Re: Pool Rooms Closing General Input
It is funny that our story in creating The GoPlayPool App started with walking into a pool hall with 12 Diamond Bar Tables and 10 minutes away from our home and 5 years later, we didn't even know it existed until then.
One of the main reasons in our opinion some pool rooms are not succeeding is lack of upkeep with the age of technology and its twisted marketing formats.
Putting the directory of pool halls in the US has been a 5 years, 12 hours a day work...
Some pool halls don't have addresses listed, don't have phone numbers listed and let's not even talk about hours of operation.(Small town BIG pool halls are closed because of the "flu". (reminds me of the movie my cousin Vinnie). Therefore we don't have hours of operation listed on our system at all.
Consistency is the ingredient for success.
After we put the directory together, we realized that we can do more...
So, we added: Table count, table brands, table sizes and league/tournament availability onto the system as well as amenities the establishment offers from: food to alcohol if any, other games, TVs, entertainment and one of the most important piece of information: Age limit.
Now the system is not perfect and daily we are editing and adding information. It will never be perfect, but as long as we gather the information, we can help the community to at least know what pool hall has how many tables and so on...
As part of the plan and as a pool player, I personally realized that I see the same faces over and over again. A kodak image today and take the same picture in 5 years and 80% of the same faces are in the picture. (Cell phone now, no more Kodak! lol).
The pool community already knows where the Thursday night tournament is. It is the "new" and "potential" client that doesn't know.
So our marketing efforts have been focused towards colleges, universities and even some high schools in areas we know the pool halls allows under age clients.
Our next step which is in the works is to allow pool rooms upgrade to post: coupons, discounts, offers and let people know about their daily specials on pool, food, booze or whatever event they want to promote. And it will always be on the system and it is not just another "post" on Facebook we scroll past.
We have some contact information on some pool rooms and we have many interested pool rooms awaiting our completion of our platform. So, we are looking forward to that.
Bottom line is: rent was super cheap in the 60's and you really didn't have to market your "pool hall" to many out of towners either. Now people travel, they use yelp? Do you have an account(A claimed account), they use Facebook? Do you have a business page?(An updated one with specials, tournament info and/or for GOD's sake a phone number.), they use Google maps? Are you listed(Full description and full address, not something someone else has entered in).
We have put all of them on the same platform and hoping with our marketing efforts towards the end user(which everything is free for), we can help room owners and establishments bring in more business daily and stay updated with the age of technology at the same time.
Looking forward to the completed platform in about 30 days or so...
:grin::grin::grin:
