Whether you embrace the season as a pumpkin hoarder and keen trick or treater, or you turn off all the lights and hide behind the curtains… the time has come to plan ahead and prepare your spooky marketing campaign for Halloween.
While Halloween always reliably falls on the 31st of October, celebrations seem to get bigger and better each year – with retailers stocking seasonal items earlier and UK consumers spending more, rising from around £474m in 2019 to well over £1 billion in 2023. In fact, Halloween has morphed into one of the UK’s largest retail events, rivalling Christmas and Easter in both consumer engagement and spending impact.
Which is exactly why you need to get in on the action.
To get you started, we’ve put together our expert guidance to help you create a spooktacular marketing strategy designed to maximise your sales in the lead-up to this frightfully lucrative day.
Plan your Halloween marketing strategy
Before you even think about launching your Halloween marketing campaign ideas, you need to put together a strategy to help plan effectively.
We always recommend that the first task should be putting together a content and activity calendar to keep track of what’s happening across all available channels, ensuring you deliver a targeted marketing campaign.
Ad-hoc marketing without any forward planning is more challenging to manage and can have a negative impact on your results. You also risk confusing your messaging and therefore confusing your target audience.
Having a marketing calendar of activities will always help when drafting social posts, emails, and any off-line activity you have planned – steering your direction and acting as an anchor to pull everything together.
Spooktastic Halloween marketing campaign ideas
Once your marketing plan is in place, it’s time to start bringing your ideas to life.
So, what makes a Halloween campaign deliver results?
We believe the key to success is consistency in your messaging, always remembering to link your marketing to the products or services you are selling.
Campaigns that work well encourage engagement and give you the opportunity to reach both new and existing customers. They also present an opportunity to gather customer data to build into your contacts database.
Running a Halloween-themed competition is probably the most obvious way of creating engagement.
But remember, our biggest piece of advice would be to KEEP IT SIMPLE. Your audience has a short attention span and are unlikely to go to lots of effort to win prizes. Instead, focus on the data collection element, linking this to your competition and any follow-up marketing you may send to them.
Another idea is to consider your in-store or online displays and advertising. Think about any special offers or promotions you want to put on in the weeks leading up to Halloween – especially specific themed products and bundles you might want to offer. These can then be cleverly promoted across your marketing channels by way of a Halloween ‘must have’ list.
Nail your Halloween email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to communicate with your customers as part of your Halloween campaign.
But first off – ask for permission from your email list. It’s important to remember that Halloween isn’t something that everyone celebrates, whether by personal choice, religious beliefs, or otherwise.
Before you embark on your email campaign, ask the contacts on your database if they want to receive emails around Halloween promotions. If they don’t, they can tell you, which boosts trust and brand loyalty with your customers as it shows you wish to act in their best interests.
Once you’ve established who’d be happy to hear from you, it’s time to create your email marketing campaign.
Our top tips for success are to focus on:
- Your subject line.
The most important part of your email. This is the key to whether a reader opens your email or simply ignores it. A strong email subject pulls on something within your audience that means they just have to open and read on. Try some of the following techniques to nail your subject line:
- Drive fear of missing out
- Invoke curiosity
- Be funny
- Use a pain point
- Visual impact.
Once you’ve got your reader to open your email, you need to make it visually appealing. Ensure every email is on-brand and in line with your campaign to make it recognisable. Did you know that before we even look at the content of an email, we are drawn in by images? That’s why the more eye-catching they are, the better.
- Ideas and tips for a spooktacular Halloween.
Give something back to your contacts. Whether it’s scary recommendations, how-tos, or tutorials, sharing value in your emails will mean they stay engaged for longer. Plus, you can weave your own products or services into the suggestions to make them more authentic and less ‘salesy’.
- The call to action.
What do you want your reader to do next? Consider what your ideal next step would be once they’ve read your email – order a product, call to book, download a guide? Whatever it is, make sure the call to action is visible, eye-catching, and easy to follow.
Get terrifyingly good at Halloween social media content
Using your social media channels are the most direct and effective way of communicating with your audience. They’re also the best way to attract potential customers – with views now even more important than followers.
Use these accounts to reinforce your Halloween marketing campaign and ensure your posts are promoting and mirroring your wider campaign activity. For example, if you’re running a competition, make sure your social media content promotes it, reminding followers to enter.
If you’re planning something more interactive, share or repost your community’s videos and posts. You can also create bespoke hashtags and encourage your followers to share content using the hashtags you’ve created.
Top tip! We recommend creating a social media content calendar that sits alongside your campaign calendar, mirroring the activity. This gives your campaign a consistent feel which is really important.
Creating a Halloween social media content calendar
Bringing together your overall Halloween marketing plan and your social media content calendar doesn’t have to give you the heebie-jeebies.
We recommend taking some time at the start of your strategy to create the entire content calendar, setting out where, when, and what you’ll post for the duration of the campaign. Although this can be challenging, not to mention time-consuming, we are convinced that the preparation beforehand is worth it in the long run.
However, although we recommend that your social content should be made in line with your campaign activity, we’d suggest getting creative. The amazing thing about social media is that your posts don’t always have to be an obvious hard sell. In fact, a blend of targeted campaign content and more creative general messaging works really well.
Post a Halloween meme, film a ‘behind-the-scenes’, jump on a trend, or interact with other channels… always remembering to keep it on-brand and relevant to your business. Plus, countdowns work well and are great as a reminder to get organised and ready for the big day.
Top tips to remember when creating social media content
If socials aren’t your strong point, we’ve got you covered. Some key points to remember are:
- Always opt for video-first – filming might not be your area of comfort, but video is the content that dominates the main social media channels like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Not sure where to start? Find out how to nail your social media videos here.
- Create a range of content – social media post ideas for businesses don’t have to be boring or salesy. From Q&A’s and testimonials to polls and pain points, there are plenty of creative ways to bring your content to life.
- Post across your channels – if you use more than one social media account, make sure you post on them all. It broadens your messaging to more followers and keeps you consistent to all audiences.
- Optimise for SEO – yep, you now have to think of SEO when posting on your social channels. Include relevant keywords in your video, on your captions, and within the body of your copy. Where possible, you can also still use relevant hashtags and encourage your followers to post using them. Depending on your goals some of these might help… #halloweenfood #halloweenlover #halloweenlife #spookyseason
- Keep your tone consistent – while we encourage fun and exploration with social media, it’s important to make sure you are always brand aware. When posting and sharing content, ensure it matches your tone of voice and that it somehow sits within your specific Halloween campaign so it’s easily recognisable as your own content.
Do you struggle to create engaging content on your social media platforms?
Are you unsure how to use awareness days to boost your profile?
Do your competitors share inspiring content, and do you wish you had time to do the same?
Is your confidence lacking when it comes to social media?
Let’s take the overwhelm out of being online.
Our FREE download 30 SOCIAL MEDIA POST IDEAS was designed to help you build an engaging platform using prompts and a few strategies we use with our marketing clients.
No tricks, just treats with your marketing strategy this Halloween
This Halloween is the perfect chance for your business to stand out with clever, seasonal content that engages customers and drives sales.
To nail your marketing content strategy, focus on creating posts that blend fun, spooky creativity with your brand’s personality, such as short, shareable videos, themed graphics, and interactive polls or quizzes.
Remember to use trending Halloween hashtags where appropriate to boost reach but also tie your posts to what your audience cares about – whether that’s quick tips, product spotlights, or some spooky, behind-the-scenes fun. Consistency across channels matters: align your email campaigns, website banners, and social media posts to create a unified seasonal feel.
The goal isn’t just to ride the Halloween hype, but for you to use it as a hook to build awareness, encourage engagement, and strengthen both new and existing customer relationships… ultimately leading to more sales.
Inspired to get spooky but need more support with your content creation and planning for your social media accounts? Piece of Cake marketing can help.
Head to our services and price list page for more information.
