What Are We Thinking?

 

By Larry Kirchner

 

Often I scratch my head at some of the things I see people do to build their haunted business.  Let me say that I personally have made a lot of head scratching decision in my life, and I try not to repeat them if possible.  I assume you subscribe to this magazine, and or visit our message boards to learn something new or learn from others’ experiences.  The reason we print HauntWorld Magazine is to support our industry, help your business, and advance our industry.  There is a very precise way to turn any venture into a successful business.  Simply stated, you must make smart business decisions.  In some cases, haunted house owners put their passion before business.  Most haunters’ passion is haunting, scaring people, building creepy monsters, but no business can succeed without first having a sound business plan for success.

 

Creating a successful haunted house isn’t solely about having a great product; it is also about great marketing, attractive logos, awesome websites and clever promotions.  Nearly every time a new haunted house attempts to open, they run around buying and building everything in sight, with little or no emphasis on developing a logo, a website, a blueprint or anything.  If you worked for an amusement park operator looking to develop a start-up park, you would first do a market study; develop a business plan, create drawings, blueprints, logos, and more.  All this would be done before ever buying even one ride.  Amusement park owners look at it as a business first and a passion second.  Why do so many haunted house owners do it backwards?

 

This article isn’t specifically about new haunts or old haunts, it is about all haunts even ones who’ve been in business for over 10 years.  I see haunted house owners continue to make decisions based on perception or hearsay or one-man’s-opinion on a message board.  I also see people make moves based on personal feelings rather than good business sense.  This isn’t about personalities, this isn’t about who you like or who you don’t like, and this certainly is not about who portrays airs of greater success in this business.  There are always going to be people who are more successful and/or people with opinions different than your own, but that doesn’t make them the enemy.  

 

Our industry is full of people who want you to believe they know more than you do, and in most cases, those are the same people who want to sell you something.  Some people use organizations for personal gain, while at the same time playing themselves off as a savoir when really all they are is using the industry tools for personal gain.  Our industry is full of those people.  So who do you listen to?  Who is telling the truth?  I will say the biggest haunters in this business have well established themselves, and have very little to gain by offering their advice.  I trust people who have established attractions, or vendors who come back to the tradeshows year after year.  You don’t have to take their advice as the only way, but you can bet they have been through a lot of the learning curves you are now experiencing.  I always say look at someone’s track record…Are they successful?  How long they have been in business?  It takes YEARS to learn all the tricks of any trade, so don’t turn your nose up at those who’ve been there and done that successfully for 10 or 20 years.  They are only trying to help.

 

Let us talk facts… If a new magazine or website pops up and wants to sell you ads?  Think for a minute.  Do they really have anything to offer you?  Anyone can start a new website and say hey “I want to sell you banner ads,” but why would you buy them?  Anyone can make a slick media kit and a nice presentation to sell you ads in a magazine or banners on a new haunt directory, but do they reach your customers?  Do they have the readership or traffic to support it?  The answer is most likely “NO, NO and NO.”  Many people buy just because something looks good.  That is a mistake.

 

Let’s talk specifically about haunt directories or web advertisement in general.  Online advertisements can be very beneficial and cost-effective if purchased from the right companies.  When being pitched to buy these items, you have to make educated decisions.  Here are some suggestions: (1) Go to Google, or Yahoo, or MSN.com and search all sorts of keywords that you think your customers would use to find your business on the web.  Did you find this specific website during all your searches?  If the answer to that question Is NO, then that website may not be worth your investment.  (2) Ask the salesperson how much money is reinvested in the site annually towards increased results.  You want to buy from a company who’s interested in investing money back into their product/service to make it better for you.  (3) Locate an existing advertiser, one who truly tracks his/her results and ask about their traffic to-date.  Additionally ask what other sites he/she might be on and the results of those.  Bottom line, ask specific questions and do specific research before making any purchase.  If you’re unsatisfied with the results of your info-gathering on the company, then you should tell that group ‘once you have established your business and can prove you can deliver business to my business, then check back with me.’  Whatever you do, don’t be duped into being someone’s guinea pig.  I personally am not opposed to buying banner ads on several websites, but only if they can prove to me that they can deliver traffic to my website.  

 

I guess the point here is just because someone makes something doesn’t mean it is worth anything.  Just because someone creates a magazine doesn’t mean anyone subscribes to it, reads it, or cares about it.  Just because someone buys a URL doesn’t mean they have the traffic and the marketing plan in place to earn your advertising dollar.  You might get an attractive song-and-dance sales pitch, but proof is in the pudding.  Some haunters just don’t think things through.  I encourage you to collect the facts and ask the right questions prior to making any business decision.  In the future take the time to ask other haunters, specifically haunters who’ve been around the block, who have the experiences and the know-how to make good decisions, and ones who have nothing to gain personally from you.  Do this before jumping the gun and purchasing something you will regret later.  For Missouri, their state motto is ‘SHOW ME’.  Adapt that motto as your own, and it will save you a lot of grief later.

 

Now that I’m on a roll… Another thing I see as a common mistake is how some haunters are marketing their business these days.  You can’t blindly assume that what worked last year will work again this year.  Times are changing and changing fast.  Newspapers, magazines, and even radio are going away fast.  Just the other day, I added satellite radio inside my car.  I may never listen to local radio again.  People hate commercials, hence the popularity of satellite radio, Tivo, etc.  You must pay attention to these changing trends and habits or else you’ll find yourself on the outside looking in or spending good money after bad money.  Over the past two years I have looked more and more at web marketing.  You can buy ads with Google, MySpace, local media websites and well haunt directories.  ??In regards to Haunt directories, specifically Hauntworld.com/HauntedHouseOnline.com and HauntedHouse.com (the only ones I personally have ads on), they drive real qualified customers to your website.  Why every haunted house isn’t buying this cost-effective, undervalued marketing is BEYOND ME!  All marketing should be based on cost vs. return, what do you invest and what do you get back.  This is more commonly known as ROI, return on investment.  If you buy web marketing, you need to track your traffic so you know what you paid per click into your website.  If you are paying ANYTHING under ten cents per click you should be ecstatic!  Other websites with a local or regional flare (like HauntedIllinois.com or HauntedWisconsin.com) also provide great results and are usually very under priced too.  Both of which equal a great buy for you.  One day soon, sites like these will drive more traffic to your business per dollar spent than even your local radio stations.  

 

Some haunters are not growing their business and taking it to the top even though they have great haunted houses…But why?  I can tell you exactly why.  It is odd but sometimes the best haunts are second fiddle to a haunt with better marketing.  Of course you should always strive for both, but I think the better business haunt person will typically win out over the haunter with a better passion for his product but who ignores his website, logos and marketing.  

 

This year look at your logos & your website and ask yourself, “Are they better than the competition or worse?”  If yours is as good or worse do something about it now!  Start looking at alternative methods to promote your haunted house this year, and one of the answers you might find is viral marketing.  Warner Brothers launched probably the most ambitious viral marketing campaign ever for the new ‘Dark Knight’ movie.  We’ll see the results when the new Batman movie smashes all the box office records (at least by my prediction).  Warner Brothers has built up so much hype for the film that people are now extremely excited to see this movie.  Viral marketing can be accomplished for a haunted house as well, but things like this take time, creativity, and expense.  You have to get your head out of the latex and into the business side of your business.  Don’t sit around and complain that your competition has more business with the weaker haunt, just do something about it.

 

So what else can you do to change your haunt’s future?  Let me fly through several tidbits… Let’s start with MySpace.com.  I hired somebody to manage my MySpace page for me, and I pay her money for hitting marks on adding new friends.  For example, when she adds an additional 100 new friends, I pay her X amount.  When she hits 1,000 new friends, she gets paid an added bonus, and on and on.  I don’t have time to manage a MySpace page, and to be honest I don’t even understand how it all works as I don’t have my own personal page.  I’m 110% certain you have several actors who LIVE on MySpace.com and would take over your page for you, no problem.  Don’t hire them 6 weeks before the season starts, pay them to keep adding friends YEAR AROUND!  Once you have all those friends, send out notices, have contests, have a MySpace Friends Night with a discount. Take advantage of marketing opportunities that are virtually free.  The point here is simply:  Promoting your haunt should be year round, not a few months prior to opening.  

 

Another cool way to promote your haunt is through cool videos.  Why don’t you have one already?  Even if you paid a real production company $5,000.00 to make some killer videos, it would be worth every penny.  Where can you use these videos to your benefit?  For one YouTube.com is an excellent place to plant your video, plus those videos can be embedded everywhere which drives up views. You can also take those videos and upload them to Yahoo video service and MySpace not to mention YOUR website, message boards, and more.  The one thing I did learn was make sure you put a splash page at the end of your video that shows your logo and clearly highlights your webpage.  If you don’t display your website address, what is the point of putting the video up?  The bottom line…You want to DRIVE TRAFFIC to your website no matter where it comes from!

 

The presentation of your attraction can sometimes be more important than your actual haunted house, if your main concern is to drive sales.  Last year, I drove over 400,000 unique visits to our personal website, Scarefest.com.  Nearly 1 in 4 visits to our website ended up buying at least one ticket to our attraction online.  If we could keep that percentage and drive 500,000 visits to the site would our business go up by 20,000 people?  I don’t know, but it’s possible and I’ll bet with an increase in web traffic to our site, our overall attendance WILL grow.  What are you waiting around for?  Is your website terrible?,  horrible?,  not 1/10 as exciting as your actual attraction?  I look around and view some of your sites, and I think to myself, “If I didn’t already know you have a great attraction, I might never attend your event.”  Your website is a reflection of your actual attraction.

 

Thinking back on ads in new haunt magazines or banners on the latest haunt directories, you may have bought an ad based on perception, perception that it was worth something.  It was the amazing marketing/sales pitch that gave you this perception and got you to buy, whether or not the ads ended up being worthless.

 

This is the same exact way your customers will view your attraction when they visit your website.  Your website is YOUR marketing/sales pitch, so it’s gotta be amazing for someone to want to buy a ticket.  If your site has no videos/photos, or bad videos/photos combined with bad logos, bad layout and more, then the perception might automatically be that your attraction is as bad as your website.  Some of you are not offering photos or videos on your site, and that alone could send the message that your attraction isn’t good.  I’m merely stating from a customer’s point of view…It could look like you are trying to hide something.  Now if your competition’s site is filled with nicely-edited, professional videos combined with awesome logos and graphics, the perception to your haunt-goer might be that your competition’s haunt is better than yours.  

 

Time and time again, I’ve heard haunters tell me that their competitor does more business because (1) they have more sponsors, (2) they spend more on advertising, or (3) they spend more time on their website.  Why can’t you do the same?   

 

The oddest thing I heard this year was at the Transworld show.  I was chatting with a new haunter about buying haunt banner ads, and this person said to me, “We’d love to buy, but right now we have to mind our budget because we’re trying to grow this thing.  Once we get bigger, we’re going to buy banner ads.”  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!  This person was telling me that they want to grow bigger, but back-burner the very things that help you get there.  I wanted to ask, “You can’t build a better site yet?... Or obtain high end graphics?  You can’t buy web banners that drive qualified customers to your site?  You can’t do any of this until your customer base grows?  Is this what you’re telling me?”  I just kept thinking, ‘GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS QUICK before you lose everything. You’re doing EVERYTHING backwards!’

 

The old saying goes ‘it takes money to make money’ and unless you take that leap of faith you’ll never know.  In my third year of being a haunt owner, and after three years of never getting past 8,000 in attendance based strictly on passing out flyers at football games and what not, I took the leap of faith.  I saved all my money and then spent it all on radio advertisements, not knowing if it would change the attendance or not.  If the attendance didn’t change significantly, I was doomed, but if I didn’t try something, we wouldn’t be able to go to the next level…profit.  Well it paid off because my haunt attraction was seen by three times the attendance from the year before, and the combination of positive word-of-mouth was mixed with mass marketing and it paid off.  The increased revenue also allowed me to expand the attraction, buy more products, and improve my sets for a better show the following year.  AND, you better believe I set money aside for a heightened ad campaign the following year.

 

I mean what are you thinking here?  Do you want to blow the roof off your business or not?  If you do you need to think bigger.  You need to look around at your direct competition and beat them on every level not just the attraction itself.  There is more to running a successful business than just having a good idea or a great product.  Additionally why not get your website updated sooner than later, and start the promotion machine 4 months out.  How long has Warner Brothers been promoting ‘Dark Knight’?  Get the jump on your competition, and be first to market with the promotion of a haunted house product.

 

Here is the bottom line: To most, perception is usually reality.  Create that perception for your market and then deliver with the product.  However, when making a purchase or an advertising decision, don’t be fooled by misperceptions.  Find the reality:  Ask for facts, get concrete data, ask for references, and confirm those facts.  In this business, you can’t afford to look back and wish you would have done things different.  There are actually websites out there for you to check a site’s strength against another site’s.  For example, www.complete.com is one that I use frequently.  Google is also about to launch a website that compares websites traffic against other sites.  Don’t take someone’s word about how great their product can improve your business; make them prove it to you!  And remember, success is measured over the long haul not the first day of business.

 

Lastly, you must improve your sponsorship relations with other businesses.  The more sponsors you can obtain, the more exposure you will have.  Again, this is clearly another case of where a business-first approach wins out over the passion-first approach.  Don’t let the business-first attraction owner with the second tier attraction take it to you year after year.  Step up to the plate and aim for the wall.  Accepting anything less, is just admitting you can’t achieve greatness.

 

Listen to those who know, listen to those who are willing to share, listen to those you know have a track record of success within this industry, and then take what you learn and apply it to your attraction.  After that, you can watch your business take that leap to the next level.  

 

 No one can take you to the next level but yourself.  These days it is a multi faceted media World, something like a mine field.  Go buy a metal detector and walk right through that mind field to Haunting History!  Make your dreams reality, but make business first decisions and base all of your choices on facts not fiction or perception or personal feelings.  You can and will have a long and successful career scaring people and making money doing it!  If you run your haunt any other way, I will have to ask, “What are you thinking?”  

 

 

 

When I was young, I based ALL my decisions on passion, and I often wonder what I was thinking back then.  Well I can answer that…I didn’t have anyone to tell me otherwise and information wasn’t as readily available.  But, you don’t have the same excuse.  There is a well of information out there starting with the internet, message boards, peers and so much more.  Take advantage and make all of your dreams reality!

Happy Haunting,?Larry Kirchner, editor of Hauntworld Magazine www.Hauntworld.com

 

 

 

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