Sinking

[MovieRelics]

If you need to find a web developer that can help you design a great looking haunted house website, visit our haunter resource area on HauntersDigest.com. You can find a listing of vendors and their ratings. I would suggest you talk with Rouge's Hallow or Chad Savage from Sinister Visions. If they don't work out for you, drop me an email and I'll see what I can do to help you out. But everyone is right. Your website is the public face of your haunt and needs the best attention short of the walls in the haunt themselves. Your marketing should start there. I've spent this past season looking at a TON of websites for haunted houses and you can tell who are the better attractions because they've at least taken the time to make sure they have a great website for their haunt that represents them. Think of it like the first impressions you get when you meet someone for the first time. And in this day and age, the first thing most likely that people will see is your website before anything else. If it looks like it was put together in less than 5 mins by some free website builder or no real attention to it, vs your competition that make their site match their branding, theming, and load it with features showcasing the attraction, your customers will spend their money with them instead of you.

http://www.hauntersdigest.com/vendor...sitedesigners/

[Capt.Chaos]

This business is not a quick money deal. I am in my 3rd year. We are being called "the haunted destination of South Dakota." I have very little competition and a very elaborate show. High Detail and production value. People are blown away and say it is the best in the state. I am also over $100k invested. I will lose money again this year and probably next year too. BUT... I planned to be in the black by year 5 when I started. I will achieve that goal. I have been open 5 nights and only done about 600 people. Last night was about 300. Tonite should be around 250. I am open next week and will be over 4000. Was I nervous 4 days ago when 42 people showed up? Yes. Treat it like a business. Build a following. Give yourself some time to build a reputation and solidify your event. Accept this and in about 4-6 years you will make a nice little profit.

Best of luck.

Buck

[Dreamreaper]

I just did some research real quick as well, dude, YOUR WEBSITE SAYS YOUR CLOSED, even on your listing that says your open, http://denverhauntedhouseguide.com/L...onofterror.php once people click the link to YOUR website, IT SAYS CLOSED!!!

Shell out the few hundred dollars to a somewhat knowledgeable actor or college kid with a knack for this stuff, and FIX THAT! Until then, expect almost no one to show up, cause right now, the world thinks your closed!

Whoever said your website is your NUMBER ONE marketing tool, could not be more right!! You NEED to fix that if you have ANY hope at suceeding/making your money back, whatever, that is your FIRST PRIORITY!!

Hell, I can have the guy who did my website do yours over in the next day if you like it, FearYourDecimation.com he's someone I totally trust, but again, it costs money, but it takes money to make money!

I agree with you and his site should never say CLOSED. We had over 70,000 hits on our web site just in the month of Oct. this year and we are working on a new one that is also more connected to facebook the web site we have now was a last minute rush we put together with plans to redo it.

[drfrightner]

When you said you only did 200 people did you mean 2000 or 20,000 ... you lost me there. If you only did 200 people how did you pay even one single bill? how much did you spend to build this haunt, and how much did you spend on things like marketing, etc.

This year our Lemp Brewery Haunt cost MORE to operate than it brought it and had it been a first year haunted house I would have been in some MAJOR league trouble. It wasn't the first time a haunt cost more to operate than it took in but its always been that third haunt we've operated not the main two. So I've been there and felt the pain. However I can't imagine only doing 200 people ... you must have done something wrong here.

Larry

[son-of-sam]

All together I ended up spending 30k. Most of all my props and costumes I already had which I spent about 25k on over the three years I did my home haunt. The marketing I used was scared.com. It is a collaboration of eight haunted house owners that split the cost of the marketing and we also cross promote by handing out maps to show were all eight haunted houses are. We also run a five haunted house ticket special to help promote all of the haunts on scared.com. He was also expose to get all our coupons in wendys,circle ks, and gamestops. When I went to check the gamestops and circle ks NONE of them had any coupons or the posters or the cardboard displays in the locations. Something that did not help either is the way the building sits on the street it made it look small besides that I really do not know what went wrong. 90% of the customers I did get [800] liked it and even denverhauntedhouses.com gave me a good review. I handed out 10,000 flyers and even dropped some envelopes in peoples mail boxes with a letter telling them they were selected for a free promotional ticket to my haunted house hoping that would bring people in. I only got three of those tickets back out of fifty. All the kingsooper market stores sold our tickets also. There were radio ads aired and we even had a ad on the first page in the westword for the hole month also. The two radio stations that aired the ads costed 25k alone. I never really heard my ad but I called the stations and they gave me a play list of when they played even though it did not add up to me. Maybe some one put a gypsie curse on me but I tried everything and it still did not go well.

[Greg Chrise]

I've been flowing this and would change the name of the place for next years marketing. I'm thinking the web sites from the previous owners that said they were closed probably contradicted you even having the opportunity to say that was the old guys and this is you. Plus there might be more to this since we haven't seen any pictures or videos, the old owners may have had quite a lame show and sold because they knew they had their run. So using the same haunt name may have been bad ju ju.

Sometimes 800 people is how it all starts and that is just the way it is. It isn't like some of these books say and just figure your ticket price times 10,000 people and that's how much money you are going to make.

[john haines]

damn black friday was thru the roof because everybody is using credit cards. wonderful. another great move for the economy. come january, nobody can pay their bills. the fiscal-cliff will be another diaster for the nation in 2013 (if we make it).