As the year draws to a close, businesses typically turn their attention to Black Friday and Christmas. While both of these events are significant in their own right, it often means that Halloween is often unrightfully overlooked. Over the last decade, Halloween has continually grown in size, transforming into a commercial festival that presents businesses with the first significant marketing opportunity of the winter. Approximately half of Brits now spend money on the event, and it is now no longer just about costumes and trick-or-treating. Instead, marketers now have a free pass to get creative and infuse a spooky theme into their branding during the weeks leading to October 31st. Whether you are looking to decorate the office or run a full-scale themed campaign, there are many ways that you can get into the Halloween spirit. Here are six marketing ideas that you could use for your business:
One of the best ways for you to get involved during Halloween is by running a competition. The advantage of competitions is that they are easy to launch, and they require minimal effort from your customers. Plus, everyone loves a giveaway. All you'd need to do is combine a product or service that you offer with a spooky theme. A quick way to run your competition would be via social media. By asking users to comment or like your post, you have the opportunity to increase brand awareness and followers. Alternatively, you could use SMS marketing to run your competition. Requiring your customers to text in their entry will allow you to collect customer telephone numbers, which could then be used for future campaigns. According to HubSpot, one-third of competition entrants will accept to receive information from your brand and partners in the future.
You could also host a Halloween themed event. Hosting an event at the front of your store could be the difference between a customer entering or walking past. By running an event, you'll be able to get some great content to share across your social media channels. There are many events that you could consider, ranging in terms of size, organisation and time commitment. Our suggestions include pumpkin carving, face painting, cookie decorating or mask making. Alternatively, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous, then you could design a spooky maze across your store. Businesses that have access to a big screen or the outdoors could host a scary movie night or create a haunted house or maze.
A great way to boost revenue during the Halloween period is by rebranding existing products or services with a spooky theme. This provides you with an opportunity to increase sales volumes on lower-performing items while also providing you with great content to use. You'd be able to promote the rebranded items across your website, social media, SMS marketing and email. Additionally, by having a selection of items, you will also increase the likelihood that your customers make impulse purchases. Approximately 29% of Brits will purchase on impulse over the Halloween period, so getting visitors to your website or store provides you with a big opportunity.
If you are looking for fun during the build-up to Halloween, then decorating your store or office is an excellent place to start. If your store is located on the high street, then a well-decorated storefront could be the difference between customers entering or walking past. Whereas, if you are in an office, then you'll still be able to show your clients that you are a fun company. Decorating your store or office can be reasonably cheap and provides you with content to share across your social media channels.
One quick way to take advantage of Halloween is by changing your paid ads so that they are Halloween themed. Creating themed ads can be done quickly by either changing existing text or by advertising spooky themed items. Your paid ads can run on social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram, or you could set up an account on search engines like Google or Bing. According to Google's Keyword Planner, the word "Halloween" received just under 3.5 million searches during the month of October in 2018.
Finally, you could hold a sale and brand it with a Halloween theme. This would require low effort because you do not necessarily need to change the items that you are selling. A great way to promote your sale is by texting customers. Since SMS marketing has a 98% open rate, you can be sure that your offers will reach your customers. Plus, you can include a short link that takes your customers directly to the sales page on your website. An advantage of holding a Halloween sale is that you'll be able to evaluate your performance and make improvements for Black Friday and Christmas, which are right around the corner.
Hi, I'm Liam, Marketing Executive at Reach Interactive. I have a background in international marketing and love branding, social media and seeing how companies communicate with their customers.
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For anyone thinking about using SMS marketing, we’d say go for it!
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