29 Oct Six Spook-tacular Marketing Tips for Halloween
Get ready for a fright; Halloween is now the UK’s third biggest retail event of the year, after Christmas and Easter, with spending on this spook-tacular holiday almost doubling in five years, from £230 million in 2013 to £419 million in 2018! This newly-acquired enthusiasm for all things ghoulish and ghastly means Halloween is less of a nightmare and more of a dream come true, for businesses savvy enough to cast some serious marketing magic.
We’ve shared six spook-tacular Halloween marketing tips to help make your Halloween campaigns creep-tastic.
Halloween Marketing Tip #1: Make your branding boo-tiful
Our first Halloween marketing tip is one of the simplest ways to get into the spirit – pun entirely intended – of Halloween; just tweak your branding to make it ‘boo’-tiful. Changing the elements on your social media platforms is easy yet effective – drape some cobwebs over your logo, play around with creepy cover photos on Facebook and Twitter, or even change your brand colours to the reflect a Halloween colour palette. It’s an easy way for businesses to get involved with minimal commitment, whilst still showing your customers that you’re engaging with Halloween.
Halloween Marketing Tip #2: Creepy content
Conjuring up creepy content to capture the attention of your customers is a no-brainer for Halloween. For some businesses, the link between Halloween and their products/services is a breeze; kitchen suppliers can share their favourite Halloween recipes and craft shops can create DIY Halloween decoration tutorials with products from their shelves.
For other companies, making the connection between Halloween and their business requires a little more wit and creativity. But stranger things have happened. For example, if you think that Halloween has nothing to do with business consultancy, think again! Using some out-the-box thinking, Oliver Wight EAME – one of our clients – has published a blog on how to tackle the nightmare of a Halloween supply chain. It ticks all the blogging boxes; it offers advice, it’s relevant to their target audience, it’s topical and it gives Oliver Wight EAME a professionally playful edge over similar firms.
Halloween Marketing Tip #3: Themed email marketing campaign
If you have an excuse to get in touch with your customers, use it. Even your best customers could do with a friendly reminder of your services and a themed email newsletter is a fang-tastic way to capture their attention. Email newsletters are especially useful for service-related businesses, as they boost brand awareness and are a brilliant outlet for sharing tips and advice. Just a few minor modifications to the designs can help to make your newsletter memorable and scare up some business.
Halloween Marketing Tip #4: Limited edition products
Businesses with products to sell have an opportunity to get creepily creative! If you’re selling food and drink, Halloween is an absolute scream, as themed treats are always a winning combination – after all, a ghoul’s gotta eat! Take cues from high-street stalwart, M&S, who put a spooky spin on their classic confectionary by transforming ‘Percy Pigs’ into ‘Percy Pumpkins’, and Colin the Caterpillar into Dracula! One of our clients, SE Twenty Coffee House & Kitchen, has introduced Halloween themed cocktails for the week this year, as well as a Pumpkin Spice Latte (which can be spiked with rum…)!
Halloween Marketing Tip #5: Slay social media
Social media is a powerful tool in a marketer’s arsenal, especially when it comes to raising brand awareness and self-promotion. If you just want to increase your business’ profile, a couple of clever posts centred around Halloween with the right hashtags is all you need to get noticed – office pumpkin-carving competition, anyone? Social media is also a great platform for User Generated Content (UGC), which is a win-win for all involved – you get content whilst engaging with your customers at the same time, building trust with your target audience.
Halloween Marketing Tip #6: Get the timing right
When it comes to launching your Halloween – or any – campaign, timing is everything and it depends on the type of business you own and the results you want to achieve. Promote too early and people might lose interest, but promote too late and your competitors might have already pinched your customers!
Businesses selling Halloween merchandise – like costumes and decorations – need to be on shoppers’ radars when consumers begin to don their ‘Party Planner’ hats, around the tail-end of September and beginning of October. Service-orientated organisations can leave it much later, waiting until a couple of weeks prior, or the week of Halloween to give themselves a scary makeover or to launch Halloween promotions.
If you’re spooked by the thought of brewing up a Halloween marketing campaign, look no further. Get in touch with us to find out how to make marketing an absolute scream.
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