Part 1 - Defining Your Target Market

If you are new to running a paintball field, this article should save you time and money when booking your paintball groups.  As I have said in other field owner articles, the first and most important decision you have to make as a business owner is to decide what kind of business it is that you want to run.   This affects how you book games, so stay with me on this for a minute.   There are MANY different types of paintball fields out there.   You have those that are run on the back lot of someone's home property, all the way up to large recreational paintball centers that are built on off-season ski centers.   Just as there are many types of paintball facilities, there are just as many types of paintball field owners.    A paintball field owner can be a kid starting his first business, a family creating a spare income, an entrepreneur that runs the field only on the weekends for a quick cash business, a "just for fun" field owner that is not concerned with profits because paintball is a hobby, a full-time field owner that is active in his community, etc.    You get the idea.

If you are one of the "I am not really interested in a profit because I do this for fun", then I highly encourage you to reconsider how you spend your time.  Nobody starts a business and isn't interested in making a profit.   Sometimes it takes time to be profitable with a new business, but you need to get serious about NOT JUST HOW MANY groups and players you bring to your field, but also the QUALITY of the players and groups that come to your field.  Only then will you really have a shot at profitability.

Technology Changed Private Games
There was a time when tournament paintball and recreational paintball were not that distinguishable.   10 years ago, there were 15-man tournaments that used Nelspot paintball guns that only held 10 ball tubes and were not semi-auto.  An entire tournament team could share ONE CASE of paint for all 15 players.   At that time, paintballs cost upwards of 25 cents each and had vinyl shells.   Tournament play and recreational play were very similar.    Auto-triggers and constant-air CO2 came out shortly after that, and when that happened, paintball became split into two distinct categories.  Recreational paintball and tournament paintball.  

Keep Private Groups Separate From Walk-Ons
If you have read my previous articles then you already know how I feel about walk-on players.  I think it is great to offer walk-on players a place to play, I think that is healthy for the sport and a nice thing to do.   But will it make you profitable?  No.  At some point you need to either eliminate walk-on play or heavily segregate it and separate it from walk-on players.

It is IMPERATIVE that you distinguish your patrons into these two categories to be successful.  Today, there are still field owners that choose not to separate their private groups from their walk-on players.   The hard truth is that these are the field owners that are destined to go out of business.   Why?  For plenty of reasons.

• Walk-on players are not reliable.
• Walk-on players are fair weather players.
• Walk-on players know what you pay for your paint.
• Some walk-on players make refereeing more difficult.
• Walk-on players shoot higher-paying newbie customers.

Not all walk-on players are bad.  Some make great referees.   For that reason it is good to have one Sunday a month that is a designated walk-on day.   Other than that, avoid walk-on players.   I have taken a lot of heat for saying this in the past, but it is not personal, this is business.  And the only people that have made it a religious cause to disagree with me on this are walk-on players themselves.  Perhaps I will write an article giving walk-on tips at some point, but this article is meant for field owners. :)

To be a successful paintball field owner you have to THINK like a group leader and a newbie player

Today I own an Internet business after selling my paintball field for a nice profit and moving on to bigger things.   But there are many lessons that I learned in marketing my paintball field that hold true in ALL businesses.  One is that you MUST KNOW WHO YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER IS TO BE ABLE TO MEET THEIR NEEDS.   It amazes me when I sit down with a business owner today to plan a $20,000 web site for their large business, only to discover that it is the first time that they have really sat and dug deep into the psychology of what their customers think of them, and how they are perceived in the marketplace.  It truly is facinating and makes me enjoy my job because I am helping them, but after walking businesses through this process dozens of times, I see some trends.   An interesting one is that the most successful business owners are the ones that have an intimate understanding of who their target customer is, and they passionately target and serve that market the way that they want to be served.  The "golden rule" is deadly to a business owner.  You should not treat your customers as you would like to be treated.   You should treat them as THEY would like to be treated.  This is called the "platinum rule".  But I digress......

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do newbies REALLY CARE what an Automag is?
• Do newbies really care what the cost per ball is?
• Do they really care what a Viewloader is?
• Do newbies really only want the cheapest paintball field they can find?

Your answer should be NO to all of these questions.  And you may think I don't know what I'm talking about when I say that newbies do not care about the price per ball, but it is true.  YOU and other field owners are guilty for focusing on the cost of paint, not newbies.  Sure paint cost is important, but it does not have to be the main selling point of your field.   I would NEVER publish paint prices in your advertising literature.  When a new group calls your field for rates, do they ask about the price per ball?  Of course they do.    But remember what I said in a previous article YOU ARE RUNNING AN AMUSEMENT PARK NOT A PAINTBALL FIELD.   Do you call Six Flags and ask them how much sodas and food costs before you go?  Of course not.    Paintball is a little bit different because you pay as you go, instead of paying one flat rate for a day of fun.   But the point is that group leaders are generally satisfied with a ball-park figure to tell their group.

Marketing to Newbies

Newbies Are Coming Out To "Play War"
Don't kid yourself.  The harsh fact is that newbies LOVE the woods.  They EXPECT the woods when they come out.   The LOVE TO HIDE and play "sniper" and try to hit people with one shot.   There is only one problem with this scenario.   If everyone played "sniper", how much money would you make?  Not much.   This has ALWAYS been the tough trade-off that profitable field owners are faced with.   How to give newbies the remote "play war" experience that they want (and they do), while at the same time making sure that they consume enough paint to make a profit.   

There are three ways to do this which I outlined in a previous article:

1. Run games quickly without much down time by training your staff and keeping fields close to the staging area.
2. Charge enough for your player packages and paint so that your profit is not tied to player paint refills.  Players NEVER bring enough money to buy a lot of extra paint.
3. Build your fields so that it takes a lot of paint to get people out, and put the groups on the smallest field first so that they will be more aggressive on the larger fields.

Do Newbies Hate Speedball?
At first, yes. Nothing terrifies a newbie more than a little 100'x40' netted arena when they have never played the game before in their life.  This is changing as tournament paintball is moving towards being more of an "arena ball" and the public is being exposed to it.   And while I think it is great to offer speedball to newbie groups, it should be done as a sideline activity or an end-of-the-day paint waster when there are not enough people left that still have paint and want to play. 

The Cost of Paint
You can work this into your package deals, but I would tend to stay away from rental packages that do not include more than 500 balls.   It is just not good business.   You have to figure that the average player is going to shoot at least 300-800 balls per day.  To offer a rental package with 100 balls or no balls at all draws attention to the cost of paint.

I know I am all over the place here, but I am trying to get you thinking like a businessperson, not a field owner.    When you go to McDonalds for a hamburger, what do you think is the most profitable thing they sell.  DRINKS.   Soft drinks cost pennies to make, and yet they charge a buck for a drink.    They make a lot more on sodas than anything else they sell.  The point is, have you ever seen a McDonalds commercial where they said "we have the lowest drink price in town"?.  No.   They market value meals and burgers down from time to time, but the money is in the drinks.  So why would you price your paint sales for walk-on players?  That is a ridiculous thing to do since your profit is tied to paint sales.

In this section I have explained in a roundabout way why newbie groups ARE your target market, because they are the most profitable segment of the paintball industry.   Not because they are not educated in the wholesale costs of paintballs, but because they are coming to your field FOR AN EXPERIENCE.   That is what they are paying for.   The sooner you acknowledge this and make the experience more memorable for them, the more success you will have in getting repeat business from corporate groups.

Part 2 - Dealing with the Group Leader