Your Marketing Woes

[Haunting Copy]

Thanks so much, I really appreciate that!

And no worries, I didn't think that coupons and radio were the only forms of
advertising being used, LOL. I'm just trying to get an idea of what people
are doing and whether they're able to tell if it's working for them. Lots of
money is wasted when you don't know whether something is working for
ya.

Again, thanks!

Sarah

[Jim Warfield]

Advertising myths.

I have never felt that me spending , say $2,000 on advertising to see $500 worth of business come back was something that I could ever afford to be doing.
To begin with I had no money, repeat NO MONEY. This means" no money", it doesn't mean my Granny cut my allowence to only $900 a week, or that I had no money because my new Corvette got it all.
When I finally had a very few dollars to spend I made some flyers using my own crude artwork .
When I placed small ads I would ask every customer how they had found out about my house? Small ads almost never worked at all.
We have had caller I.D. for many years this shows me the area they are calling from to potentially track customers if an ad or tv spot was being shown around their location. From caller I. D. and the reservation personal checks always had addresses on them I think the $1,000 I spent one year on cable Tv ads brought me no more than $80 worth of customers , cable sucks, too many channels too many channel surfers, "Click", "Click", click! click!"
My Spookmobile cars have usually worked very well to bring people to my house, and they are not hearses. One impersonated a wrecked Plymouth Superbird and one is "The Corn-Fed Illinois Land Shark". Unless you like hearses, they are not a "happy" car for most people. It might be sort of like driving a turd with a rain cloud perminently over it as far as John Q. Public's emotional response to seeing it drive by, "Just like at his best friend's funeral! and his Dad's burial and his Grandma's and his favorite teacher's......"
The bottom line is, once a person decides to hand you their money, then you work your mind and body to fully enthrall and entertain and stimulate their senses, then you have an agent in the field, spreading the word with real enthusiasm which may take many , many years to fade.
After you impress them , now remain in the same location if at all possible and retain the same haunted name so everyone can find you , so they can once again, hand you their money!

[Greg Chrise]

There isn't a very high likely hood that in this day of advertising everywhere that someone dropping in with a parachute and a bullhorn, a paragraph written on a 3x5 card, even covered live on TV dressed funny is going to make anyone take any action.

Rather marketing is a years long plan of knowing who knows everyone, every out ging civic group in own be they various levels of police or factories that have company picnics or churches or motorcycle gangs. Those don't sound like people you want to talk to do they? But, they are your community and you in many cases have to one on one invite everyone you can find personally.

Then they will wait for the reviews from a few adventurous scouts to say it is okay and then years later if reminded they are still doing this might give it a try.

So on to step two. every build out person, every actor, every parking lot attendant becomes a spreadin the word entity provided what you are offering is not retarded. Then the satisfied customers go forth and spread te word a bit more. The younger ones mention their experiences on Utoob, on Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn and in personal blg posts. This is all free user generated content that each morsel has more value thn a written testimonial that can be faked.

There has to be something to the vent. Television and Radio are only effective to remind people of something they already have a good opinion about or they will flip the channel, lower the volume and return to their world of thinking of more productive things.

That's all for now, I have to go to work because I marketed my business by our installation quaity alone has contractors finding us work. Or we are the only one's stupid enough to fall for this doing physical work thing. It is a bit of both. Oh yes, and who's this "we" it always comes down to me keeping this alive and wanting to continue.

[Haunting Copy]

My only argument to what y'all (Jim and Greg) are saying is that there has to be
*some* form of advertising going on; otherwise, there would be a profound lack
of awareness for most haunts, with the exception of Jim's, of course.

From what y'all are saying, though, it all boils down to getting out there and
being seen by your market (your community, esp. the kids).

In a small town I used to live in, the high school drama department organized
and operated the yearly haunted house. It was a fundraiser for their
drama department. It was always a success.

I love the spooky-car idea!

It would be fun, too, to see what reaction haunters would get by sending
their actors around town all dressed up, not necessarily in their character,
but dressed up as *something*.

Sarah

[Jim Warfield]

Costuming Dangers!

Santa gets beat up, rocks thrown at him by the older teenagers.
Monsters get chased and attacked by the "Villagers", maybe because these same nasty teenagers know how difficult it is to see while wearing a mask?
If your monsterous costume is too gorey, bloody or just plain scary, even in broad daylight, you may be asked to leave the mall?
These are things that have happened to some people I know, including "Santa!"
My real advertising was from my letter I mailed to The Chicago Tribune just before they published their big fold out section that listed all the haunted houses in the Chicago area. My letter told the truth and also hooked into the urban myth of the multi-level haunted house, since there are seven physical levels available here.
Eventually years later some good tv productions focused on my house, BUT almost none of these things would have ever happened if I had been working for someone else, not here to return a few important phone calls in a timely manner.
This decision I consciously made to devote my time night and day to this enterprise to make it happen to the utmost of my energys and abilitys.
Who might have been trying to phone you, find you, gave up trying to contact you because you didn't seem interested? (Just because you were doing a normal job someplace else usually for someone else.)
Making and operating a haunt is not just a 40 hour a week hobby or job.

[Haunting Copy]

Just like the crazy things that happen in the haunts (like actors
being punched), it's something that we either have to deal with
or choose not to do. (I'm talking about dressing up and going
around town.)

If you get thrown out of a mall, well, I'd call the press! Woo-hoo!

Sarah

[Mike Goff]

Marketing has been around for thousands of years. During it's evolution, the key element to each advancement, has been buyer empowerment. The more convenient it is for the buyer to part with his money, the easier it is to make the sale. Some common examples are credit cards, 90 days same as cash, and coupons.
One of the reasons that the internet has become so popular with prospective buyers is that they can find exactly what they want, when they want, they can read as much as they want, or as little as they want, and they are a click away from filtering out the bs. The internet has been a massive leap in buyer empowerment. So far forward that many traditional forms of advertising are having trouble keeping up, in fact most are oblivious as to what the problem is.
The root of all advertising efforts should be word of mouth. The problem with word of mouth alone, is that it is extremely slow. Good copy will resonate with what an individual attractions strengths are, and provoke discussion. Ultimately word of mouth will prevail, advertising just speeds up the process.

Buyer beware! It can also work against you, if your show is not up to par, speeding up the word of mouth may not be a wise decision. In my experience, this is usually the case with people who claim that advertising doesn't work. All the advertising in the world will not sell a turd.

My favorite form of copy will provoke discussion, usually by surprising or shocking the listener / viewer. I like parodies of other commercials. Anything that will get thier attention, even if I have to dedicate the first 20 seconds to entertaining them before I get my message out.

[Jim Warfield]

Maybe it's because I'm older Mike, butt it usually takes me longer than 20 seconds to get my turd out.
Having the Sherriff serve it an eviction notice helps not at all! Butt might make an interesting take on a common event.
"Please Mr. Sherriff use a small tack on my butt cheek when you post that notice!"
It's not even close to Easter!

[Mike Goff]

My apologies Jim, My turd analogy was not aimed at your show. For the record, I have been to Ravins Grinn Inn, Thought it was a great time, would go again, and would recommend it to friends.
While I empathize with your cable experience, I disagree with the school of thought that advertising doesn't bring a return on investment. When done correctly, advertising can and does bring predictable, tangeable results. If it didn't, word of mouth would have killed the advertising buisiness long ago.

[Haunting Copy]

Mike, you are probably of the . . . now I can't think of his name, crap . . . Dan Kennedy(?) ilk. Bold, in-your-face copywriting.

Or maybe Joseph Sugarman. He's more into the *allure* approach.

Jim, you're just too much, m'dear.

Sarah

[Haunting Copy]

If advertising didn't work businesses would have dumped
it long, long ago.

Sarah

[Greg Chrise]

The only reason I know that there IS a LaGrange, Texas is because ZZ Top knew about it so may years ago.

Most haunted houses that are house hold names have been operating for decades. They are all over night successes that began around 1986 or 1987 the last time the economy tanked and there was no way to make a living for anyone.

Sure, in the last decade this thing called the Internet has made some awareness for those only who have a need to know. So, now you know about the Raven's Grin Inn but, how or where did you find out about it? Was there a satelite feed from a cornfield live telling you about it? Was it talked about over Ham radio or shortwave from China? When it was on TV in a featured segment did it really connect with you where to get in the car and go?

Did you or have you traveled the 19 hours to see the place? Or is just knowing about it enough for you.

These days commercials are kind of a form of entertainment. You cold spend billions to be on prime time, have your brand logo at sports arenas and it still comes down to people maing no more action that deciding wether they like your commercial better than say the free credit report baby song. It didn't make people jump up and change pants after a hard days work and get in the car to hang on the steering wheel even more.

All day long I have been thinking of how Marilyn Manson percieves advertising. Do we need it? No! Do we want it? Yes! afew more lines put your stupid slogan here.

Another thing that comes to mind is how most (not all) haunts work together to pool resources. I very much hope a new one currently being assembled is a great success. The man does advertising for a living and as a result can sort of deliver a certain number of customers relative to a certain amount of output at cost. If you had to pay for that it might be equal to the first year total budget. I want him to be a success and actively help him with what ever I can advise responcibly because together we are developing a market. This market either exists or it does not. Sure we get customers but, if you analyze the real things that worked, it wasn't being on TV, it wasn't the hundreds of posters that never got driven all over town or the fliers.

Now to some successful smaller haunts an orange flier in a barbeque restaurant on the counter with a little map showing where out in the wilderness it is is the key to success. A free or paid listing on all the haunt finding web sites is very cool. It still comes down to years of being in business. Having such an investment that those involved are excited about the event that is going to take place with them contributing and the power of many spreading the word before it even starts. Not just one barker driving around in a Ford Pinto.

We invite even the competition to come by and see what it will be this year for free. I go see their build up. In the case of Raven's Grin Inn some percentage of who comes are off season Haunters. Who better to be running around babbling about how cool it is. You think our haunt is great, there is this other place you HAVE to see, I can't even explain it. Yet, this goes on where Jim is actually spawning his all year long word of mouth advertising with any out going group of people. It might be a fleet of senior citizens on an RV tour of the universe for the first time after having worked for the man their whole lives or for a father trying to splurg on his kids. It might be a class of architects or museum curators. Do these sound like the normal haunt demographic? Do you think just putting out a well written paragraph will capture their attention?

You might get their attention but will it keep it. Will it make these people get off the couch and spend money they don't have to. Yet if you physically moved the Raven's Grin Inn to LaGrange Texas it would not necessarily work. There are different levels of openness to different kind of shows and various approvals of what qualifies as entertainment in every region.

So you are risking real money earned somehow by someone. One consultant claimes you should spend $25,000 minimum. No one ever does just starting out so they fail miserably and it's all because they didn't do what was suggested.

Sure, I have been in the position " Git Greg to right it, he can tawk real purdy!" But it is more than that. It s more than spending money and to me this is what the word advertising means. Someone who has no idea what your business needs for customers, will take a chunk of money and plop out a non specific campaign an you wll be guaranteed to make a few buck back. A lame guarenteed reality of 1/500 percent of the population responce.

No. I will not be advertising. Successful promoters are not just showing wads of cash, they are showing opportunity, fun, swaying opinion and attending community functions to support everyone else's concerns to be treated in kind for their events.

Just like you might sell Amway you tell 3 people a day about your soap opportunity. You invite them all year long and any fliers are or signage is a reminder. You get a free TV spot because it is always a slow news day and a portion of your proceeds benefits some worthy need. Or if it is completely for profit you skip TV. They will skip you for sure even though a mention is in between other commercials that are making them money.

People relate to one another in talk or even digitally because they LOVE what the event and it's investment, how it effected others felt to them. They shared a Utoob video not just to get attention but, because it meant something on a level of sensitivity.

This real Love of what you provide must be there. It isn't about getting in your little car and hitting the streets 2 weeks before the event whipping out leaflets. It is all about the event. Everyone's love for it. Love it free. Apparently going all the way costs about $40,000.

[Greg Chrise]

If advertising didn't work businesses would have dumped
it long, long ago.

Long ago a wagon would pull into town with the printing press in the wagon and chose the location and print out the posters.

Today you are competing with so many other things that is is all a bunch of noise. I think of advertising as more a cry for help. Hey, we are still in business and if no one comes we are in big trouble. Really this time we have a good cook! 5 people show up.

Advertisers have done a good job of selling the idea that you must advertise, it is a gazzilion businesses that have been dumped regardless of advertsing.

[Jim Warfield]

Sharpen your creative aim.

All the stories and incidents I tell people about in my haunted, haunted house are true. I use my creative abilitys to tell about them in a fashion that makes them more interesting to hear, adding anticipation and twists of language and surprises from these linguistic mechanicals.
The humor I usually make up, unless I'm relating incidents involving real people's reactions and words to real events they suffered here.
All of this still allows me a huge field of mental and physical creativeness that I do indulge in just to keep myself entertained if no one else!
To laugh alot is to know that you are actually alive and not just a fictional character in a bad piece of fiction laying on the bathroom floor in a deserted gas station on a forgotten piece of old narrow highway in the Twilight Zone.
..or if I am that character, I choose to still laugh alot! (even as the pidgeon rips the page, flys me away and tucks me into his nest for his kids to puke on.)

[Jim Warfield]

There was a collection agency in a south American country who never had to advertise.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew that the bright red new car with the two thugs wearing bright red jump suits were looking for "someone"when it came slowly down their street!
Then the fun began!
What a sight to see!
"Look whose house they are walking up to!"
"Gossip! Gossip! Gossip!"
Just like when Gregg would go collecting driving his hearse!..his bright red hearse, jumpsuit.....hahaha!