Are you ready to offer a new experience to your customers? While the excitement of developing a new activity can be enticing, taking a strategic approach to growing your business is key. Similar to the early days of starting your own business, launching a new activity requires a good amount of prep work and planning. 

To make sure your hard work pays off, it’s important to think through how your new experience will be received and make sure you have the resources to support this new offering. 

Have you mapped out the tour route? Are you equipped to offer food and drink options to your customers on extended day trips? Follow along for some important questions to ask yourself before adding another activity to your business model.

1. Is there enough interest in your area and industry?

While you may think that a tour of your local nature preserve will bring in lots of customers, the public may not necessarily agree. As a local, you know your city and its people well. Pay attention to the interests and trends of your area as well as in your broader tourist industry. 

Examine your current activities and notice which ones are consistently selling out and which ones you have a hard time booking. The most important part of this step is listening to your customers. Whether it’s through a survey or conversation, ask them about their experience and if they have any ideas for improvements and/or additions.

Pro Tip: Run a report on bookings by item to see which activities are the most popular with your customers. Is your proposed new activity in line with your most popular items? Are there elements of your most popular tours you can repeat in this new activity?

Oftentimes, the best ideas come from your customers. While it’s good to be creative and take risks, making sure your idea is on base with your target audience is crucial. Taking into account other similar offerings in your area will also help you determine if there will be a crowd waiting for you. 

You don’t want to go through the work of developing your activity and marketing it only to garner little to no interest when it’s launched. Taking an educated guess based on customer feedback and market research more often leads to success. 

2. Does your projected revenue exceed your expenses?

What every small business owner learns right away is that it takes money to make money. You’ve made sacrifices to make your business what it is today. When you’re planning out your new offering, consider what investments you’ll need to make to bring your idea to life. 

Does your activity require additional equipment than what you currently have in your inventory? Does your current team have the capacity to run this activity or will you need additional staff? 

Remember, even if your new activity involves puppies and ice cream, it may not start making money overnight. Popularity will most likely grow over time. While you’re gaining momentum, it’s important to be realistic about how much you can invest in start-up costs. 

If your new activity is similar to your other offerings and has been requested by multiple customers in the past, the start-up period will most likely be shorter. If you are trying out an activity that varies greatly from your current line-up, it might take awhile to catch on. 

Consider the current state of the economy, tourism trends, if there’s a labor shortage, and other factors that might make for a slow start. Go back to the books before launching your newest activity to make sure you have what it takes to support its growth, development, and promotion. 

3. Have you updated your online offerings?

You’ve done your market research and now it’s time to share your idea with the world! Utilizing your FareHarbor Dashboard is the first step to letting your customers know about your new activity. Make sure to create a new item describing your activity for customers and then add it to your booking flow. 

You’ll also want to create a separate activity page for the new offering with as many details as possible laid out in short paragraphs and bullet points to make sure customers can easily digest the new info. For more tips on writing your new activity description, refer to this article. 

4. How are you promoting your new activity?

Even the coolest activity will struggle to gain a crowd if you don’t do your part to get the word out. The first place to advertise is on your own website. Make sure the new activity is in a prime location for site viewers and consider adding a banner to the top of your site’s homepage calling out the new offering. Utilize your existing marketing channels, such as social media and your email newsletter to update your current customer base. 

Good, old-fashioned word of mouth is also a great way to build excitement for your new experience. Encourage your team to post to their personal social media accounts about it and share it with their family and friends. Especially as you’re ramping up, sharing details of the new activity on all possible channels is very important. 

Once you get the word out, it’s time for your new idea to take flight! Don’t neglect the prep work and your new activity will be set up for success. For more industry insights, check out our business management guides. We’re rooting for you!