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They certainly can take a giant share for delivering nothing but an email offer in exchange. You're right to point out that it all depends on the size of your haunt but also your market. Major metropolitan areas have an endless supply of customers if you can reach them, but the smaller towns do not. Advertising is always key, but there are plenty of ways to waste your advertising dollar as well. The vast majority of radio stations are the wrong demographic, as are most adult newspapers and even most TV. We're looking for the 15- 28 market. They are not going to be listening to NPR, talk radio, or (for the most part) Country radio. Nor will they be watching Lifetime or many of the cable stations. College newspaper, yes, local political paper, not so much. Internet is the best bang for the buck for this crowd (but that doesn't exclude the others.) If you've been around a while and you're good, your reputation is your cheapest and best ally. (We have a 50% to 75% return rate, so it's critical to us.)
A good on-line video can be both cheap and effective. Good yard signs, flyers (in the right place), and compelling posters. It may be low tech, but if it brings in more than it costs, it's profitable. Again, in a major city, giant advertising budgets are the life blood of the haunt, but they tried that here and spent as much as they made (which was a lot) but the haunt wasn't substantial enough to bring the same folks back again and again, and without the endless supply of young adults who had never been before, it went under in two years. We've had much better luck focusing on making it bigger, better, and keeping expenses under control. Fortunately, our reputation has increased the numbers each year (this is our 13th year) and it's working for us. But that's never reason enough to not be aggressive about marketing.
We're passing on the Groupon/ Living Social because they take too much of a cut (plus it crowds out the line with folks not even paying half price) but I can see situations that would make their offer more attractive (like VIP tickets). Still, it's interesting to see what others have to say on the matter as well. This is a diverse lot of readers and contributors, and they provide some great feedback. So anyone who has had experience in this regard or thoughts about it, please share it. Learning from other's mistakes or good calls is what these forums are all about.
A good on-line video can be both cheap and effective. Good yard signs, flyers (in the right place), and compelling posters. It may be low tech, but if it brings in more than it costs, it's profitable. Again, in a major city, giant advertising budgets are the life blood of the haunt, but they tried that here and spent as much as they made (which was a lot) but the haunt wasn't substantial enough to bring the same folks back again and again, and without the endless supply of young adults who had never been before, it went under in two years. We've had much better luck focusing on making it bigger, better, and keeping expenses under control. Fortunately, our reputation has increased the numbers each year (this is our 13th year) and it's working for us. But that's never reason enough to not be aggressive about marketing.
We're passing on the Groupon/ Living Social because they take too much of a cut (plus it crowds out the line with folks not even paying half price) but I can see situations that would make their offer more attractive (like VIP tickets). Still, it's interesting to see what others have to say on the matter as well. This is a diverse lot of readers and contributors, and they provide some great feedback. So anyone who has had experience in this regard or thoughts about it, please share it. Learning from other's mistakes or good calls is what these forums are all about.
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