In This Issue

…in our 58th year!
2011 RSA Convention
and Trade Show........11
In This Issue
Meet, greet, plan, purchase, eat, golf, and be
entertained at this year’s
Roller Skating Association International’s Annual
Convention and Trade
Show in conjunction with
the International Laser Tag
Association, taking place
in Orlando, Fla., May 1-4.
Give it away!…............9
An Arizona rink shares
why offering free lessons
can actually help you to
come out ahead.
Get serious about
games........................21
Product sales expert and
manager of Family Fun
Companies shares his
“secret potion” for turning
your redemption area into
a serious profit center.
Museum named 'Fun
and Unusual'...............4
PRSRT. STD.
U.S. Postage
Paid
Pontiac, IL
Permit No. 592
Livability.com
ranked
the National Museum of
Roller Skating the number one 'Fun and Unusual'
museum in the country.
Three rinks create lifelong skaters
through partnerships, promotions
By Dionne Obeso
B
ringing in new skaters is vital to the
health of any rink, but it may be that the
true measure of a rink’s success is measured not in the number of new skaters you bring
through the door, but by how many of them come
back for years to come.
Skating is an activity for all ages, from
young children who can barely stand in their
skates unaided to the elderly who glide around
the floor on eight wheels and a walker. It is a
great way for kids to get out energy and have fun,
and for young people to explore their body’s limits as well as their own creativity or competitive
spirit. It allows adults to have fun, get exercise,
and relax, and even provides a healthy outlet for
elderly to stay active.
So does the ideal rink focus on introducing
new people to skating, or does it focus on creating skaters for life? For Victor Tran of Sports
World in Edmunton, Canada, the best way to
keep people coming back is to keep them moving
in fun and exciting ways. At Sports World, that
means dance.
Many of the staff members, including Tran
and sometimes-trainer and Jam skater Devon
Hewitt, have a dance background, and they use
that background to keep the interest of plenty
of skaters. Sports World offers drop-in lessons
before their skate sessions, teaching the basics
to beginner skaters and offering dance moves on
wheels to anyone who is interested in spicing up
their skating.
According to Chris St. Germain-Frank of
Cal Skate Milpitas in Milpitas, Calif., Tran is
right on the mark. “One of the ways that we turn
kids into lifelong skaters is through developing
their skills so that they’re good skaters; people
who are good at something are more likely to
want to do that thing. When kids learn things and
feel accomplished, they want to show off their
new skills.” St. Germain-Frank makes sure to
offer plenty of classes to keep her skaters improving and their interest fresh.
St. Germain-Frank offered a special deal
this holiday, giving away six free lessons to
their beginner, adult, or inline skating classes to
anyone who purchased a complete skate package
at Cal Skate’s pro shop. They also offer “Skater
Value Cards,” which are gift cards good only at
Cal Skate Milpitas, and which were given away
with some of the other skate packages. “By giving people the opportunity to come skate, we
hope to create the habit in them,” St. GermainFrank said. A habit that, hopefully, has them
continued on page 34
RINKSIDER writer Dionne Obeso’s threeyear-old son Michael tries roller skating for
the first time and loves it. (See accompanying story on page 23.)
Use online tactics to promote your
novelties and redemption games
By Joe Dysart
O
ne of the easiest ways to get the
most from marketing your novelties and redemption games online
is to ensure your Web site’s videos, page
download speed and customer interactivity
are properly tweaked.
For example, posting a few videos
promoting your novelties and redemption
games is a good start. But you’ll get even
more bang-for-your-buck if you make sure
those videos are keyworded properly to
ensure they get high returns on search
engines like Google.
Flashy effects and gorgeous pictures
are also effective. But unless you use these
Web site elements judiciously, your Web
site could quickly become so slow-loading,
customers and potential customers may
simply click away in frustration.
Finally, you also may have one of
Rinksider_MAR_APR_11.indd 1
March-April 2011
the most easy-to-navigate Web sites in the in plain English, and specifically describes
industry. But if it’s not infused with social the video your posting.
networking and social interaction functions,
continued on page 34
all that user-friendliness
could go unnoticed. Put
Even redemption centers that WOW customers
another way: every Web
in-rink, like this one at Skate Daze in Omaha,
site really should have
Neb., can increase traffic through online promosome sort of Facebooktion via your rink’s website.
like functionality these
days.
Towards that end,
here are the specifics on
how to pull off all of the
above:
1) Ensure your
Web videos are searchengine-optimized: Once
you’ve shot a few Web
videos promoting your
novelties and redemption
areas, make sure the title
you give each video is
2/21/11 8:57:51 PM
34
Lifelong skaters (cont'd from page 1)
reaching for their skates the next time they
think about going out for a good time.
Steve Miller of Skate City in Rice Lake,
Wisc., agrees. “I have found that at any age,
when a person learns a new skill on skates,
there is a great sense of accomplishment. This
sense of accomplishment helps to make a
‘skater for life’ whether they are young or old,”
he said. But while Miller thinks that creating
skaters for life doesn’t necessarily have a formula that can be easily followed, he believes
in a few basics that will make it more likely.
The most important of these is to keep
the focus on skating. While other activities
can be fun, if you want to create skaters, you
have to keep people on the rink floor, and
that means minimizing distractions. Miller
believes in great music, fun lighting, and
well-maintained skates and skate floors.
He also believes in partnering with
other local businesses as a way to become
part of the community – and a way to promote business through an established and
trusted source. Skate City is only open in the
colder months, and partners with a local drive
in that is only open during the summer. “The
benefits of friendships/partnerships with
other businesses include practical help for
one another in things like trading advertising
space or helping one another with projects/
RINKSIDER
Independent Voice of the Industry
facility maintenance, and more intangible
benefits such as idea sharing and encouragement through the busy seasons," he said.
One thing that all three rinks agree on
is keeping the music fresh, fun, and up to
date. Tran, with his dance background and
focus, is highly aware of the need for fresh
and exciting music. Miller likes a family
friendly blend of classic and modern music
for his rink, and starts each skate off with
March-April 2011
"We have a lot of theme nights like
retro night, family nights, and teen night,
and we like to keep the music format specific for each session, so there may be a
couple of overlapping songs, but the music is
mostly different for each theme. The different formats offer variety for people." To that
end, St. Germain-Frank also subscribes to a
music service, which keeps their selection
completely fresh and up to date - something
that is especially important when you are
skating teens.
Another event that St. Germain-Frank
feels is very important is their weekly adult
night. The adult night has been a longstanding tradition at Cal Skate Milpitas, and for
some skaters it is a rite of passage - of sorts
- when they are finally old enough to skate
adult night. The adults consider it their sanctuary, and sacred, and while skating with kids
is fun, there is something very special about a
time that is dedicated just to the grown-ups.
Tran also works to keep the adults interested, and offers an evening called Electro
Night, which while it is not adult only, does
tend to bring in the adult crown. For Skate
City, Miller now offers a family night where
adults skate free with paid kid admissions,
bringing more families into the rink. He has
found that this focus also brings in more
adults, who are more interested in skating
when there are more people their own age on
the floor, even sprinkled in with the children.
Miller shared a great example of one
family at his rink who are “skaters for life.”
“The mom and son came out for our
New Year’s Eve party and had a great time.
They bought a month-long membership so
that the mom could exercise and the son
could have fun. The grandfather started coming (and bought skates), so that he could
spend time with his daughter and grandson.
So everyone has their own reasons for skating, but the result is three generations building memories together.”
And, of course, rink owners are not
exempt from loving skating. Not by a long
shot! St. Germain-Frank has been skating
since she was “probably four years old,” and
started to come with her parents, who were
both skaters. “In fact,” said St. Germain-Frank,
“I would guess that one of their first dates was
probably at a roller skating rink. I guess you
could say that it’s kind of in our blood.”
Attracting new skaters is great, but
keeping them coming back over and over is
important, whether you use a family friendly
environment, up-to-the-minute music, great
lessons, partnerships and promotions, or your
own unique twist.
age number of objects has doubled,” effects often slow the download of a
says Andrew B. King, author of “Web- Web site. Be honest with yourself: If
site Optimization” (www.websiteopti- those effects exist for purely gratuitous
mization.com/secrets/).
reasons, or you can get rid of the effects
“All of this largess has led to without any appreciable downside, lose
inevitable slowdowns in display speeds. the Flash and Java immediately.
Some argue that with bandwidth inexoFor additional tips on optimizrably increasing, slow response times ing your site for speed, as well as
have become less of
other optimization
an issue than in our
techniques, check out
dial-up past. The data
King’s book and his
show otherwise.”
site, Web Site OptiThe best way to
mization, LLC (www.
counteract slow-aswebsiteoptimization.
molasses downloads
com.
is to eschew anything
3) Start a review
on your Web page that
community
on
can gum up the transyour site: A recent
mission.
study from Opinion
S p e c i f i c a l l y,
Research has found
King advises rinks
that the influence
to use skinny, .JPG
of online product
images on their Web
reviews has reached a
sites -- rather than Brett Hurt, CEO & Founder, tipping point. SpecifiBazaarVoice
the relatively bloated
cally, the study found
formats of .GIF and
an eye-opening 83%
similar images -- wherever possible.
of all respondents said online evaluaYou’ll also want to ask your Web tions and online reviews are now infludesigner to remove as much white space encing their purchasing decisions. as possible between the HTML or other
You can cash in on this trend by
code that is used to program your site. starting an online review community on
(You can get a look at how much white your Web site, which can be focused on
space is slowing down any page on your your novelties and redemption games.
site by visiting the page with Internet
Granted, the reviews will work
Explorer, then clicking “View,” and best if you happen to sell those novelthen “Source.”
ties online, since consumers are already
If you see a lot of white blanks well-accustomed to reviewing the prodand white spaces between the coding ucts they buy on other Web sites like
revealed, your page is being slowed Amazon.com, Walmart.com and the
unnecessarily.)
like.
King also advises rink owners to
But even if you only sell your novgo easy on fancy effects like Adobe elties in-house, simply posting pictures
Flash and Java applications, since such of those novelties online along with an
invitation requesting reviews from your
customers could jump-start your online
review community.
Fortunately, there are a number
of service providers who offer turnkey online review communities that
you can ‘bolt-on’ to your Web site,
including Genuosity (www.kudosworks.com)
and
BazaarVoice
(www.bazaarvoice.com.)
“Over the past five years, the
social web has shifted power into the
hands of consumers – and completely
transformed the way that companies
do business in the process,” Brett Hurt,
founder and CEO of BazaarVoice, says
of the review communities medium.
4) Offer RSS, an alternative to
email newsletters: A small but growing group of Web users now prefer
to receive updates about products and
services via RSS, or Really Simple
Syndication.
Users like RSS, since they’re able
to sign up for updates and promotions
from the Web sites they frequent without parting with their email addresses
-- and making themselves even more
vulnerable to spammers.
Fortunately, you don’t need to
understand the technical underpinnings
of RSS to use it. Adding RSS-capability
is as simple as visiting the free service,
Ice Rocket RSS (rss.icerocket.com.)
By following a few simple points
and clicks, you’ll be able to code any
Web page on your site for RSS transmission in just a few minutes. Afterwards, that page will automatically send
an alert to RSS subscribers any time
you do an update to that page -- including notices of sales, posts of new products and the like.
Mom, Dad and daughter enjoy a family
skate session at Cal-Skate Milpitas.
the National Anthem. (His partners at the
drive in also start each of their shows with a
rendition of the Anthem.) And St. GermainFrank offers a huge range of music tailored
to the specific skaters they are targeting at
any given time.
Right mix (cont'd from page 1)
Entitling a video “Portland Skating
Rink’s Redemption Games,” for example, will give your video much better
play on Google than simply naming your
production “00000_77_23235543.”
For even better results, you’ll also
want to embed keywords associated
with your videos on the Web pages
where those videos will appear.
Making such pages keyword
friendly is part art form, and part analysis. Generally, business initially try to
guess which keywords people will use
to find a promotional video, or visitor
competitor sites to see what keywords
other businesses are using to bring in
the same kind of Web traffic.
Once you’ve established a baseline
of keywords and key-phrases, you’ll
want to fine-tune your selection by
using the free Google Analytics (www.
google.com/analytics.)
By adding a strip of code to each
of your Web pages, Google Analytics
will enable you to see where your Web
traffic is coming from, and pinpoint
what keywords or key-phrases those
people are using to get to your videos.
Based on that information, you’ll
probably find yourself re-ordering the
placement of your keywords, and also
using new keywords and phrases based
on what are most popularly used by the
people who have already downloaded
your Web videos.
2) Optimize your novelties/
redemption games pages for speed:
Sadly, the easiest way to quash Web
cruiser interest in your novelties and
redemption games is to serve up a site
that takes forever to download.
“The size of the average web page
has tripled in five years, while the aver-
Rinksider_MAR_APR_11.indd 34
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