Get Monstrous Profits with Spooktacular Halloween Promotions

Winback Team on Oct 8, 2021 10:09:05 AM

Halloween is just around the corner! Are you ready to get monstrous profits, or are you expecting your sales to feel like a ghost town? If you feel like you’re heading for a slump, then it’s time to plan for a spooktacular Halloween promotion for your eCommerce store.

Many businesses choose to only make extra marketing efforts during Thanksgiving and the holidays that come after. If you’re one of such business owners, then you’re missing out on sales and marketing opportunities!

Halloween is a time for people to have fun and enjoy themselves in a scary atmosphere. But, it’s not just all about spreading fear in the air or trick or treating; it’s an excellent time for businesses to make some money! You can tap into your creativity and go wild with marketing ideas.

The spooky season is just around the corner, and if your online shop isn’t ready for it, you’re doing something wrong. The best time to prepare for your Halloween deals is actually at least two weeks before the holiday.

With different people moving to online shopping this time of year, some marketing strategies can help you get more sales. This article will cover various marketing strategies that online shops can use to get more sales during Halloween.

What’s So Special About Halloween?

Halloween is all about costumes and spooky atmospheres that give people chills. It’s a great opportunity for gifts, costumes, and party favor businesses.

But, what if you don’t deal with scary decorations or scary costumes? What if your products are so unrelated to this holiday? Would it mean that you can’t run a promotion? Would Halloween be a holiday you should care about?

The answer is simple: your business can still celebrate and promote on this holiday.

Let’s look at the Stats

Halloween is the fourth most profitable annual holiday for marketers. Every year, millions of Americans spend billions on Halloween while looking for various activities to celebrate the season with their loved ones.

If you make your products relevant to the season, you can still transform a lot of shoppers into paying customers.

New trends happen every day, ranging from the trends important to culture to the perky trends. However, Halloween is both important and perky to marketers looking to take advantage of the annual holiday.

According to the National Retail Federation, there might be an increase in Halloween spending this year. It’s predicted to reach approximately $10.1 billion since people want to make up for the “lost” year due to the pandemic! That’s a record-breaking chance you don’t want to miss.

Additionally, a huge chunk of spending would come from Americans, with millennials taking the lead. It seems like Halloween is a favorite for these millennials.

It’s All About the Angle, Baby!

It’s not compulsory to promote things directly related to Halloween, like candy, costumes, and horror stuff.

Creating a successful Halloween campaign can simply involve creating great content around the season or making your existing products blend in with the holidays.

Tricks like this can result in an increase in brand interest and an uptick in sales. After all, people are always searching for seasonal entertainment and inspiration. From Halloween contests to seasonal giveaways, nothing goes past these millennials. So, creating an engaging seasonal campaign will also lead to a burst in social media engagements.

But don’t go too deep in the festive mood and forget your goals. Always ensure that your campaigns connect to the services or products you offer.

For instance, an email campaign with a Halloween theme should have a spooky subject that gives it the Halloween feel. But, at the same time, it must serve as a CTA.

Remember that pumpkin emoji you’ve never used? Now’s the time to test it. Just ensure you keep your content relevant.

Halloween Tactics Any Business Can Use

Now that you know the importance of Halloween, the next question you should ask yourself is; what Halloween promotions can I use in my store? Here are some ideas:

Add a Halloween Theme to Your Website

Standing out from the competition and attracting people to your store is not so easy. But, with the right idea and a little bit of creativity, you can be at the top of your game.

It helps when you re-design your website for special occasions, such as adding Halloween-related elements to your homepage and product pages to increase your customers’ excitement.

Of course, you don’t have to change your entire website; all you need to do is adjust a few things in order to give the impression that you are celebrating Halloween together with them.

Adding ghost, pumpkin, and bat icons, images, and banners can work. Using unique horror fonts temporarily can also help. There are tons of free fonts available online that you can download, which you can find with a simple Google search.

To use your custom font in Shopify and if you have a bit of coding skills, you can install new fonts to your theme.

If you don’t want to touch your online store’s code, you can use font-changing Shopify apps; one such as Fontify.

Offer Halloween-related Freebies

Everyone offers some sort of discount on special holidays. It has become something so normal that customers know that all stores will be offering discounts every single holiday. However, you can use the power of free marketing to make your brand different.

First, think of what most people search for before Halloween and different ideas to help them surprise their friends and families. Now with your prepared information, make some Halloween-themed items for free. Your customers can give them out as gifts or can keep them for themselves as keepsakes.

Make sure your freebie is relevant and good enough to serve as a fun gift. You can display the free items on your homepage to secure the customer’s attention.

To make this freebie be worth the cost, you can set some minimum requirements for the customer to receive it. Some examples of requirements are as follows:

• set a minimum purchase price;
• purchase a package item;
• set a combination of items (upselling and cross-selling); (buy this and this to get that)

To make it more effective, make sure the freebie offer appears right before the checkout so the user won’t forget it. Also, if you can add a quick view of how much more the customer needs to add to his cart to get the freebie, that would be even better. There are Shopify apps for that, too.

Or if the freebie is really low-cost, like Trick-or-Treat candies, then anyone can get some as long as they purchase. What’s a couple of dollars worth of candies to get new customers to purchase from you? This can even be one of your cheapest customer acquisition techniques.

Send Halloween Gift Cards and Reminders

You can promote Halloween sales on your website by sending gift cards to your customers. So, if you’re planning on running special Halloween promotions, it would be best to make sure your customers know (at least two to three weeks earlier) you’re having special deals and fun promotions for them on Halloween.

So, before Halloween, send a special gift card to your customers when they complete a purchase. The gift cards could include notifications on free shipping, actual freebies, or even discounts.

Remember to note that the gift card would become valid whenever you wish to run your special promotions, like on the week of Halloween. You can attach your gift cards to the package to be delivered. Or, you can send the electronic version through the receipts.

By offering various gift cards with different discounts or monetary values, you can make customers come back for more.

Tip: if you have a tight budget or can’t hire a designer, don’t worry. You can always design your gift cards using Canva.

Gift cards can be sent together with physical orders, or they can be sent through email so that even those who haven’t purchased for a while will get a chance to take part.

Stock-up on Halloween Items

Candies, costumes, and decorative items are the rave of Halloween. People are always looking to buy one or more of these things. However, that doesn’t make other items less desirable.

But, you’ll need products that complement the season so you can meet the demands of your prospective customers.

Luckily, no matter what sells, there are various ways to give your brand the Halloween feel (with some creativity). Here’s what you should do:

• If your brand deals with clothing, you can add shirts with a Halloween theme, such as ghosts, carved pumpkin, Frankenstein, or more. Also, you add some Halloween exclusive deals like masks or some accessories like a vampire’s teeth.
• If your brand deals with electronics, you can bring Halloween to your business by offering items with Halloween themes, like a keyboard with blood and spiders painted on its body.

• Even grocery stores can benefit from this. If you run a grocery store online, you promote pumpkins at a more attractive price.

• Online bakeries can open up their custom orders to give people spooky-looking cakes!

The main goal is to give customers a reason to purchase in your store during Halloween sales. Once you achieve that, they might browse through the other available items that are not Halloween-related.

Run a Contest

For some added excitement, have a contest where you ask people to decorate their pumpkins with costumes or items from your store – then give out prizes for winning pumpkins.

Or ask them to use any product from your store to decorate their homes. The best ones can win a prize, either in cash or in-kind (gift certificates or products from your store). Not only will you engage with your customers, but you can also even encourage them to buy from you!

Finally, you can even run a typical contest that anyone can join as long as they post a photo. People are social animals and like sharing photos of themselves with their peers, eventually sharing your business as well if they join the contest! It’s a win-win.

Here’s a great example of a business running a Halloween contest:

You’re wearing costumes anyway, why not win something out of it, right?

Engage With Your Customers Regarding the Holiday

Sometimes, you don’t even have to provide freebies or discounts—all you have to do is to convince your customers that you are as excited as them for the coming holidays.

In the age of social media, interacting with long-distance customers can be as easy as a pie. A simple post asking your followers how they plan on dressing up for Halloween or how their homes look like, asking them to share photos, can be a big deal!

You can also do this on your website. This way, it seems like they are not just visiting a regular online store, but one that is celebrating the holiday with them.

How to Advertise your Halloween Promotions

Now that you have an idea of what you can possibly do to promote even non-Halloween-related businesses, the next step is to learn where to begin. Here are some guidelines that you can follow.

Start Early

October 31st and November 1st must be the culmination of the promotion.

Leading up to October 31st, make sure you constantly remind everyone about any upcoming sales or contests related to Halloween. Start promoting at least 2 weeks before the actual day so it doesn’t seem like you’re last minute with everything. Keep promoting until the end of November 1st!

Promote in Various Platforms

Don’t just focus on one aspect (like your website), you must promote on all platforms that you have for your business. This includes the following:

• Social Media Campaigns

Social media has proven to be one of the busiest marketing arenas during holidays, and Halloween is no exception. People are always looking through their devices to see what’s new or check if anything catches their interest. So, why not take advantage of this.

Social media campaigns are one of the sure ways to make sure you get your promotions across to the right audience. You won’t only be getting more visibility but also more sales and recognition (if you do it right).

Here’s the best part: making a great social media campaign is not that difficult. You just need the right words and visuals, and you’ve got yourself an attention-grabbing advertisement.

You can do Halloween-themed giveaways or make your offers sound spooky. You can even host a sort of contest. The choice is yours. Here are some examples of social media promotions on Halloween:

Asda

A closer look at this ad from Asda shows a great use of Halloween puns, awesome Halloween illustrations, and lots of Halloween-related hashtags. That’s a great way to advertise your Halloween promotions on Instagram.

Dunkin

This promotion from Dunkin uses a contest directly related to their products to advertise their Halloween promotions. As I mentioned earlier, hosting contests on social media is another way to increase your brand’s recognition and increase sales on special holidays.

• SMS Marketing Campaigns

Social media campaigns are not the only way you can get a lot of sales on special holidays; SMS marketing campaigns can also get the job done. Just as many people go online to look for the perfect gifts or decorations, there’ll also be a lot of customers shopping for treats or planning to host a Halloween party. You can always reach such customers through SMS messages.

With SMS marketing, you have unlimited opportunities to reach out to your target customers. With a well-planned campaign, you can notify all your customers about all your Halloween events, which can include products, sales, promotions, and event launches.

Plus, it’s cheap and convenient. You can do this easily with the click of a button. However, some creativity is needed to make an effective SMS.

Tip: Be fun and casual in your tone of voice and add images if you can.

Template 1

Boo! {First name}, Grab your treats at {Business name} with a 40% discount! Or book any 2 offers and get a third one free! Valid until Nov 1st only. Visit {link}. Text STOP to unsubscribe.

Template 2

{Business name}: Get scary with our Spooktacular {first offer} and scream-tastic {second offer} for only {discount}! Sale starts when the clock strikes midnight on Oct 30th. Click the link to view the Spookysale {link}. Text STOP to unsubscribe.

If you haven’t used SMS marketing before, now is the best time to sign-up for our 14-day free trial. You’ll have enough time to test the functionality and start your Halloween SM campaigns right before the holiday starts.

WinBack is an easy-to-use SMS marketing app that you can quickly integrate into your Shopify store. You can even start your campaigns immediately after installation.

• Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing campaigns offer you a more targeted approach to advertising your Halloween promotions since you’ll be sending catalogs to your targeted mailing list.

You can use this medium to show your best decorations, costumes, and other products. But, if you don’t have Halloween products, you can showcase your holiday deals, offer time-limited coupons, and even do giveaways.

However, to drive sales, each email you send needs a perfect subject, good content, and an unambiguous call-to-action to help achieve the goal of your campaign.

Also, make sure each of your customers receives personalized emails that relate to their interests and needs. Sending the right emails to the wrong people won’t get you far.

Here are two examples of Halloween email marketing ideas to help get you started.

Postable

Here’s an example of a good Halloween email with a great subject, clear content, and specific CTA. It’s complete with a spooky yet funny image of a man dancing in a graveyard. The overall color scheme is also Halloween-related.

Lending Tree

Here’s another example of a brand that blends in with the holidays, even if their offer is totally unrelated to what’s being celebrated.

From the image, you already have an idea of what the email is promoting (loans). It’s the clarity of the message and the creativity to make the offer somehow relate to the season is the reason why this email promotion works.

• Display Ads Campaigns (Banner Ads)

We’ve talked about social media, SMS, and emails, but there are also customers browsing other parts of the internet, specifically those who have not yet followed your social media pages or have not yet subscribed to any of your SMS or email newsletters.

You can reach such customers through display ads. Display ads can help you advertise your Halloween promotions to customers browsing various websites, checking their mail, watching YouTube, and even using mobile apps. You can reach up to 90% of internet users globally on different websites, blogs, and news pages.

However, just like the other methods, you need to be creative with your ads. A poorly designed ad will be glossed over without second thoughts. You need to effectively grab the people’s attention and turn them from a simple viewer to a customer.

Here’s an example of a perfect Halloween display ad:

You can create simple banner ads like these through Canva. They even have Halloween templates for you to choose from; all you have to do is personalize the content of the banner ad to match your store and your promotion.

• Viral Campaigns

Whether it’s written content, a viral video, or a viral social media post, you can use this holiday to ramp up brand awareness. Even if there is nothing scary about your business, your creativity is the limit as to how you can promote your brand for Halloween. As I mentioned before, it’s all about the angle, baby!

Take for example this awesome viral campaign by Burger King. You can agree with me that there is nothing spooky or Halloween-y with a fast-food burger chain, but this video can make you think otherwise.

They offered a free Whopper to the first 500 people who would visit any of their branches as a scary clown (of course, in homage to their rival, McDonald’s). This campaign exploded so much that people shared personal pictures and videos of themselves dressed as freakish clowns, all the while using the branded hashtag #ScaryClownNight.

Up until today, it’s one of the best viral campaigns we’ve seen.

• Your Own Website

Make sure everything is clearly visible in your store. Put up sale signs, change your website theme to orange, black, and white (the Halloween colors), put Halloween-related things in the background of pictures you post online…whatever it takes to remind people what day it is!

Of course, don’t forget your Halloween deals and other promotions. Make sure you mention them all—make a huge deal about your discounts! You can do this by adding a banner on your Halloween deals on the homepage, or you can use pop-ups.

Instructables.com nailed this one with a great layout, perfect photos of different Halloween DIY costumes and projects, and best of all, the big pumpkin head in the background. It’s a great example of a Halloween-themed website.

Halloween is not just for children who want to go trick or treating or people who want to spread fear. It’s a holiday that gives people the chance to be creative and for business owners to make profits.

The spooky season is close by, so if your store is still unprepared, then you’re not doing something right. Many people would be shopping online, so employ these marketing strategies to help boost your sales.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin, we suggest going for the simplest and most cost-effective strategy: via SMS marketing. Get your hands on our 14-day free trial and watch your Halloween profits surge!