Last-Minute Halloween Marketing Ideas to Boost Business

Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on seven major holidays in America. You might expect Christmas to be the number-one retail holiday, but did you know that Halloween is number two?! That’s right. This year alone, us crazy Americans are expected to spend $6.9 billion (with a “B”!) on Halloween costumes, candy and decorations. So with all that spending and celebrating going on, have you made Halloween part of your fall marketing mix?It’s not too late. But almost. At the beginning of the month, Erin offered 6 Halloween marketing ideas. If you didn’t take her advice then, here are 3 last-minute October marketing ideas to help you jump on the Halloween revenue train.

Zombies — Why the living dead are the IT thing right now is beyond me, but they are. If a phone company can use zombies to sell their wares, so can you. Get creative. Host a contest either in your store or online asking customers to “save” your product or service from the zombies. Have them submit videos or photos and invite the public to vote on their favorite. If you make your own product or service the prize, you can save money, but be sure that the prize is worth dressing up in a zombie costume and submitting a photo or video. The bonus of using a zombie theme is that while the theme relates to Halloween, zombies are so popular right now, you can use the customer-generated content well beyond October.

Fear — Because Halloween is all about being scary, you can use a well-known marketing tactic in a tongue-in-cheek way. Create posters, signs and direct mail postcards that play off the fears that bring customers to your company, but turn those fears into monsters or overstate the fear. If you’re a dentist, feature vampires on festive Halloween cards and offer a teeth whitening special. Be sure to decorate your office, store or website with webs and creepy crawlies to continue the theme when the customer comes to do business.

Monsters — Have a “monster of a sale,” advertising it through your customer newsletter, email blasts, direct mail, the local newspaper, even radio. Offer big pre-holiday discounts to get the early-bird shoppers in your store or online and spending money sooner rather than later. Take advantage of kids’ love for costumes and parents’ love of their kids and incorporate a costume contest as part of your monster sale. Parents that have spent money on a costume will love having a good reason for their kids to “officially” wear it somewhere other than trick-or-treating. If having all those kids running around your store or office sounds like too much, have parents submit pictures, just like they would for an online-only contest. Give prizes for the youngest, the oldest, the scariest costume, the funniest costume, the cutest costume — and let people vote in person or online. If you’re involved in social media, tweet, Instagram and post pics to Facebook to encourage more involvement. An event like this will likely earn you some good press, build good will, get more people in the door or online and encourage pre-holiday spending.

Execute on any of these three ideas or use them as inspiration to come up with your own Halloween promotions. But do it today, because you’re running out of time. Orders to 123Print.com on the 14th can be printed, delivered and then mailed out by you in time to encourage participation, but each day you wait, the harder it will be to do a good job of promoting your event.

What are your Halloween marketing plans? Do you have ideas that have worked for you in the past that you can share with other SMBs? Please comment below, tweet us, or drop us a note on our 123Print Facebook page.