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Since we are a new haunt I was wondering of anyone would like to share what their advertising/promotion budget is for a given year, and what they thought gave then the most return for their money?
Thanks
Thanks
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http://darkscares.com/
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A lot depends on your market. Is it a big market? Do you have lots of competition? Do those haunts have a big marketing budget? All these are starting factors when determining what your budget must be. I've heard figueres as much as $3 a guest....Give some more info on your situation.
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Flyers, Flyers, Flyers, and more Flyers. I don't think it matters what market your in your always going to get a good return with a flyer thats has a nice discount on it. Build your ticket price so that your discount doesn't hurt you, but people felling like there getting something goes along way. Try to make friends with all your local businesses so that they will put your flyers in there store, maybe throw them 2 tickets for doing it, it could really help. Also discounts on your website Military, Police, Fire ,EMT and students also really good to have. People will search for haunts near them and you will pop up and if they like what they see they will come. I'm not saying don't do radio and things like that but be very care not to over spend. Sometimes the old standby's work the best, have a good foundation.
RobertComment
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Robert,
I have heard many times that flyers are a waste of money, so few actually come back... Does anyone else think flers are the way to go or do you find them ineffective? I thought I once read like 3-5% actually ome back? That's very low...
DAComment
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Well?
A haunter who was open year-round in a city known for tourism once told me that one year the discount coupon flyers would be very efective, then the next year almost nothing??
If you like riding on a roller-caster...welcome to the halloween business.
The Chicago Tribune ancient article would see the light of day, coming from a wallet or purse.."Here's where we found out about your place."
All flat as the pancake, mashed down after riding in there for YEARS! True!
I used to have a short poem/ad in the Chicago Reader newspaper which usually gets read something like 4 times by 4 different people before it gets thrown away.
What makes your place worth seeing versus somebody elses' halloween efforts?
Find that "something" make that "Something" go with it! Attract attention from tv & radio and yes even newspapers who always need something to ink in their blanks with, be ready for them, write your own press release and make it good enough that they only put their name on it and print it "verbatum!" Can't beat this.
Saw framed articles in all of the most famous and popular car magazines, articles telling how fantastic this guy's Mustang rebuilding business was(He got into it early)
He wrote them all!
You could not buy ad space on the front page of a newspaper, but they might put your message there if it's different and entertaining enough. (Happens all the time)
Be creative and reap the reward of not having to spend too much on advertising.Comment
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Hi Dark Scares,
Advertising really depends on what your willing to spend and what goals you have in mind? Radio spots, Billboards, Banner Ad's here on Hauntworld and various other sites, Newspaper Ad's etc..would all be great it just depends on what dollar amount you want to put out.
Last year was Grimlock Manors first year open to the public. We started small. Our overall budget was limited so we had to think of the best and most affordable ways to reach the public and tell them about our show. We wanted to try and do a lot of promotional events leading up to our opening, events that we knew there would be a lot of people already at.
We did make a ton of flyers and had over 1,000 posters designed and printed. We promoted at our local malls and movie theaters with a few of our characters all dressed up handing out our flyers. We obtained spots in various street fairs in and around our surrounding counties and set up a booth that displayed a small scene from our show with our characters and we posted our posters and flyers up at surrounding colleges, local store fronts etc. I'd also advise contacting your local papers and sending a press release to them, you will find that a lot of local papers are always looking to do write ups about the goings on in your town around the holidays and usually it won't cost you a thing (we had 4 write ups in various local papers which helped increased our web traffic, we also found that at least 95% of our guests read the news articles, went to our site and downloaded our $2 off coupon.)
Bottom line..there is a lot you can do on a limited budget. We didn't expect 20-30 thousand people to come and that wasn't anywhere close to the goals we had in mind as a first year charity haunt but if it is yours then you will surely need a large dedicated budget.
Jay.
AKA Frightguy1
http://www.grimlockmanor.com/Comment
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Hey Dark,
All I can say is that i've been doing haunt for 17 years and we have had very good luck with flyers. I would say our return is about 40 to 50% easy , thats between flyers we hand out , ones our actors hand out and online flyers. Like I said before we price our haunt so that we can put out a nice discount flyer and people real hunt them down and bring them back. It still really depends on your market, but I would say always be careful with doing radio , i'm just not a fan
RobertComment
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