Marketing for a holiday is a fun way to engage customers, stay current, and increase your brand’s reach. So we dove in and got our creative juices flowing with this list of ways you can have a little fun this Halloween with your marketing strategy!
Trick or Treat
This is an easy one – but requires some planning, so it’s best to get started early in October. Create goodie bags for the kiddos (bonus points if they have your branding on them), and hand out extra treats for the adults. Pens, drink cozies, or magnets with your logo and contact information. Mini LED flashlights (with your logo and website) are a perfect gift for parents on Halloween night, that will have them staring at your contact information!
Boo! Sneaky Social Sales
Give away a secret Halloween code on social media, to use in-store.
Incentives for Costumed Customers
Brewery? Offer a free beer! Dentist’s office? Half-off whitening services for all those adorable vampires! Is your venture entirely online? You can still get in on the fun, just offer the incentives on social media! Ask your customers to get all dressed up in their customers and pose with your product. Most creative gets a prize!
Throw an IRL (In Real Life) Party
So many businesses have huge amounts of followers online that they never meet. Throw a Halloween party and ask them to come on out to celebrate! Promote your hashtag loud and proud, and generate local publicity. Remember, people don’t like to show up at events alone. Most of your followers are likely to bring a friend.
Team Up and Sponsor
Smaller operations may not be able to have a Halloween fiesta at their own business, but it’s all good! October is a time when the weather cools down, and so many events happen outdoors – so get out and SPONSOR. Find a local Oktoberfest, 5K, or charity event to sponsor and see get your branding out there. Many event coordinators are flexible with product and logo placement opportunities.
Print Spooky Business Cards
Add a little spider or jack-o-lantern to your regular business card, and hand it out during the month of October. The cost of printing is very inexpensive, and knowing that your cards are seasonal will encourage you to hand them out quicker than ever!
Host a Halloween Networking Event
For professionals who want to let loose a little bit! Bob for “poisoned” apples, and try to carve your logos into jack-o-lanterns.
Hold a Digital Costume Contest
This is a great way to engage your customers on social media. Instead of judging an employee costume contest by yourself, post pictures of the participants online and let your customers vote for their favorites. Depending on the platform, you can measure their interest with everything from polls to likes.
Organize a TP Party
If you don’t mind a bit of clean-up on aisle seven, host a toilet paper party at your store. Customers can gain admittance by buying something and showing you the receipt. In exchange for their business, they’ll receive a roll of toilet paper to send flying across the shelves!
Start a Candy Bowl
Give out freebies from a big candy bowl at your front door or cash register. They don’t have to be literal candy bars. They can be any kinds of branded items that are fun, cheap, convenient and easy to stamp with your business logo.
Display Homemade Halloween Art
Start a wall for Halloween art. Encourage your customers and their children to donate their scribbles. If you’re running a gym or restaurant where the kids need entertainment while their parents are busy, you can provide the crayons yourself. You can also take this into the digital realm by asking your customers to post their artwork under a specific hashtag.
Throw a Halloween Fashion Show
This will be especially fun if you’re a clothing retailer. Organize a fashion show at your store where your models dress in oranges, blacks and yellows. Advertise it as a special event where you’ll serve drinks and snacks. Make sure that the refreshments are Halloween-themed, too.
Incorporate Your Products Into Halloween Posts
Post some pictures on Instagram of your products being used in Halloween-themed costumes, projects, home decorations and party ideas. For example, if you sell doggie goods, you can use them as props or backdrops for a werewolf photo shoot. If you sell shower curtains, you can use them to stage a reenactment of “Psycho.”
Host a Pumpkin Carving Contest
Not only will this get more people through the door, but it will also secure future customers if you give away discounts and coupons as your grand prize. You don’t even have to splurge on humongous pumpkins! Mini-pumpkins will look cute and display more easily in your front window.
Play Halloween Pranks
A few lighthearted scares can be a fun way to keep your customers on their toes. For example, a costumed employee can jump out from behind the aisles as they shop. You can even compile the best reactions in a Youtube video and hope that it goes viral!
Start a Selfie Giveaway
Everyone loves taking selfies, so give them a chance to earn a prize from your business if they snap a photo of themselves participating in one of your Halloween events. You can even start a Twitter hashtag to track them. It’ll generate interest in your company and keep you trending at the same time.
Offer Discounts to Masked Customers
It can be difficult to engage customers with activities that take a lot of time and effort, but putting on a mask is easy. Give them 5-10 percent off if they’re willing to swipe their credit card from behind Jason’s hockey mask or Sailor Moon’s pigtails.
Hand Out Trick-or-Treat Bags
A stealthy way to advertise your business is by distributing free trick-or-treat bags. Decorate them like completely normal bags with pumpkins, scarecrows and black cats; just make sure that your name and phone number is printed on the bottom. Parents will see it every time that they sneak a Kit-Kat from their child’s stash.
We’re excited to hear what you’ve come up with for your own Halloween marketing! Let us know in the comments and have an amazing Autumn season!
