Groupon Yeah or Nay ... Pros and Cons

[Terrorknight]

Larry sometimes I wonder if you started this haunt forum just to bash everyone else in the industry or just to feed your ego. It's one thing to give your thoughts on something but you always need to take it to a different level. You always have an opinion about what other people are doing wrong , but do you really want to hear what we all think about you and your bullshit, i bet not. You know like how you take 2 months to piss and moan about how opening your haunt for transworld is just to much for you, and then the next 2 months telling us how transworld is begging you please Larry oh please open your haunt this year or might not have a convention , save us save us. And 3 months showing everyone all the new stuff your buying and rebuilding with the money you've made off your fellow haunters.

Or maybe how your bash companies that you don't work with or that don't kiss your ass. Or maybe you can tell us all about your thoughts on safety , oh wait please do us a favor and don't.

So you can call what I and other haunts like Shocktoberfest do Desperate and I'll call what you do Disgusting

It would be nice if you tried to help this industry and not just piss on it and be little and bash it and the people in it , every chance you get

But that's just my view.

Robert j Dudzieck
Fright Factory
Philadelphia

[john haines]

I forgot to Thank

Fright Factory and Shocktoberfest for their generousity Thanks, guys !!!

[john haines]

Living social just gave us an extra 20% off on haunted house tix !!!!!

This deal only gets better !!!! Glad i waited living social-philly- fright factory tix !!!!

[Terrorknight]

John we at Fright Factory changed our thinking a few years back and stopped giving ad companies $100,000 a year , and instead are giving that money to the costumers in the form of better deals on tickets. Larry and who every else wants to thinks it's desperate can think what they want I really don't give a shit, I do what I do because it works and it's good for our costumers and for our haunt.

Robert Dudzieck
Fright Factory
Philadelphia PA

[drfrightner]

Robert,

You are an idiot for the comments you made flat out... I never started anything to bash on anyone. This topic has been brought up 100 times already and I say the same thing every single time... marketing your haunt through groupon is a bad marketing move flat out. Its REALLY hard to explain WHY its a bad move but it is.

I will TRY to explain it again, but the reason why I'm saying you are an idiot for saying what you said is because I've spent 15 years on this forum posting great information for people. I started this forum as a way to help people communicate and when you look at the trading board alone we've helped people sell and buy millions of dollars of stuff every year. So give me a break... secondly I'm not bashing on this haunt for doing groupon I'm bashing the whole idea in general. In my opinion and I stand by it 100% marketing your haunt on groupon is a desperate move that is my opinion.

I saw you bashing on this haunt about his naked promotion so maybe you can find things to bash on yourself, just like you bashed on me as well. So now that we cleared that up let me clarify for you...using MATH!

With YOUR HAUNT lets say you SELL 1000 tickets at full price that is $25,000 lets say $25 per ticket.

With Groupon they typically want 40% I've heard of much more maybe less... we''l go with this number $10,000 to them, $15,000 to you! On top of this you have to give THEM a discount it has to be a deal involved so lower than full price correct? Yes! So now your 25 went to 15 now maybe its down to 10 so you just lost lets say for sake of argument $15,000 on the full ticket price.

Okay but next you are going to say "Yeah but Groupon sold those tickets through their marketing effort" ... okay yes you are right we agree. However...

As I pointed out you've gone from 25 to 15 to 10 thousand dollars... so what you should have if you sold the tickets is 25,000 but all you actually have is 10,000 dollars. Groupon sold 1000 tickets... Essentially you gave away $15,000 now if you run off to a radio station you can buy $15,000 in radio spots in most cases you could get maybe 150 spots maybe more. What would generate more business ??? I'm going with the 15k in radio spots and I'm betting that could bring in 3 or 4 thousand people at full price not 1000 at 60% off.

Here is another example you can take $15,000 and at .20 per click through on Google you could get 75,000 guaranteed click thru to your website... that is guaranteed! How many customers can you flip from that group... lets go with 5% that is 3,750 full price customers which generates $93,750 dollars minus the marketing dollars leaves a profit of $78,750.00

So when you use my math you'll see groupon is for people who are unwilling to spend the money, take the risks in their own attraction and would rather a hand out... again my opinion and I think I'm right has nothing to do with ego just MATH and the faith that your attraction is worth the risk.

So again I spent another 20 minutes of my life trying to help you brother, and other haunts has nothing to do with ego!

Your comments are not appreciated.

Larry

[Terrorknight]

I just going to say all markets are different so now larry I'm going to school you here is why i do Groupon ( where is my drum roll ).

I'm in Philadelphia these deal site draw NEW bizz from upstate New York down into Washington DC , now i'm not going to sit hear and run the numbers for you on how much it would cost me to do marketing in this wide of an area. So the short and the sweet of it is doing these deals are bringing me tons more bizz every year that I wouldn't get or reach otherwise. Once I have these people I sell them on upgrades and merch, and they are happy as clams and thats after driving 3 hours.

I know my numbers and i'm happy with what i'm doing. I'm not going out of bizz anytime soon.

And if i'm going to spend $150,000 in ad's or give away $150,000 to people in discounts , i'd rather give it to the people.

Thats just me, and thats my i own my haunt and you own your and we aren't partners :-)

Robert Dudzieck
Fright Factory
Philadelphia PA

[drfrightner]

Robert,

Hey to each their own and I've said that a 100%. You are correct your market is different by a long shot... you have more competition than any other market in America and yes that includes Detroit. The difference between Philly and Detroit is the haunts in Philly are actually turning loose with marketing. Yes I agree its highly competitive there and marekting is very expensive there unlike say St Louis, Cleveland, and the list goes on. Maybe it makes more sense if you feel you are being drowned out by the overall amount of competition.

I can still honestly say that even though your market is different if I opened a haunt there I would not be doing groupon all the same... I would be loading up on radio stations, pandora, web marketing, creating a top notch website, even marketing on YOUTUBE right over your comps videos (LOL) I would not do groupon. I would hire top notch video crew to make videos, blogs, and much more to promote my haunted house ... not saying you don't do those things I'm merely saying the money you are giving away could be put to a much better and more effective use. We will disagree but its your business and I've never said otherwise.

FYI... you know I own the url www.frightfactory.com buying that URL would be worth the money you donate to groupon not that I'm offering to sell it but pointing out I've seen people on here before talk about URLS.

They are worth a total investment and then getting traffic to them and building that brand is so valuable.

We did groupon when it started as an experiment for Lemp our weakest haunt... I crunched the numbers, and FYI we got hardly NO traffic from their site.

It doesn't work the way you think but again we'll agree to disagree.

Larry

PS: Is Aven no longer part of your group. How is Aven doing?

[john haines]

I'm Going to FRIGHTLAND in DELAWARE too !!!!

no groupon deal YET, but with CRAZY JIM THERE, that place ROCKS !!!!!

[john haines]

2 more great deals on haunted house admissions !!!!! New !!!!

Night of terror (6 attractions on a huge farm) mullica hill, nj. And devil's folly haunted barn, allentown, pa. Coupon deals on double take deals.com have fun !!!!!! (philadelphia, allentown pa areas)

[macagent]

group on SUCKS - if you do it but a limit on ticket sales

We did Groupon and Yes helps get the word out, but only use the first WEEK of the Haunt Season and limit the amount of tickets ... the only compliant we got the entire season were from some groupon clients.