Something we didn’t do the first two years of Halloween Town was record the event so we could share the footage with prospective partners.  Seeing is believing with Halloween Town, and if we couldn’t get them to come to the event having a video for them to watch would be the second best thing.  But for whatever reason we never did it.  Until we made it a priority at last year’s event.

Our new sales video captures all the great sets we built for the event, the brandland experience we created for our partners, how the event benefited the hospital and all the Halloween fun our 13,000 guests had!  Our event marketing firm, wedu, did a great job shooting and editing the piece.

Having a sales video like this is all about not giving a prospect a reason to say no.  Without video, you’re left to your words, which don’t always sway prospects by themselves.  Some people–probably most people these days–are visual thinkers that insist on seeing before believing. (Either that or they’re all from Missouri. Good question for Mike Swenson over at Citizen Brand.)

This isn’t the first time I’ve used video to make a point.  When I worked at public television back in 2000 I realized that we were letting potential underwriters get away every time we talked about a PBS program they hadn’t seen.  We solved this by buying a small television and toting along clips of every show we produced.  “Never seen Frontline?  Check out this clip.”  Video made PBS a lot more tangible and kept the conversation going when in the past it had stopped cold.

So how will we use the Halloween Town clip?  We’ll share it with sponsors.  But we won’t just blindly send it out to prospects.  Like a foreign film, it needs interpretation and elaboration, which can only be done by the trained sales person that will accompany it wherever it goes.

Watch our new Halloween Town sales video here.