North East tech firms helps Jimmy's farm & Wildlife Park go mobile and digital

Popular, nationally recognised visitor attractions like Jimmy’s Farm & Wildlife Park are turning to A North East mobile app technology company to transform their digital visitor experience. Most leading visitor attractions recognise they cannot stand still and must constantly develop and innovate to maintain and enhance customer interest and the overall experience.

The Suffolk-based attraction, owned by farmer and TV presenter Jimmy Doherty, was keen to enhance the visitor experience. Recognised as one of South East England’s leading attractions, Jimmy’s Farm & Wildlife Park is celebrating its 21st anniversary.

Following a short initial consultation last summer, n-gage.io, based in County Durham, was engaged to develop and implement a digital strategy to enhance the visitor experience and gain valuable insights into audience behaviour.

Led by entrepreneur Bryan Hoare and incubated by County Durham’s GCV Labs – n-gage.io aims to transform audience experiences through a customisable, data insight driven SaaS platform with an integrated mobile-web application. Within a couple of months n-gage.io helped launch the highly customisable n-gage.io platform and mobile visitor app to help transform the park’s approach to digital visitor engagement.

With more than 4,000 app downloads during the first few weeks of launch, the attraction is now benefitting from new ways to engage its audience both on and off site, while better understanding how people spend their time during a visit.

Incorporating low energy bluetooth beacons on-site, that communicate directly with the app and platform, has meant the attraction is now able to gain valuable insights data into visitor dwell time and other useful metrics. It also provides a more engaging and immersive experience, with triggered in-app content and notifications.

Stevie added: “The fact that we can now manage our visitor’s interactive digital experience day to day, means we’ve been able to be far more personalised in our approach, based on the data the platform and app is generating.

“It’s really important for us to ensure that when we introduce visitor technology it doesn’t detract from the physical enjoyment of being with us, but enhances the overall experience, and with the new platform and app we feel we’re getting that balance just right.”

This digital approach and the site’s drive for sustainability has also helped to reduce the need for as much signage and be less reliant on things like paper maps and other printed information.

“We’re also seeing a benefit from a marketing perspective, with the ability to issue offers and special discounts in the form of in-app digital vouchers, not just for our attraction, but as we partner with other attractions in the area, for them too,” said Stevie.

The software app is also helping the team with education and spreading the conservation message. “With most of the younger generation being mobile first, what better way of helping reinforce our messaging than through the digital medium they use the most,” said Stevie.“

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily