How to Tailor your Marketing Campaign for Halloween

It’s football season, the leaves are changing color, the air is nice and crisp, and menus are advertising pumpkin spice additions. Fall has officially arrived!

With the seasonal change, it's no wonder most people have favorite foods, traditions and holidays on the brain. In marketing, staying culturally relevant is critically important to grab your audience’s attention with topics they can easily relate to. If you were to talk about Valentine’s Day in October, people might not get it. Instead, package your messaging in seasonally thematic campaigns to help your customers see you’re current and creative.

Your fall content changes will be relevant up until November 30^th and can touch on a variety of topics. While there are many seasonal topics you can leverage for your content, today’s focus is on Halloween, which kicks off the holiday season. Here are some suggestions to spark inspiration. 

Halloween Themed Messaging
By this point in the year, you may feel like a broken record, saying the same messages over and over again on Facebook, Twitter, in conversations and more. Using a Halloween theme is a great chance to say an old message in a new and different way.

Email marketing
Add a Halloween themed subject line and feature items that will come in hand for the upcoming holiday. For example, to further promote your class package special, send an email to your customer database with the subject line “A Scary Good Deal” and include photos and a description of the promotion in the body copy. Include a promotional code, like “SPOOKY2016” for the consumer to redeem the deal and make the purchase online, driving immediate sales. 

Spooky Statistics
Even if your business has nothing to do with Halloween, you can use a “scary theme” to address some topics that are important to your business. Transform you old facts and statistics into something “scary” by creating “Spooky Statistics.” Instead of encouraging people to sign up for classes to get fit, paint the horrifying picture of what would happen if they didn’t do it. This approach helps people think about your call to action in a different way. Do this by:

• Rewrite. Instead of saying “Our 6am instructor Shannon really motivates her class – all of her class attendees have reported increased muscle mass since last month!” say, “If Shannon didn’t get everyone moving every morning, our 6am-ers probably wouldn’t get out of bed. Scary!” This humorous, fun approach will encourage sharing among customers/believers, and increase curiosity for people who haven’t tried your classes yet.
• Creating shareable graphics that depict a zombie, screaming person, or something equally frightening to illustrate the horror of the “scary situation,” and overlay the new statistic on the image.

In Person Promotion

• Offer a Halloween happy hour, where customers who show up in costume to your evening class will receive a percentage off a piece of apparel sold in your studio. By encouraging costumes, the members will draw attention to place of business, causing bystanders to laugh and take note of how much fun your studio is having. This is a great opportunity to take many photos and videos, and use as timely promotional material on your social networks and website. 

Create an advertising/PR stunt and capture it on camera

• Ford created a wildly popular “car wash prank” last year, where they created a stunt and professionally captured the genuine reactions from their unsuspecting victims on video.
• The playback is hilarious, relatable (the viewer can easily picture how they would respond if in the car!) and garnered a lot of attention for the Ford brand. Released on YouTube, the video has been viewed more than 1.8 million times and growing, and received countless media coverage by noteworthy publications like Adweek, Mashable and Fast Company.
• Stage a “Thriller” dance mob or other Halloween themed activation in a public area, grabbing people’s attention. Document through photos/videos, and leave business cards and flyers behind afterward so everyone knows who was behind the brilliant stunt.

How will you dress up your marketing strategy for Halloween this year? Let us know in the comments.