Well, folks, it’s that time of year. No, we’re not talking about sweater weather and pumpkin spice lattes. With darkness falling early, ominous clouds overhead, and leaves rustling in the wind, we’re talking about the perfect time for haunted events.
As an event organizer, if you want as many people as possible to experience the adrenaline of the chill up their spine, you need to market your event right. Below are five best practices for haunt promotion.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Whether you operate a kid-friendly corn maze—where the scariest part is the parking-lot scarecrow—or a storied paranormal hotel with ghosts roaming the hallways, your target audience will vary based on your offering. As such, your marketing efforts should also look different based on your audience.
When designing your marketing plan, it’s crucial to get to know your audience. In addition to the demographics and psychographics, make an effort to understand their values, opinions, interests, and lifestyle. Check out our new feature, Contact Insights, to enrich your customer data with actionable insights. You can also utilize last year's data, or run a survey on social media. The more specific you can be, the better.
2. Create an Aesthetically Appealing Web Page
Even if you want your attendees to recoil in horror during your event, you want them to lean in with curiosity to your website. As an event organizer, your website design matters, and a webpage that represents your brand (which customers already trust) will lead to higher conversions.
At TicketSpice, we believe there should be a consistent experience across the ticketing page and your website.
3. Stoke the Excitement on Social Media
As your event draws near, keep your social media accounts buzzing to build collective excitement. Make your content so compelling that your followers can’t help but stop mid-scroll and stare at your stories.
You can build anticipation through countdowns, captivating reels, throwbacks to last year, and previews of your top attractions. If you really want to up the engagement level, consider running a contest with a free giveaway.
4. Offer a Referral Program
When you’re with friends, getting scared together is a blast. You can make fun of each other's facial expressions, and dare each other to walk around the next dark corner. Getting scared by yourself, however, is just less fun.
Since haunts are better with friends, incentivize attendees to bring friends by offering discounted tickets, a partial refund or a BOGO.
To make it easy for you, we’ve created a referral program and an ambassador program in TicketSpice. Whatever program you pick and promote, both you and your attendees will benefit.
5. Create an Email Drip Campaign
If you’re looking to drive record revenue with your event ticket sales, create an email drip campaign. A drip campaign is a series of pre-scheduled emails spread out over time, inviting people to reserve tickets for your event. When someone on the list buys a ticket to your haunt, they get removed from any emails remaining in the sequence. The set-it-and-forget-it tactic produces scary good results.
Finally…if you put these five promotional trips into practice, you’ll be well on your way to hosting your best haunt yet. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our award-winning support team.
We’re here to help you have the best event ever!
— The TicketSpice Team
