A few years ago, we spent the afternoon at Isle of Wight Zoo. There’s nothing too unusual about that – lots of families were enjoying spending time, wandering around the zoo and meeting the ‘friendly’ inhabitants.
We weren’t there just to mooch around though. We’d bought an “Animal Experience” – namely the “Tiger Milk Feed” experience.
Through my work with small business owners, and from living on the Isle of Wight, I hear a lot of people talking about how their business is seasonal; that there are certain months of the year when they are busy and make lots of money, yet other months there is no business to be had.
Isle of Wight Zoo is a typically seasonal business too.
After all, not many people visit a zoo in the depths of Winter, but during the tourist season, you’re lucky to even get a space in the car park.
Then someone in their Marketing department got clever. They designed a set of experiences that offer customers unique opportunities to interact with the animals.
Experiences like;
- Our Tiger Milk Feed adventure at £100 per person
- Feed Dinner and Milk to the Tigers at £150 per person
- Be a ZooKeeper for the day at £250 per person
- Wildlife and Animal Photography Session at £350 per person
- Feed the Lemurs at £10 per person
Not only that, the experiences were;
- Sold upfront at the beginning of the “off-season” – cash in the bank to see the Zoo through the Winter
- Only redeemable by prior appointment during “off-season” – so they can be managed by Zoo staff already employed to care for the animals.
To increase the value of the experience, a a goodie bag is included in your Experience purchase. When we arrived back at the car having served up the tigers’ afternoon tea, we opened the bag to find a certificate of participation, a cuddly tiger and 2 pens.
Cost to the Zoo for the contents of the bag = very little.
Value to the participant of a long term reminder of the Experience = high.
We had a great couple of hours in the Zoo, and I LOVE this as an example of premium pricing and VIP packages; a model that could so easily be replicated by lots of other businesses too.
So now it’s over to you…
What VIP experience can you give your customers that would provide great value and a brilliant opportunity for them, and increase your sales at the same time?
Veronica Pullen
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