4 spine-chilling Halloween marketing ideas for retail businesses
Businesses everywhere are gearing up for Halloween, one of the busiest shopping seasons of the year. So hang up your cobwebs, take your skeletons out of the closet, and ready your pumpkins. It’s time to promote your small business for the spooky season.
Halloween offers a great opportunity for you to show your audience who you are as a business. It allows you to show your fun and creative side, all while making tons of sales.
Research shows that about 40% of people complete their Halloween shopping before the end of October. Therefore, this is the perfect time for you to start your promotions.
In this blog post, we’ve compiled some of the spookiest promotional strategies that’ll have customers lining up outside your store. Let’s take a look!
1. Announce your sale with some ghastly flyers
Reach out to the people in your locale. Let them know you’ve got a huge spooky season sale and that they should take advantage of it. Make sure your flyers are big and bright, and details about your sale are front and center.
If you don’t have the budget to hire a graphic designer to make your flyers, don’t worry. Sites like PosterMyWall have a range of spooky Halloween flyer templates that you can customize and print out in minutes.
It’s always best to make a schedule for flyer distribution. Pick times when people are out the most. For example, hand out some flyers in the park during the evening when people are out with their families, or in the early morning hours when people are out for a run.
You should also consider doing a door-to-door flyer drop. Alternatively, you can place flyers in mailboxes or stick them in front doors. Finally, hand out flyers outside movie theatres and grocery stores.
2. Sell special Halloween gift cards
Put a stack of special gift cards at your store’s checkout station. People can buy these for their friends and loved ones. This will directly drive more traffic to your store for Halloween, as new customers will come in to redeem their gift cards.
You should also take steps to incentivize people to buy your gift cards. For instance, let them know that if they use the gift card online, they’ll be eligible for free shipping and special discounts.
This way, you’ll be able to drive more traffic to your website as well.
3. Make a Halloween-themed window display
Your storefront window is the first thing anyone sees when they pass by your store. Therefore, it’s the perfect way to lure customers inside. The spookier your window display is, the greater the chances of people coming in to check out your store.
Creating a bone-chilling window display doesn’t have to be a daunting task. First, figure out a theme based on the products you sell. For instance, if you run a bookstore, place all your horror novels behind the window.
Next, start decorating. Put up some orange fairy lights across the window. Hang up some fake cobwebs. Maybe place a skeleton or two in the corner, overlooking your products. If you’re feeling extra funky, put some clothes on the skeletons. This is an especially good idea if you run a clothing store. Who doesn’t love a skeleton mannequin? 
4. Run a hair-raising social media campaign
You can run an incredible promotional campaign on social media at practically no cost. Plus, you’ll be able to reach tons of new people and raise awareness about your store.
So this Halloween, take advantage of social media. Here are some easy and fun social media strategies that’ll get people talking about your store:
Run a Halloween bingo
Create a fun little graphic outlining everything people can do for the days leading up to Halloween. For instance, choose a horror movie of the day, a treat to make, or a DIY costume for a Halloween party. Dedicate one day to shopping at your store and offer a promo code as incentive. As people share the bingo on their pages, your promo code will gain more and more traction.
Host a costume contest
According to research, user-generated content (UGC) is 42% more popular with consumers than branded content. So get your audience involved. Create a special Halloween hashtag, for example “#SpookySeasonWith___” or “#AGhoulishHalloween”. Ask people to put up pictures of themselves in Halloween costumes using the hashtag. Then pick your favorites and share them on your page. Give the people with the best costumes a 10% off coupon.
Share your own Halloween content
Keep engagement high so that people can see all your Halloween promotions. Accompany your posts about sales and discounts with other interesting Halloween-related content, for instance, a post about a must-watch scary movie or a recipe for a Halloween treat.
