Page 15 - 888-12

Part of your publicity can be the design of the maze. Often farms decide on a theme and then create a design to match that theme. It might be that you link up with a charity that you want to support like Habitat for Humanity and then draw a maze that depicts a house being built. The best publicity for a themed maze is to take an aerial photo of the design and generate excitement by using it in your publicity, brochure and your paid advertising.

A popular advertising tool is a brochure or fyer. There are many kinds of brochures:

Full colour, three panel (8.5” x 11” unfolded) that you create and have professionally printed:

• $600 for 1,000 fyers • $900 for 5,000 • $1,500 for 10,000 • Postcards - $250 for 2,500 • Black & white, 8.5” x 11” page with a map of the maze to hand out to customers, so they can orient themselves by comparing the map to the path – can be copied at any offce supply store • $0.05 each under 1,000 • $0.04 each over 1,000

What advertising and promotions are cost effective for you to use? Here is where partners can be very helpful. As an individual farm it may be diffcult to get free publicity. But if you partner with a local charity they will often have media connections. The media wants to be seen as a supporter of local initiatives and charities so they are often more willing to give newspaper space and radio time to a worthwhile community cause.

There are other kinds of partners and sponsors as well. You can offer a sponsorship to a radio station.

• the station gives you some free radio ads

• you include a print ad for the station in a fyer you produce and/or incorporate the radio station logo in your maze diagram

You could also take aspects of the radio station and incorporate it into a scavenger hunt or quiz that is solved by visitors as they fnd clues while going through the maze.

For example, a radio station gave the equivalent of $3,000 in on-air advertising in exchange for getting their logo incorporated into the maze design. This is called “in-kind” partnering. The radio station didn’t give the farm $3,000, but it saved the farm from buying advertising time on that radio station. Both sides felt they gained benefts – a win-win situation.

Smaller sponsorships might include an ad for the station in your fyer for $200 to $300 worth of airtime, or using the station logo in some of your directional signs around the farm, such as directing visitors to the parking area.

Coupons or passes can be given to media, your sponsoring charity or fundraising organization that they in turn give away, thereby promoting your attraction. They can be an “admit one” or “one free admission with one paid adult admission” coupon.

If you have the time, sell advertising space if you are printing a fyer. You will need to know the cost of producing each panel in a fyer to ensure the the cost of the ad covers the extra printing costs and generates some proft.

One important consideration with fyers is distribution. Printing the fyer is just the frst step. You also need to get it into the hands of that potential

• grocery store bulletin boards • chamber of commerce kiosks • hotels • libraries

• tourist information facilities • travel agencies • a booth at the local fair

• any farmers’ markets you attend

Offer trades with other tourist attractions. If they display your brochure, you’ll display theirs at your farm.

A rule of thumb is that distribution costs are about 20 per cent of the printing cost.

You may deal with a farm supplier who also sells consumer products (for example, lawnmowers). Since you have a business relationship with them, they are more likely to want to support what you are doing, particularly if they see a fnancial beneft in it for them. You may be surprised at how many businesses you deal with that might ft into this category. If you buy a particular make of pickup truck every few years, that dealer may see a beneft to being a