How to Spookify Your Business (and Boost Your Sales) This Halloween

By Susan Payton, Small Business Content Developer at BizLaunch.com

Most businesses set their sights on Christmas as the holiday where they really roll out the red carpet for customers. But Halloween—just around the corner—is also a fantastic opportunity to connect with your customers. So get in the spirit of the season and try out these tips.

1. Decorate Your Store

Halloween decor can go a long way to warming the hearts of your customers. Whether you take a whimsical approach and blanket your store with skeletons and spiderwebs or simply place a few understated pumpkins throughout your store, you’re showing customers that fun is part of your company culture.

2. Offer Halloween Specials

Even if you don’t sell items directly related to Halloween, like costumes and candy, you can leverage the holiday by offering sales with Halloween themes. You could create gift baskets of your items with fall accents or stock items that are reminiscent of the holiday, like pumpkin-flavored beverages, if you run a coffee shop.

3. Start Black Friday Early

Halloween is the entryway into the winter holiday season, and while Black Friday has come to symbolize the official start of shopping for Christmas, people may be more willing to start spending earlier. A surprising 40% of shoppers begin their holiday shopping before Halloween, so capitalize on these early birds by offering discounts on the products you want to push for Christmas.

4. Send a Spooky Newsletter

Your Halloween efforts aren’t restricted to offline tactics. Insert images of spiders and ghosts in your monthly newsletter, and theme your content around the holiday, such as including “10 Spooky Statistics on Small Business Software.”

5. Hold a Halloween Event

This is especially good if your business caters to children or parents. Host a pumpkin carving event, pass out candy, and celebrate the holiday with your current and soon-to-be customers. Promote the event in-store and through social and email. Don’t forget to give attendees a reason to come back! Give everyone a goody bag with samples of your product, as well as a coupon for their next visit.

6. Theme Your Blog Content

If your blog has gotten dusty and dry, adding a spark of creativity at Halloween is the ticket to reinvigorating your readers. Use that same concept of Halloween-themed content, and remember to include Halloween words in your title to attract more readers. Some words to consider:

• 
  

  Spooky

  
  


• 
  

  Ghoulish

  
  


• 
  

  Ghost

  
  


• 
  

  Haunted

  
  


• 
  

  Frightening

  
  

Carry the fun theme through to your staff and encourage them to dress up while at work. A spider on top of your sales associate’s head is a great conversation-starter! You’ll likely find that your employees relax a little if you encourage them to be festive for the holiday.

8. Hold a Halloween-Themed Contest

You can also engage your audience through a contest, such as a pumpkin carving or costume contest. Tie it in with your event to attract more attendees, and make sure there’s a worthy prize for the winner.

You can hold your contest online if you’re not a brick-and-mortar business. Maybe you encourage your social media followers to submit their funny pet costume photos and you choose a winner. Either way, you’re getting your audience to interact with your brand in a positive way.

Halloween is a great holiday to amp up your marketing and inject some fun into your company!

Image: PhotoSpin