Halloween Marketing Tricks That Will Give You a Treat

Consumers are not the only ones who can receive treats at Halloween. Whatever your business, you can use tricks to deliver your message to a wider audience and increase sales.

1. Share the Halloween Spirit

If you sell costumes, candy, or decorations, Halloween is easy. However, the majority of businesses provide products and services that are not obviously suited to the holiday. Still, you can always make it work for you — you just need to market your offerings with a twist on the Halloween theme. This will show your audience that you share their excitement for the holiday, helping them feel a closer connection to your business and increasing the chances that they want to purchase from you.

2. Change Your Landing Pages

Another way to demonstrate that you are enthusiastic about the holiday is to change your landing pages and other parts of your website to include a Halloween message. This may involve adapting the wording of your CTAs, adding an image, or otherwise changing the design in some way.

Remember, you will need to test every change to your landing pages to ensure they continue performing well. Use A/B testing just as you normally would to maximize conversions.

3. Target the Biggest Spenders

If your target audience includes Millennials, you’re in luck. Millennials spend the most at Halloween — an average of $87 compared to just $74 for the total population, according to DataInformed. As Millennials often turn to social media for inspiration and promotions, make sure that you are particularly active this time of year with fresh content and ads.

Even if a large proportion of your audience is in an age group other than Millennials, you can still use Halloween to your advantage. Reach target users wherever they are by posting to social media on the right day of the week and time of day to maximize views. Retarget through email and mobile when leads are most likely to be ready to buy.

4. Post Previous Customer Reviews

If you have a customer review that mentions any Halloween effort you did in the past, now is the perfect time to bring it out. Share to social media for social proof that your business rocks at Halloween.

5. Offer Halloween Advice

Demonstrate how you are a part of your community by creating local content supplying advice to your audience. For instance, you could make a list of the best spots to celebrate, of where to purchase supplies, or about other ways to get the most out of the holiday. This is an ideal opportunity to promote other local businesses — you may be able to work out a plan for them to return the favor in the future.

6. Upload Pictures of Your Staff

Whether you have a store or you work in an office, as long as you have a physical location, you can take photos of your staff celebrating Halloween. Decorate the workplace and ask everyone to come into work in costume at least one day. Use photos to give a personal touch to your business and allow prospects to see you as real people.

7. Create Halloween Promotions

Send all the users on your email lists Halloween-themed promotions. Bear in mind that customers are more likely to be out and about on the weekend before Halloween, visiting haunted attractions and attending parties. Take advantage of this opportunity to encourage them to visit your business.

8. Hold a Contest

Drive engagement on social media by inviting your followers to participate in a Halloween contest. Ideas include pumpkin carving, home decorating, and costume creating. If possible, make the contest tie back to your business somehow. For instance, a requirement could be to use one of your products or match the theme of your company. Make the prize a popular product or service.

9. Hide Jack O’Lanterns on Your Website

Encourage users to view more pages of your website by hiding jack-o’-lanterns or another Halloween symbol around the site. Make the icons clickable and offer a freebie, discount, or promotion — either for anyone who finds them all or just for the user who discovers the most.

10. Continue After Halloween

In the days following Halloween, use your marketing to target those recovering from the holiday. For example, offer a detox from candy, relaxation after the scares, or remind customers there is still fun to be had.

11. Use Offline Conversion Tracking

Throughout the Halloween season, you need to track how your campaigns result in sales or fails. This will provide you with key information to improve your efforts in the future. Offline conversion tracking allows you to see when a lead intended to buy but didn’t. A top way to track offline conversions is with mobile coupons. These require leads to request a coupon before you email it to them. Then, they must show the coupon on their phone before making a purchase in your store.

Any business can use Halloween tricks to bring treats like improved visibility, conversions, and sales. Start early — Halloween is already on consumers’ minds.