26th March, 2024
Talking about Halloween before the Easter bunny has arrived might seem a little hasty – but not for brands which rely on the October season to drive revenue.
Halloween has become big business over the past decade, and the stats are there to back it up. According to Statista, retail spending on Halloween products and events has quadrupled since 2013, with Brits now splashing out more than £1 billion per year on their spooky celebrations.
That spells a huge opportunity for visitor attractions and seasonal event organisers that manage to create a seamless end-to-end experience for their customers. Here’s a quick rundown of top tips to ensure you’re matching up to expectations and selling out the Halloween period ahead of time.
Top vendors understand their Halloween experience starts long before a guest arrives on site. It takes time to develop key themes, design attractions and organise logistics, and the same goes for building an engaging digital experience.
Your online brand should match the same look and feel as your in-person experience to engage your target audience and build anticipation in the months leading up to October. That’s exactly what we helped Tulley’s do with its ‘Shocktober Fest’ website, recently crowned as the UK’s #1 Halloween Attraction.
Along with seamless brand continuity and mobile functionality, Tulley’s dynamic booking promotions module allows for easy management of its multiple early bird ticket releases throughout the year. Their team can now set up date ranges to update ticket prices automatically at certain times, rather than doing everything manually.
Taking opportunities to personalise key customer touchpoints with an eerie flare is a great way to build a stronger bond with your visitors ahead of time. Small details like a well-crafted confirmation email that speaks directly to each person helps increase the chances they will turn into a brand advocate and repeat customer.
Most businesses today have a wealth of customer data at their disposal, particularly when it comes to their website and booking journey. Beyond tickets sold, it’s worth digging deeper into conversion rates, bounce rates and cart abandonment rates to highlight bottlenecks or barriers to sales.
The latest stats from Google show that 53% of consumers will abandon their purchase if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, which shows the importance of getting it right.
Even small issues with website functionality, design, UX or unclear pricing can often be the difference between a customer going ahead with their purchase then and there, or deciding to give it more thought. Just remember, if you’re making tweaks to your website design during the Halloween period, make sure everything is working as it should before going live.
Patience may be a virtue, but realistically it’s not one shared by many online customers nowadays. We’ve become so used to seamless digital experiences that people quickly lose trust in a brand when their page load times are longer than the average – 2.5 seconds on desktop and 8.6 seconds on mobile – particularly when it comes to booking.
A slow landing page or overly complicated booking form is enough to strike fear into the heart of today’s average guest, so it pays to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.
An ‘early bird’ ticket promotion can be a great way to secure sales ahead of time, though make sure to think carefully about your pricing structure and offering around the Halloween period.
Chances are you’ll have various season-related events and activities on offer, though we’ve found working closely with various attractions around Halloween that it can be a good idea to include everything in one package rather than offering a range of add-ons.
Get in contact with us to discuss how we might be able to help.
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