How to Use Your Halloween Marketing to Power Winter Holiday Sales

by Sorilbran Stone, Content Marketing Team The Shelf

We get it - not every brand is super Halloween-y. Ours isn't. Even still, Halloween is a widely celebrated event that presents for brands and marketers of all kind a very distinct opportunity. Not to sell spooky stuff or fall decor, but to stay top-of-mind with consumers as we head into the winter holiday season.

Let's talk about a few ideas for parlaying Halloween into an opportunity to boost your brand’s visibility ahead of the holiday shopping season.

#1 Focus on brand lift, not conversions

We’re all pretty obsessed with grabbing conversions, I know. But if your brand isn’t specifically selling costumes, candy, or decor, your participation in Halloween can serve as a great way to boost your brand awareness for holiday sales.?

It’s worth noting that the beginning of October is the official start of the holiday spending season. In fact, by the end of October, more than half of holiday shoppers have already begun their holiday spending. And this was before Amazon threw an extra Prime Day into the mix.

People are keeping an eye out for good deals on holiday gifts while they’re combing the aisles for fake blood and giant talking skulls. So, even if you’re not running a big Halloween sale, you can incorporate content on your branded channels and social channels that will help increase your visibility and gain name recognition. This will give you the chance to roll your Halloween marketing right into your Thanksgiving marketing .

#2 Get your product listed in holiday gift guides

Halloween coincides with the open calls for products to include in Fall, Holiday, and New Year’s product guides, and there are all sorts. I’ve seen open calls on HARO inviting readers to recommend grooming products for rugby fans. That’s super-specific, right?

#RedRoss

There are gift guides for moms, working moms, working women, him, her, them, kids, toys, beauty products , apps, productivity boosters… all kinds of guides and product roundups smaller publications are requesting as? sourcing content for between August and October. Keep an eye out. for moms, working moms, working women, him, her, them, kids, toys,

#3 Get creative with your product and show people how to use it this Halloween

This one’s always fun. Because even if you do not have a Halloween-focused product, you can still get in on the fun.

Worried people aren’t going to pick up enough of your pipe cleaners? A lobster costume with ping pong balls for eyes, pipe cleaners (used to secure the eyes in the pic below), red plastic plates for the shell, and red plastic cups…

Want to push more paper towel? This guy literally walked around as a mascot, decked out in a plaid shirt and holding an actual roll of Brawny paper towel…

Loop your boba franchise into Halloween shenanigans with a bubble tea costume. I spy with my little eye a t-shirt dress, a paper towel roll painted pink, black pom poms and an actual milk tea in this pic…

How many feeds would your boba shop end up gracing if your team members were dressed as your most popular drinks for Halloween?

#4 Work with creators to run creator marketing campaigns

You can partner with social media influencers to build really engaging campaigns that can run on social. Or you may choose to simply focus on creating content (and even going for a UGC campaign) around Halloween-related topics just to get eyes on your brand.? Last year there were over 103 million Tweets about Halloween globally, according to Twitter.

#5 Create or participate in a local event

You may also consider partnering with nano- and micro-influencers in your niche or even in your city to create community-focused events. Take plenty of pics that you can post online across your branded channels.

These could be your online community or your physical community. But you will partner with influencers and Halloween influencers (for all you Gen Xers out there who remember Elvira… that’s one Halloween influencer who’s been booked for Halloween for the last 30 years, right?).

Friendly contests with small cash prizes or really cool freebies would be a good way to boost your visibility when you’re looping in a little Halloween influencer marketing.

Last year, in addition to hashtags like #Giveaway and #Contest the top Halloween-related hashtags used on Twitter included:

• #Halloween
• #Halloween2021
• #HappyHalloween
• #TrickOrTreat

So, even as you’re running live community events, remember that these moments are perfect to repost online. I would also recommend setting up events that can run spectacularly online like most ghoulish Halloween makeup ideas, or best Halloween costume ideas or Halloween DIY families had the most fun doing.

Conclusion

With a little bit of planning and some Pinterest-fueled inspo, any brand can find ways to generate more awareness this Halloween. For instance, post-pandemic festivities at Kroger? Stores have included drive-up trick-or-treating for its shoppers in lieu of their regular in-store kids’ activities.

In previous years, the midwest grocery chain has hosted in-store trick-or-treating and game areas that allowed kids to win treats. Store locations have done things like put bouncy houses in the parking lots for kids and set up Halloween decorations outside the store.

Just goes to show that you don’t have to do anything extravagant. There are tons of doable ideas you can do that won’t suck up too much of your team’s time and resources.?

Check out these Halloween marketing ideas for local small businesses for a little inspo.

Hey, really quick…

Despite the fact that consumers are shopping super early this year, there’s still time to put together a phenomenal holiday influencer marketing campaign. So, if you have the go-ahead from the higher-ups to run a recession-proof marketing campaign, our team has partnered 100s of companies with 1000s of creators. And no matter how chaotic things get, we always hit guaranteed KPIs.

Talk to one of our super fancy, super smart humans.