How Laura Pieterman digitised her escape rooms during the pandemic and managed to increase revenue with the help of Google.
Laura Pieterman and her father shared the same passion for escape rooms, which led to them deciding to work together in 2018 and opening their very own escape rooms in the northern region of The Netherlands. Laura has always been the creative brain behind the rooms; drawing and mapping out their every detail. Her father, on the other hand, has long been a great support and mentor for her behind the scenes. The rooms were well attended from the offset, with many Dutch and Belgian customers visiting Assen to enjoy the range of activities on offer.
However, when the pandemic started, Assen Escape Rooms was forced to close its doors, which was a huge disappointment and a difficult time for the owners as they were unable to generate any revenue over an extended period. Despite this, Laura remained positive and used her creative skills to quickly resolve the issue. Laura came up with the idea to bring the escape rooms to people by completely digitising them. Together with her team, she then captured all the rooms using a 360 degree camera and added interactive elements to make it a real virtual experience.
By attending Google's Digital Workshop webinars, Laura learned best practises and gained insights on how she could effectively digitise her business and reach more customers online. She started by setting up a Google My Business (GMB) account and attended several workshops that enabled her to extend her reach by improving her online social media strategy. Laura recalls, “During one of the coaching sessions I learned something fundamental: 'to measure is to know'. By learning more about measurement, I gained a lot of new insights via Google Analytics. My website is now completely SEO-proof and I have a content calendar for my social media.”
According to Laura, the company’s revenue is now recovering and starting to increase again day by day. Thanks to the Google Digital Workshop webinars, the reach on her social media channel increased by +72%, while engagement has increased by +279%. In the coming months, Laura and her father hope to welcome guests again into their physical escape rooms, but for now an important focus will remain to be their new virtual concept.