Wickedly good marketing for Halloween
We are days away from October, and apart from being my birthday month, October is also all about Halloween. I no longer have young children in the house, so there is not so much active involvement on the trick or treat, costume and house decorating front. But you can’t get away from the fact that Halloween is a very popular occasion in the calendar. I want to say Holiday, does that sound too American? But you know what I mean. It’s an event that people like to get involved with and whether you celebrate it or not, it’s difficult to get away from.
But you know what they say, if you can’t beat them join them. Use the hype around this holiday (okay we are going with that word) in your own marketing and make the most of it, use it to your advantage. Even if you are not selling ‘Halloween’ products you can still create interest around the products and services you do sell. After all, it’s an opportunity to get in front of your audience, have a conversation with them and show them what you have to offer. Or even just use it for a bit of themed engagement and a bit of chat
It’s not too late to do something and still be effective either. Perhaps you have all your themed content and special offers in place, and good to go already. If you have, well done you. But if you haven’t or if you hadn’t thought that Halloween was for you because you don’t sell that type of products or service, then this will hopefully give you a couple of ideas to consider.
But first though, let’s explore the fact that your business doesn’t directly sell Halloween products. Well maybe with a little bit of imagination it could. For example, if you sell general household products, how about a special offer on brooms, or if you are a cleaning service, a magic clean up event, or an Estate Agent could create a campaign centered around haunted and spooky houses. Or if you are pet store, you could give tips and advice on how to care for your black cat, or a special offer on spider food or whatever it is that an owl eats. You get my drift, just take a few minutes to think about what we would all associate with Halloween and then think about how that could be applied to what you do.
Decorations
This first one might be a bit obvious, or maybe not, but it’s decorating for Halloween. Whether it’s your shop, your office or your workshop, customers like to see your decorating efforts. You can even go down the road of running a pumpkin decorating competition amongst the staff or visitors. Announce beforehand that you will be running it and ask for participants. You can still do it online too if you accept people’s photos. Then show the judging and the results on your website and social media pages. What about having a competition between other companies on your trading estate, or other offices and shops? Be sure to tag in the other businesses on your social media pages though, then they can share your post on theirs. That gives your business some exposure to their audience too. That’s a Win Win!
Your Costume
It’s great if your business, or even your boss, will allow you to dress up in a full blown Halloween costume. But there are plenty of companies where that wouldn’t be suitable to do. Or maybe people just don’t want to sit dressed as Frankenstein all day. So, if you want to join in but can’t wear a costume, maybe because you need to be identified as a member of staff for example, my tip would be to get a t shirt or a hoody instead. What’s been popular this year is Halloween themed prints and slogans on the front of a t shirt, with the company logo or event slogan on the back. This is a great way to still make your t shirt unique and Halloween themed, but still branded for the business. If you are really clever, you could even use a spooky slogan that identifies your business too. More on that later! Using themed t shirts, hoodies etc. also has the added bonus of being something that you would be able to use again next year too.
Events and Expos
If you are running an event or attending an expo on or around Halloween, you could consider theming your business merch. The handouts for your event could be orange for example, it doesn’t have to be all witches and goblins, you can be subtle. Or make your giveaways themed, even if its just the sweets that you are giving out. You can make it more of a Trick or Treat idea, to get people to visit your Stand and start that conversation. The free gifts that you are giving out are intended to be promotional and may not directly lead to sales, but they can lead to some fun interaction with potential customers. That will be sure to keep your brand in customers minds, they’ll like you and we know people do business with people they like.
Collaboration with others
As a business, we should always be open for collaboration opportunities, especially during the holiday season. You could look for people in a similar field but maybe a more directly relevant niche for Halloween, then make them your friend for October. Run a competition together, create an offer that combines both of your businesses, or even run an event together. There is endless potential with collaborations and plenty of ideas
Social Media
Bear in mind what people are going to be searching for around this time and therefore the search terms what will be trending. Therefore, you may want to try and use that in your social media content too. Absolutely, if you are running any offers and giveaways, you will want to be promoting them on social media, and bear in mind what the relevant hashtags might be. Even if you are not a Halloween business, you can still show some behind the scenes video or pictures of you decorating the office for Halloween or your costume on the day. It’s all great content and a great way for your customer to get to know you.
Words and Slogans
Halloween always seems to be the season for a good pun, it’s the perfect occasion to bring that ‘punny’ side of your creative brain out. Do you see what I did there!? Halloween sales slogans with puns and humour will attract plenty of attention from your customers. These are just a few that our customers have used on the flyers, posters and promotional materials that they are using in their Halloween marketing and might give you a few ideas for yours. I take no responsibility for them, I didn’t come up with them, these are just the ones I liked the best.
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It’s the Halloween Shop. Trick or treat yourself
Halloween sale. No tricks just treats!
Savings Worth Screaming About
Halloween Sale – we’ll put a spell on you
The ( insert your service or product) is fang-tastic
No Tricks Only Treats
Fangs For Being My Client
Witching You The Happiest Halloween Ever
Orange You Glad We Are Friends (with a pumpkin)
We Are Having A Scary Good Sale Back In Black (with a black cat)
It doesn’t have to be complicated, it doesn’t need you to dress up in your best pointy hat or paint yourself green and it certainly doesn’t mean that it isn’t for you just because your business doesn’t sell costumes or pumpkins. Just give the idea a little thought, use the theme of Halloween in a way that suits your business and most important of all, have a bit of fun with it. And if you need some ideas for orange merch, I’m happy to help, just get in touch.
If you’d like to keep in touch and be the first to find out when we have a special offer or have a new product we want to show you, then you can sign up for The Merch Memo, which we send out 2 or 3 times a month. Just click the image above, sign up with your email details and I’ll look forward to keeping in touch.
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