know Josh has heard many, many times.
I was working at a facility and they had this great promotion where you bring in a Coke
can and you get, you know, certain amount off of the ticket price, right?
And we were bombarded with Coke cans.
So marketing did their job, right?
But what we didn’t do is talk to the folks in the ticket booths and actually give them
a button on the POS system.
And we also didn’t talk to park services.
So we didn’t know what to do with all these cans when they came in.
So we had all these and people would drink the can literally last sip and hand it to the
ticket seller.
And so we had all these, you know, kind of unsanitary cans, you know, that we had nothing
to do with and the ticket seller had no way to ring that discount up.
So I think it’s understanding what that operational impact is of what they, of what they’re, you
know, trying to sell or what they’re trying to put out in the public.
And then, you know, using that information to better reach to the targeted markets that
they’re looking for.
And I think where the, the, the, probably the marketing people are earning their, their
dollars is through the creativity that they can bring, you know, again, nothing against HR
folks.
But, you know, if they put up a poster in a school and it says these are the benefits of
working here and then that’s their recruitment strategy.
Well, that’s not nearly enough.
You know, you get somebody with a creative marketing mind and they’re like, oh, well,
let’s record, you know, the team member doing what they do and laughing and having a good
time and, you know, even on break, you know, so we can show the day in the life.
We can show what that’s really like because ultimately, someone is going to make a decision
to come fill out an application or click that link to fill out the application online.
And they’ve got to be, you know, emotionally invested, even at that point, to want to
be able to do that.
So are there friends there?
Do they see some benefit for them?
So it’s all those same kind of creative ways that you get that message out there that I
think that would be the biggest bang for the buck if we could do that creatively and you
could really set yourself apart as, you know, a different employee brand or, you know,
something that’s really going to be impactful to that team member and it’s not just about
what the team member can do for you anymore.
You know, certainly that team member is looking for what can the organization do for me as
well.
So that’s got to be part of that message.
Kind of a long answer, but that’s what I would think the magic one would do.
You know, I mean, you said it right there, day in the life, right?
Like, I guess I’ll kick it back to you Josh.
It’s like kind of the same thing on the guest experience side, you know, it marketing is
supposed to kind of show what the guests experience is going to look like, right?
And but the reality is we, we have the marketers show it as the absolute dream scenario.
So is there some more like day in the life reality stuff that marketing could do to set better
expectations for the guests?
Because I think where the, the strife comes in where guests experience becomes, it becomes
tough is the expectations are so high for the guest and then, you know, the actual attraction
isn’t able to deliver.
So what are some ideas you would want to share with your marketing team?
So the other piece of it too that really ties in with all of this is that marketing has the
goal of bringing in attendance and particularly attracting the demographic that is going to
spend the most money that is going to be the most ideal from a business case.
And one of the challenges with that is that making sure it matches the demographic and matches
the experience as well.
So there’s an example of a park many years ago that that was trying to market to, there’s
trying to market to families for a park that was somewhat geared towards families, but it
more so actually catered to a skewed to a little bit of an older demographic, very, very
niche in that demographic.
It was very specific.
It was a very high quality product by the expectation that the marketing was setting was
not exactly what it was or what the experience was going to look like.
And they also looked at everything that was within the park and they said, okay, well, we’ve
got these rides, we’ve got these shows, we’ve got, you know, this and that.
And the brochures initially said there are over 50 rides, shows and attractions.
Well, if you actually looked at the map and counted everything that were 13 rides, there
were three shows and then they considered every retail stand, every quick service food beverage
outlet, every kind of small little aspect throughout the park as an attraction.
And there weren’t necessarily wrong because that is part of the attraction.
That is part of the experience of being in the park.
But if you’re trying to quantify this of you’re going to do 50 things today, you’re thinking
of it is, oh, I’m going to ride 50 rides and see, you know, you’re a ride 50 rides and
see 50 shows or a combination of 50 between the two.
So that created massive service failures and massive dissatisfaction of guests who were
coming to the park that said, we were promised over 50 rides, shows and attractions.
And we see that there are only 13 rides towards the end of the summer.
The brochures that were put out then said over 50 shows rides and attractions because
now they’re trying to focus on the street atmosphere and kind of the other entertainment
that was throughout the park.
And now if you’re expecting 50 shows, it still didn’t align.
It didn’t match up.
So there was that disconnect between marketing and the actual experience that just didn’t
create it didn’t paint the right picture.
That’s interesting.
Shifting gears is a little bit.
Marketing has done its job.
It’s gotten people into the door.
Talk to us about retaining those customers, those first time visitors and converting them
over into members.
But what advice would you give the marketing team there Matt, if you want to take that one?
Sure.
So I think it’s going to go back to my lens of the employees.
So you have amazing advocates or potential for advocates in your employees and your volunteers,
the people that are out there interacting with your guests every single day.
And if you are working with them and even starting with just awareness of what is in it for
the organization, what’s in it for the individual when they upgrade from a day pass to a membership?
What’s in it for them?
And then how does that even benefit the team member?
How does that even benefit the volunteer?
Well, you can save more elephants.
You can save more plants.
You can do all these different things.
So there’s going to be this intrinsic motivation for them to want to do that.
But I think if marketing is out there and educating the team and getting them to feel good
about it, then they’re naturally going to bring those things up when they’re talking to
people.
Oh, are you guys a member yet?
Hey, I’ve seen you here a couple times this week.
Have you considered a membership?
And sometimes it’s just that little question that, oh, no, I haven’t.
Tell me the benefits.
Why should I be a member?
And then you get into this conversation.
And then you could say, and the membership desk is right over there.
They’d be happy to get you signed up.
So I think to me, that marketing channel of using the voices that you already have in the
facility is probably one of the first places that I would start.
But again, that’s my lens of focusing on the employees as well.
Like that.
Danny, I can hear the marketing team going, yeah, go sell more memberships for us guys.
Yeah, no, you’re so right though.
I mean, there’s advocate, internal advocates you have.
And I think especially with nonprofit attractions, you know, it’s going to be smaller, more
manageable to work with me and talk to your customers or your visitors versus something
like Disney, right?
So, but it can happen there as well too.
But yeah, being able to kind of advocate for and talk about benefits that becoming a member,
it’s a huge opportunity that a lot of people might overlook.
All right.
So kind of last question for you guys here, what do you think and take it from your lens?
You know, what do you think nonprofit attractions, cultural attractions, zoos, museums, aquariums,
gardens should be doing more of?
You guys both sat back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Josh, want to take that first?
Oh, you want me to go first?
I’ll go.
So what do I think they should be doing more of?
Again, getting out and understanding what the operation is, I think that’s a huge win for
everybody.
I think they should also work to tell their stories, you know, and I think that’s a big
part of, you know, marketing in general, but, you know, when you have something that happens
in the facility that whether it’s, you know, a team member achievement or something that
happens with, you know, an exhibit or that kind of thing, like telling that story in a
compelling way that brings people in and not just saying not that the marketers would, but
hey, we’ve got a new exhibit come see it nine to five Monday through Friday, you know,
you know, that kind of thing, like there’s a, there’s a story to be told.
There’s an emotional connection to be made.
And I think the more we can do that with our team members and our guests, the more we bring
all that stuff together that Josh talked about in the very beginning.
Josh, how about you?
I think what can be done more of, and I know this is a very broad statement because everyone’s
kind of doing doing all these differently, but I would say really leveraging guest feedback
and online reviews as both a source of marketing as well as continual operational and guest
experience improvements.
So the more feedback that you’re getting from your guests, whether it’s coming through private
channels or whether it’s through marketing focused channels like social media and review sites,
all of that is is phenomenal data for you to be able to utilize that to be able to make
continual improvements to be experienced.
And then because that’s data, you can optimize your feedback loop by continuing to measure
that.
And so the more things that you do to improve the experience, you’re getting this continual
flow of information.
So seeking feedback from your guests throughout their experience as well as pushing your most
satisfied guests to online reviews can enhance both marketing and operations guest experience.
Excellent.
All right guys, Matt and Josh from the Attraction Pro’s podcast.
Obviously these guys know what they’re talking about, so that’s not on your subscribe
feed.
Go ahead and give that one a click.
Matt, Josh, thank you so much.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you, Booth.
Have a great time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
[MUSIC]