New Haunter, Need help

[DDJR]

Need some advise, I am a new haunter myself and my partner are planning to do radio advertisment but are disputing on the effectiveness of Radio remotes. Does anyone have experience here? Are the remotes worth the extra money that your going to pay??

[shawnc]

I have always been suspicious of the use of remotes.

The salesman will tell you that you need to buy lots of spots over a long period of time because the key is repetition - and then wants you to put all your eggs in one basket for a short three-hour period.

The one redeeming feature I have seen with them is that they will usually do a lot of free promos for the remote in the days leading up to it, with more enthusiasm than they have for the regulare spots.

[Jim Warfield]

First figure out which station your potential crowd listens to.
Radio works good if you choose the right station, otherwise send me that money and I'll talk about your place to Mr. Tuxedo, my Spookhouse cat, he will tell all his friends and you might be getting the same results.
I think advertising advice is still trying to be sorted out and the ancient words of supposid "wisdom" might just be "Whizz-Dumb" running down your leg, making a small puddle.
I think Ben Franklins' "Poor Richard's Almanac" said that thing about saturating the airwaves with little "spots" too numerous to cleanse?

[MMManiac]

We do two live remotes and they always draw in the biggest crowd. I think it's worth it. the station we use gives us a bunch of free promotion spots at peak times to promote the remote plus they give away alot of fun stff at the haunt and what not. Try it, you'll probably be happy

[Jim Warfield]

MMM, Would this be the Lawrence Welk station or the Guy Lombardo one?
"Marv and the Nosepickers"? classic stuff, all!

[monsterwax]

We did not get a noticeable change from the live remote. On top of that, they passed out coupons to people in line to get $2 off the tickets-- so we actually lost an added 20%. (The coupons were to get people to come to the haunt in the first place, not for people who were already there.) So I was unimpressed. They also tried to sell us a lot of "e-blasts" (emails sent to their subscribers) and a link from their site. But I figure if someone's on line and wants to find out about us, all they have to do is google the town and haunted house. Advertising is important, but there are a lot of ways to basically throw your money away in advertising, so I'd say proceed with extream caution.

[Jim Warfield]

When riverboat gambling began just 25 miles from me, I was sold an ad in a little magazine aimed at advertising to the gamblers, "Sure, the first time or two they drive out from "the city", they will go gambling but after that they might bring their wife and kids and they will need something to do, like see your house."
No.
Gamblers come out to gamble. Period.
The wives stay home , the kids stay home and pray Daddy remains sober enough not to get killed on his drive back home, as junior wonders where his paper route money in the jar under his bed went?
People selling ads attempt to create a wonderland which often bares no relationship to anything in our physical world, like a hand reaching into a pocket and deciding to hand money to us.

[extreme evil]

Find the radio station that targets the 19 to 34 year old age group. Do a trade with them. Offer to give away a few tickets, tell them (the radio station) they can broadcast from your site live, and even offer them a free walkthru. In return tell them you want to put a banner up showing them as a sponsor and you want advertisment (free) on their station x number of times a day for x number of days.

[extreme evil]

Also, since I know you're in OKC, check with your CBS affiliate. I think the going rate here is about 1500 dollars. It will get you one 30 second commercial. They will show it (I'm trying to remember) seems like 60 times in a month, with 30 of those being in prime time and 30 during late nite

[HauntedPaws]

Always try to get a deal. They never show their best hand first. If they do you can always come back for it later.

[Wolf Creek Haunted Forest]

My first year was last season 2009 and i am an outdoor haunted forest in Kentucky called Wolf Creek Haunted Forest. This was the biggest investment by far. I will tell you straight up i spent 12,000 dollars in Radio advertisement for 2009 season and for the 2010 season i am spending 2,000. I did 4 remote live broadcasts, mixture of Deals, free ticket giveaways, live on air spots, 30 second, 15 second spots during peak driving time and in my opinion, it was a complete waste of time. My radio spots were also always the very 1st advertisement that would play after a segment of songs, so my ads would be the most heard by listeners.

I also advertised at a kiosk at a local mall when my demograph was targeted very well with flyers and props, was probably the single best advertisement i could have spent money on.

I also purchased spots on 5 billboards (12x24ft) that were great advertisments also... In my opinion, if your haunt is good, word of mouth, flyers, website is the way to go, steer clear of spending tons of money on Radio, you will regret it in my opinion.

[Jim Warfield]

Last Night...

We had alot of customers come here and only 3 of them were returning customers!?
Asking them how they discovered my place, almost all of them said they had heard about it many years ago, usually from a friend and had wanted to come here for a long time.
Being open everynight of the year and being in the same location 23 years also helps eliminate expensive advertising.
What else might be getting me all this lip-service?
I have done 98% of all the work here over these last 23 years.
I have not copied other's ideas for the most part.
I have things here not commonly seen or experienced in other haunted venues, mostly things I have worked very hard to create with much pain and suffering, physically.
This house is also a tourist attraction versus a "Haunted House".
I try to play to my audience, from small timid children to raunchy adults looking for a comedian's night out and everyone in between.
I also try to create situations that spread the fun around the group.
I really do not try to terrorize anyone, make them mess themselves, have bad dreams.
I try to balance what goes on here because this house has the potentual to scare some people very deeply, thanks to those special helpers that I inherited with the house.
Number of people will testify to this.
I hear car doors! Back to werq!
Spending money on advertising? Are you kidding?

[jimmyfish]

spend ALL you rmoney on radio

All of it!!! Oh wait I own a radio station, so i am biased.

I am also a haunter, so I am on both sides. If you do radio, make sure you get a lot of frequency (a ton of spots). Just buying a few, will not work. Would be better to buy 200 15 seconds spots than 100 30 second spots. Peoples attention spans are short. Don't crame a lot of info in there. just the basics with a good hook to get their attention at the begining (kind of like a road bump when you are driving down the interstate and zoning out) Main thing is pound the website and make it the last thing in your spot, so people remember it and go there and then get all the info they need. Too much info and it will not be remembered.

Trust me, radio will wheel and deal. You can probably get them to throw a link in on their website. Also get some free mentions by giving them tickets to giveaway.

As for the station, make sure it is on the most popular stations like rock and pop trageted at the 18-34 demo.

Place some of the spots in morning drive if it not too expensive (it will be the most listened to time and therefore more expensive). Also one good thing about radio, is it has immediacy, meaning people are in cars a lot thinking about what they are going to do. So have some play in late afternoon/evening while it is going on. You can get better deals if you let the station put the spots in a ROS (run Of Schedule) meaning the station just places them wherever, but make sure they are not placing most of them in crappy overnight or late night slots.

Also you might find a cluster (one group that owns several stations). Most of the time they will bonus yo spots on other stations or atleast make you a good deal.

I know I wrote a book, but I want you to have some info from a radio guy/haunter.