Marketing Ideas...

[screamsofnight]

Hey,

Just curious to know how you market your haunt(s)...

As I read through people's comments in some threads they say positive's and nagatives to marketing stratagy's, such as the radio.

So.. what do you do?

[Motograter]

You can try a Webpage..That would be number one in my book!
billboard's
Flyer's or business cards
Word of mouth
Local radio stations
you can also run some ads in your local newspapers too
Posters
etc.

[The HorrorTeller]

Those above are the conventional types of advertising.
The website is VERY important..but if your not linked to places like horrorfind.com or other sites that folks go to visit to find you or if you advertise and do not have the website for them to visit..its a lot of wasted dollars.

These are some ideas we use:

Get your staff some tees or hoodies professionaly printed. Go out in public in mass, eat some place visit a school event but wear those free advertising articles of clothing.
We have our teens and high schoolers every friday wear their tee's to school to advertise us.
They also have brochures to pass out.
At the college we have contacts with their college newspaper to do an article on us.
We have invested in magnetic signs for the primary owners to have on their vehicles during the months of august thro-october.

Use your local visitors and convention center..advertising is effect for out of town visitors who are in motels.

We also have an agreement with local stores to dress in costume for a promotion in exchange for handing out our brochures.

Gas stations will also allow our brochures as long as we have them in a small version and on the counter with a box.

Many avenues out there to use.

the radio still works some...its just real important to know who your target audience is.

www.scarecrowvillage.com
www.thehorrorteller.com
info@thehorrorteller.com

[Jordan24]

I guess I really would't know because I haven't had any experience marketing with a pro haunt. But, I always though newspapers would be a bad form of advertisement. Simply because your targeted attendance (12-25 or so) really does very little to no reading, and newspaper adds arn't cheap. If I ever get my pro haunt running I'm going to spend the money on a really good website, and set up a MySpace/FaceBook page and get as many people on it as possible.

[Jim Warfield]

By the time the movie Rocky Horror Picture Show got to New York City they only had $3.75 left in their advertising budget, I think they spent it on spray paint and went the subway graphettii route.
Of course that movie was a success because of the movie itself, advertising is only pap if there is not a good product going.
Impress people, they will talk, they will return, show them a good, fun, time, the advertising will pretty much take care of itself via word of mouth from positive experiences.
A rolling billboard is also good if you drive it enough. Some haunts buy a hearse I build my own visions of strangeness that probably recieve more attention, they are on my website: hauntedravensgrin.com.
Everytime I drove my first Spookmobile to any town with a population of 25,000, like Freeport, Ill. or Clinton, Iowa, I would come home to find people waiting to see the house who had just seen my car that day.