Today's successful marketing campaigns are those which are focused on building, embedding and refreshing strong brands that have a lasting impression on audiences. For attractions brands, such as theme parks, museums and destination resorts, it's even more to create these lasting bonds, as customer relationships are built on seasonal, sporadic or even one-off visits. It's vital to make a powerful first impression that not only ensures that customers have a positive and memorable experience on their visit, but also inspires them to share that experience and recommend it to others.

Halloween is an excellent time for attractions brands to make this connection with their audiences. Attractions are well set up to host 'fright night' events that allow the destination to be experienced in a different way, often at a different time of day and even by a whole new audience. Theme parks that can be the domain of families and young children by day can suddenly become much more appealing to an older, more specific audience who can attend out of normal hours to enjoy a horror-inspired experience during the Halloween period.

The challenge is to cut through the competition at this time. Fright nights and horror themed-spectaculars have become standard and expected at this time of year, so how can attractions brands make their own events stand out at Halloween? And what role can digital marketing play in this?

1. Be yourself. Just because Halloween nights are a departure from normal activity doesn't mean that events and the marketing surrounding them should move away from your brand's core messages and values. Ensure that whatever activity and publicity you embark on remains a reflection of who and what you are as a business.

2. Share the scares. It's vital to see your event through the eyes of your audience and give them opportunities to really enjoy and share their experience, and digital is the ideal channel through which to deliver this. Encouraging visitors to take scary selfies and share them on social networks to unlock treats and more experiences in the parks is a great way of making their visit interactive and including an element of surprise, which works well in terms of sharing content.

3. Tease the terror. The best part of any horror-themed event is the anticipation, so use digital marketing tactics like video and social to tease your audience with hints and clips of what's to come if they visit your attraction. Giving just enough content to tempt them in, but not enough to give away what's truly in store will help to build the suspense and encourage people to forward on videos and tweets to their social connections. Content that builds each week can be a great way of pulling an audience in and creating a buzz.

4. Be playful. Halloween gives you a unique opportunity to be creative and daring with your marketing. Use digital to its full potential by creating funny, memorable and even shocking content that will make viewers want to watch, share and talk about it with their friends. Teaming up with a prankster and blogger like Jack Jones to give visitors real-life scares in your venue or park will instantly boost both the appeal and the reach of your content.

 

By Jason Triandafyllou, Partner at Designate. 

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