Email automation is all about sending the right email to the right person at the right time. In the escape room world, that means remarketing to your escape room players in real time, based on what sorts of games they play, with who, and when. Setting up a good automated email marketing campaign can take all of the hard work out of running your escape room’s marketing, because the emails will be sent automatically at the best time for your players.

If you’re just getting started, we’ve collected a list of automated email examples that actually work for escape rooms. If you’d like a primer on how to get started, check out our guide and help desk article.

The Post-Escape Room Email Window - “Thanks for playing!”

The most relevant, and therefore most effective time to email your players will be soon after they’ve played an escape room at your site. But doing this manually is time consuming, costly and opens itself up to a whole host of errors. Email automation on the other hand is a great tool for pre-scheduling exactly the right emails so they land in your players’ inboxes at the right time. You might wish to try:

An in-voice continuation of the story

Whether your team has just escaped the clutches of a vampire lord, sailed the high seas on a pirate ship, or executed an epic bank heist, they’ll be buzzing from their adventure. An automated email sent after the experience is the perfect opportunity to keep the story going. Perhaps there’s a post-game video you’d like them to watch, an Easter Egg or two to point out, a behind-the-scenes look at what they just escaped from, or simply encourage them to come back and take on the room’s sequel.

A “Thanks!” from their Game Master

Another option is a friendly, personalised thank you from the game master. No two game masters are the same, and having each write a line or two of thanks to be sent out to the players after their game is a lovely way to add the personalised touch in this final interaction. Why not combine this with sending out the team photo?

Don’t forget to leave a review!

More reviews at your escape room mean ranking higher on places like Yelp, TripAdvisor and in Google searches of “the best escape rooms near me”. In short, they’re vital to your business - so make sure you have a system in place for asking for a review! The automated email flow is the perfect opportunity for this, and is best sent 2 - 3 days after a team’s escape room.

Ask for feedback in the post-game survey

Post-game surveys have actually been available for Buzzshot users for a long time now, and are free for all users to use whether or not they play a role in your email marketing strategy. In these, you can ask questions about their experience - what worked well, and what could be improved, as well as find out important information like how they found out about your room and how far they travelled.

Celebrate player milestones - the big, the small, and the unengaged

Another email automation strategy in your escape room’s arsenal is automating emails for long-term milestones. These can be based on information about your player, such as their birthday, or interaction with your escape room, such as last visit, or which rooms they’ve played and which they haven’t yet.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

“It’s been a while…”

For me, I get itchy feet when I haven’t played an escape room in about 7 days… But for most people who visited your escape room and had a great time, 1 - 3 months is a good time to follow up. A simple re-engagement focused automated email would reach out to players after a set amount of time after their previous booking. It’s a good time to remind them how much fun they had last time, and offer an incentive to come back and play something new.

Because you enjoyed this room, you’ll love that room

With Buzzshot’s direct integration with the escape rooms, you can set up an automated email to track which rooms each player has played, and which they haven’t. In doing so, you can create smarter automated emails that don’t remarket the same escape rooms over and offer. Offer your players something different, based on what they enjoyed in the past!

The escape room birthday booking

Capturing your players’ birthday is an excellent opportunity to set up an automated birthday invitation. This could be a discount on rooms booked during the week of their birthday, a “one player goes free” offer. Or, if your escape room offers birthday parties, schedule something a month in advance of their big day.

The corporate call-back

For many escape room companies, corporate bookings - and especially those during the festive season - bring in the largest bookings of the year. So don’t leave them up to chance! With Buzzshot’s tagging system, you can keep track of corporate bookings, and the bookers who make them, and specifically remarket to those people. Lead times for corporate team buildings or office parties are a little longer, so we recommend setting up an email to go out to the lead booker 10, or 11 months after their previous booking. This will remind the company of the fun they had at your site previously, and encourage them to book again.

Last but not least, celebrate player loyalty with the personal touch

Every player likes to feel special, and they are! With email automation, you can email based on special moments in your players’ journey. Two of the most successful types of email automation in this space include:

Welcome to the inner (escape room) circle!

We’ve written about how to increase the per-head spend even after someone has played every escape room you have on offer before, but one of the most effective ways to celebrate the milestone is to set it up with a bang! With a smart automated email system, you can track which games a player has and hasn’t played, and set up a unique, celebratory email for the moment they complete them all. This new list of 100% completers could then be used to show behind the scenes content, offer a referral bonus for encouraging others to play, or used for special events.

The monthly leaderboard email

Another highly effective automated email used by many escape rooms around the world connects the monthly leaderboard to player profiles. At the end of each month, why not send out a reward code to everyone who held their spot on the leaderboard for the whole month? By doing so, you’ll offer your players a nice surprise at the end of the month, and encourage them to book in again the next.

Power your automated marketing machine today

I need only refresh my inbox a few times to know that almost all escape rooms do “email marketing”, but very few of those emails are personalised, timely or relevant. Email marketing automation powers owners and marketers to do all this and more at scale. Rather than send dozens of generic emails over the course of the year about your newest rooms, or latest offers, a well-thought out automated email sends the right emails, to the right people, at the right time, with minimal extra effort on your part.

At Buzzshot, our automated email system is available to all Buzzshot users at no additional costs. If you’re not already using it, you can get started with a free trial right away.