Whether you have a new facility or have been an existing part of the community for years, people still need to know about your water park. Marketing lets people know what you offer and gives them news about upgrades and special deals. To get the most out of the time and money you put into your water park advertising, use several proven strategies. The more methods you use in promoting your park, the better your returns should be. Read more to start learning about how to improve your amusement park marketing strategies.

1. Be Strategic With Promotional Materials

Being strategic with your promotional materials tailors the advertising materials to specific audiences to appeal to what they want in a water park. Create ads that will resonate with a specific target audience, but avoid selecting one target group for your marketing efforts. Instead, produce different types of materials to appeal to a variety of people.

For example, if you want to attract thrill seekers, you may create promotional materials that emphasize your thrilling water slides or other heart-pounding experiences. When advertising to families, especially those with small children, promote your water park’s kid-friendly features, such as a splash pad or themed sculptures with sprayers.

When sending out email newsletters, request that recipients sign up for the type of information they want. This data will allow you to send targeted promotional emails to those groups. For instance, if someone signs up to learn about money-saving offers, they get added to the group to get emails on deals and season passes. By sending audience-specific emails out, you increase the chances that the recipients will read the message instead of ignoring them.

Targeted promotional materials, such as emails and advertisements, will be more likely to grab the attention of your intended audiences and get them interested in your water park.

2. Partner With Travel Agencies

Travel agencies can help market your water park to their customers and reduce your effort in promoting your water park. When choosing travel agencies to partner with, you have several options including traditional agencies, online travel agencies (OTAs) and destination marketing organizations (DMOs).

• Traditional agencies: Traditional travel agencies may help you to promote your water park by offering tickets to your park as part of travel packages. You may need to provide the travel agent authorization to sell discounted tickets to your park to make them more appealing to travelers.
• Online travel agencies: OTAs offer many of the same benefits as traditional travel agents, such as a way to sell discounted tickets and inform travelers about your park. However, some OTAs also offer venues the chance to set up a web page as part of their larger website. When the OTA’s site draws in traffic, your web page can benefit by getting views from their visitors looking for things to do in the area. Having a webpage as a part of an OTA can help your water park establish a web presence while you build your company’s website that will provide visitors with more information.
• Destination marketing organizations: DMOs are regional groups that promote local attractions. These are highly popular in areas with heavy tourism that have multiple venues for visitors. Connecting with one of these organizations gives you another method of marketing that won’t require much effort from you to inform visitors about your park. If you are okay with having your water park marketed alongside other nearby attractions, connecting with a DMO may increase the number of visitors to your site.

3. Offer Special Deals and Season Passes

Everyone loves to get deals. Providing visitors with special deals can bring them into your water park. When marketing your deals, incentivize visitors to come at slower times of the year. For example, you could offer end-of-summer discounts on tickets bought online or opening day special prices for snacks and beverages throughout the park.

Combining special deals with advertising shows you how many visitors respond to your ads. For instance, you may consider offering a special link to discounted tickets only to those who get your email newsletters or providing them with deeper discounts. On the email signup page, let site visitors know that they could get secret deals by requesting the email. You may see email newsletter requests rise.

When advertising your special deals, think about the way to make the discounts easy to understand. For example, instead of saying that visitors will save 20% off the ticket price, indicate exactly what that saving translates to. You may advertise the deal as “Save $5 off the regular price of admission.”

Another type of deal to offer guests is a season pass or similar loyalty programs. With a season pass, a guest gets season-long admission to your water park. This type of admission ensures regular attendance by some who choose to use their season passes frequently. These visitors may bring friends or family without season passes, increasing admission ticket profits. They also will spend money inside the water park on drinks, tube rentals and snacks. Plus, they help you to build a fanbase of people who will help contribute to building your social media pages.

Other types of loyalty programs may include special tickets that allow earlier admission or separate lines for attractions to reduce waiting. These options are especially good if you have a very popular water park that typically has long lines during the peak of summer.

4. Use Lots of Visuals

Pictures speak louder than words, and when people search for information on water parks or other attractions, they want to see what makes the park great instead of reading about it. With eye-catching visuals, you can convey even more information than pages of text.

Visuals can come from professional photographs of your water park, but you might also include images from visitors that you use with permission, like reposting their images on your social media pages. This combination of pictures tells site visitors that your park is professional and fun.

Pictures should tell stories about your water park. Instead of showing an empty kids splash area with themed water slides, put up pictures that show kids enjoying the slides. Get close-up shots of the reactions of people riding the waves in the wave pool or getting splashed by a sprinkler.

When you have good visuals on your website, you draw attention and get people to want to explore more about your water park and its offerings.

5. Showcase Your Attractions on Social Media

Having a visual website should also tie to your social media presence. Images draw attention to your posts and encourage others to share them. You can use your social media accounts in several ways to show off your attractions:

• News updates: Use your Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok sites to provide quick news bites about new attractions or upgrades to existing ones. For example, post short videos of guest reactions to a new, thrilling water slide or let families post pictures of the fun they had at your park.
• Interactions with guests: Never forget the social part of social media. You will need to maintain an active presence on all your platforms with regular postings. Daily updates to your social media accounts during the season, quick answers to questions and fast responses to reviews will show that you care about your guests and will be ready to give them great customer service.
• Hashtags: When using social media, create a hashtag that other users can add to their content from your website. This collects more visuals, impressions, reviews and more about your park effortlessly. Your hashtag will likely be your water park’s name without spaces or your tagline. This also can make it easier for people to find information about your park on social media and to connect with your park.
• Coming attractions: Social media is also a great way to generate excitement for upcoming attractions. For instance, if you are currently building a new water slide or other attraction, post regular construction updates about the ride and what visitors can expect. If you have a new drink or food item, get tantalizing images of the item to get visitors excited.

With social media, pictures and a few words go a long way toward getting people excited about your water park and the attractions it has to offer.

6. Optimize Your Website With SEO

Using social media should not be your only solution for sharing information about your water park with your guests. Your website can offer more features, such as newsletter signups and ticket purchases.

If you are not getting expected visitor numbers to your website, you may not have your site appearing high on the list of search results. When people cannot find your water park online, they won’t be able to sign up for your email newsletter, buy tickets or get more information about your park. The solution to improving your website’s ranking in search results is with search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is a content-driven means of using various keywords and phrases to connect your website to the most commonly searched terms related to water parks in your area. Because SEO rules change regularly, you should consult with a professional service to evaluate and update your website to improve its rankings.

7. Make Your Website Conversion-Friendly

Conversions happen when someone visits your website and completes an intended task. For your water park, conversions may include people signing up for newsletters or buying park tickets. When on your site, visitors will need to know what to do next to get more information. Instruct them through effective calls to action in your web content.

To get more conversions, you also want to create a website that is easy to navigate for users on all devices — mobile and desktop. You should make it easy for site visitors to quickly find where to purchase tickets, find park information or sign up for an email newsletter.

8. Take Advantage of Seasonal Promotions

Unless your water park operates inside, you will likely have a seasonal operating schedule. Use the times that you operate to create seasonal promotions. For instance, you may offer deep discounts for season passes or one-day tickets to give as gifts at Christmas, even though that is outside the typical operating season for outdoor water parks.

If schools in your area return to class for the fall semester on different days, you may take advantage of getting more crowds into your water park with back-to-school specials that families with kids who have not yet gone back to school or those out of school can take advantage of for cheaper rates and smaller crowds. You benefit by having people in your park at times of the year when attendance begins to lag.

Correlate your seasonal promotions with slower times of the year to keep your water park profitable throughout the entire season and keep potential visitors’ interest in your water park from opening day until the season’s close.

9. Partner With Influencers

Influencers online can help you with marketing your water park, as long as they have an interest and viewer base that will appreciate the connection. Find influencers who have similar aims as your water park. For example, you may seek out an influencer who offers tours or reviews of attractions for families to show your family-friendly side. Thrill seekers may react more if you work with a thrill ride reviewer to promote your water park’s most exciting features.

Influencers produce genuine content for your park without the filter of your marketing department. Visitors may trust another person’s opinion of your park more than what you say about it. As long as your park is enjoyable and offers the types of experiences the influencers you partner with love, you can enjoy an additional method of positive marketing for your park.

10. Use Digital Ads

Digital ads can target users based on their previous searches or if they have interacted with your website. These ads often appear in the sidebars of a window on social media sites or search engines. Because these ads are off to the side, you need to use your best visuals in them.

Choose visuals from your social media or website that generate the most interest. Use these for digital ads that can be generalized or targeted. For instance, on social media, you can set up ads that will target specific groups you want to connect with. You may pair a visual of your newest, most heart-pounding water slide with ads targeted to younger thrill seekers. Visuals that show family-friendly, colorful kids’ play areas go well with targeted ads for parents.

Your digital ads are methods to reach out to people online. Put your best face forward by using eye-catching visuals on all your digital marketing pieces.

11. Encourage User-Generated Content

Interact with your water park guests by encouraging them to produce user-generated content and post it to your website or social media. Use signage around your water park with your hashtag to ensure that visitors know how to get their content recognized.

User-generated content can be very persuasive because it shows real experiences of your water park. Potential visitors to your park want to find out what a visit to your park is really like. They crave insider details from those who have had trips to your water park. User-generated content gives them that data they crave.

Encourage visitors to take selfies at picturesque spots around your water park to show off the beauty and attractions your park has to offer. Always promote safety first and do not allow visitors to use cameras while on water rides, not even waterproof equipment.

12. Use Email Marketing

Email marketing provides guests a way to get insider information on your water park’s upcoming events, new rides, deals and much more. The content of these emails should target the recipients’ interests by having different marketing messages for people to choose to receive.

Make the emails interesting to read and encourage readers to click through to your website for special deals, promo codes to buy tickets or to be the first to see new rides or park sections. By making emails the best way to get information first about your water park, you can encourage more people to sign up for your email marketing newsletters.

13. Encourage Events and Parties

Make your water park a premium destination for people to host birthday parties, family reunions or company picnics. To ensure that people will have a good time with their groups at your water park, have catering options available, party space for large groups in a semi-private area and offer them the chance for everyone in the groups to have a great time.

When people bring friends, family or coworkers to your water park, you get the chance to impress a new audience with your amenities and attractions. If the partygoers had a good time, you may find new future guests. Consider offering discount coupons for a future visit to those who come as part of a party or provide other incentives to encourage them to return.

Regular events and parties at your water park can increase interest as partygoers share their experiences on social media. You may even have the chance to create a separate section of your marketing efforts toward promoting your park for group activities, which may provide you with a new stream of revenue.

14. Create a New Ride or Section of the Park

One way to reignite local interest in your water park is by bringing something new to your site. You may want to add a new water ride to bring in those looking for a thrill. Water slides that offer a ride down twisting and turning chutes on a tube or those that require no innertubes to enjoy, tower above your water park and create interest by dominating the view of your park. However, if you don’t have the space or budget for this type of immense structure, you can still draw new crowds to your park by building a new section.

If you don’t already have a dedicated area for kids, consider adding a new kids’ splash area. At this site, younger water park goers can interact with others their age in a shallow pool or splash pad with water sprayers, small slides, climbers or sculpted floatables.

Whether you choose to add a new ride or park section, don’t forget to advertise it on your website, through email newsletters, on social media and via digital ads. Getting the word out about your new attraction will let people know that they have a new reason to visit your water park.

15. Upgrade Your Water Park With Soft Play® Today

Of all the ways to promote a water park, the most effective one is having a place that people enjoy and want to return to. Connect with a Soft Play representative to request a quote for water play options that draw crowds or to get additional water theme park tips. Our experts at Soft Play can help you to create a great water attraction.

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