Halloween marketing ideas for small businesses

There is one day that gets the most attention in October, and that is Halloween! Being a day that gets a lot of attention, Halloween is a perfect time to promote your products and keep people interested in your brand. In this article, we highlight some great Halloween marketing ideas for your small business.

How Halloween marketing campaigns can benefit your business

One of the best things small businesses can do to increase sales during this period is to come up with Halloween marketing ideas that will increase sales, boost brand awareness, and help generate leads.

Here are some ways Halloween marketing campaigns can help your brand:

1. Attract new customers

Halloween is an exciting time for many people, and if you offer great marketing campaigns and deals, you will be able to attract new customers. A good marketing campaign can be a great way to inspire your potential audience to buy from you.

2. Higher sales

According to a survey, Halloween spending in 2018 was estimated at $9 billion, and consumers are expected to spend $10.14 billion this year.¹ Buyers tend to shop a lot during the holiday season, like Halloween, and while the sales can not be compared to Christmas, it is something to look forward to as a B2B eCommerce owner. If you prepare a great marketing campaign, you will likely make more sales than you used to.

3. Build your brand

Halloween is a great time to build your brand as a B2B eCommerce seller. Creating Halloween campaigns will boost your brand visibility and increase brand awareness.

13 Halloween marketing ideas for your business

Everyone is excited about Halloween: from the entertainment industry to the gaming industry to small businesses. Running a successful Halloween campaign is about offering great sales and ensuring your brand gives off an impressive Halloween spirit. Here are some great marketing ideas for Halloween:

1. Offer Halloween-themed products

A great way to generate buzz during Halloween is offering a limited-time offer on themed products. This is a great idea if you create or manufacture your products. You can create limited products with Halloween visuals, designs, or language, in this case. Also, this Halloween marketing campaign can work if you sell products like masks, hats, caps, and other Halloween party items.

If you don’t offer Halloween-related products, you can consider broadening your product range just for the season (temporarily). You can also make packaging materials with a Halloween theme.

Some other ideas include:

• Gyms: Throwing a Halloween-inspired fitness session
• Bakery: Offering baked foods decorated with Halloween designs
• Fashion: Offering Halloween costumes.

2. Add Halloween elements to your website

Another way to get people excited about your brand is to spookify your online presence. You can decorate your home page with spooky designs like pumpkins, spider webs, monsters, and other Halloween-inspired images. Also, you can use spooky fonts, colors, and themes that you can reverse once the Halloween season is out.

Meanwhile, you don’t have to create designs from scratch. Some websites and platforms offer free Halloween templates and designs for your social media profiles and website. We also don’t suggest you totally redesign your website because it will be time-consuming, and you will need to reverse the design after Halloween. Instead, you can focus on some specific parts of your website like:

• Pop-up banners with spooky designs
• Sliders with Halloween images
• Website header bar with design elements

3. Run a Halloween sales

Halloween is a good time to offer a discount/deals on your products or services. You can provide a special discount on all your products or seasonal products to encourage people to buy from you. Another great business idea is to put together a holiday gift guide on items you offer that is perfect for holiday shopping. Also, you can provide Halloween-themed vouchers or gift cards to your customers. For example, Use PUMPKIN20 to Get 20% off All Makeup Products.

4. Throw a Halloween party

Do you run a physical store along with your online store? You can consider throwing a Halloween-themed party and sending out invites to your employees, customers, and other guests.

Ensure you get the word out about your party by posting on social media, sending invitation emails, and putting up flyers. A good Halloween marketing idea would be to offer a discount to people who attend the event.

5. Run a themed email newsletter

Communicating with your customers is a great way to build a strong relationship with them and keep your brand in their minds. You can send a Halloween newsletter asking your customers how they are preparing for the holiday, letting them know what’s going on with your business, and introducing your latest Halloween deals or products. To make things more fun, you can use Halloween-themed email templates.

6. Host a Halloween-themed contest

As a B2B eCommerce owner, you can consider hosting a spooky-themed contest to give people a chance to win something. Your prize could be anything: a discount on your products or services, a gift card, a ticket to a show, or anything you think your customers would like to win.

7. Tell your customers to dress up in Halloween costume

A good Halloween promotion for your business is dressing up in a Halloween costume and encouraging your customers to do the same. To make this fun, you can ask customers to upload pictures of them in their Halloween costumes using a special hashtag. This will make perfect content for your social media pages and get more people involved in the challenge. Also, you can promise to give the customer a mouthwatering discount or gifts with the best or most liked Halloween costume.

8. Create Halloween-themed social media content

As an online business owner, there’s nothing like creating great content on your social media pages to boost visibility. This includes Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and other social channels you use. This will help you reach a wider audience and increase your sales, products, and brand awareness.

It would help if you pushed out a lot of Halloween-themed content on your social media during the spooky season. Also, you can consider hosting a Halloween contest on social media by encouraging your customer to submit photos of costumes, pumpkins, treats, designs, etc.

9. Invest in influencer marketing

Another way to impact your Halloween marketing is by partnering with an influencer with many fan followers. Influencers can influence people to buy certain things, so getting them onboard is a great way to promote your Halloween content and sales.

10. Use a themed decoration

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, you can consider decorating your store with Halloween decorations. This could be pumpkins, spider webs, scarecrows, and other spooky decors. This will look fun, attract new customers and give your brand a personality that is just perfect for the Halloween season. Make sure to show off your Halloween-themed decor on social media and marketing channels to make people aware.

11. Use Halloween-styled language and emojis

Ghost emojis? Pumpkins emojis? Use them a lot. The goal is to tap into the Halloween spirit and catch customers' eyes, and the best way to do that is by using some non-formal Halloween language and emojis.

12. Post user-generated content

Another great way to promote your brand and reach new customers during Halloween is by sharing user-generated content on your platforms. User-generated content (UGC) is content created by your customers about your brand. For example, if a customer gets a product from you and then posts it on social media, you could repost that content on your page. In this case, that would be user-generated content. Also, UGC is one of the best forms of content to build social proof for your business.

Ask your customers to send you visual content or Halloween-related content to you and then post them.

Another way to create user-generated content is by asking your customers questions during the Halloween season. For example, you could ask them to share their best Halloween memory from childhood or a horror tale that still scares them. You can then reshare their responses on your platforms.

13. Run Halloween-themed ads

There is no better time to run a paid ad than during a holiday like Halloween. This period is a great time to make new people aware of your brand and increase sales.

Create Halloween-themed ads for your brand by focusing on your Halloween-themed products or special discounts for the season. You can run this ad on platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms your customers use.

Tips for running a Halloween marketing campaign for your online store

Now that you are familiar with some creative Halloween ideas for your B2B business, let’s look at some tips for running a marketing campaign during the spooky season.

1. Start preparing early

You don’t have to wait for the Halloween season before you start preparing because, in reality, people buy stuff before the spooky season approaches. The earlier you prepare, the more likely you are to execute a great campaign. A good rule of thumb is to start your marketing campaign around September or August to ensure your promotion is right on time during Halloween.

2. Make the most of social media

Make the most of social media during Halloween for a successful marketing campaign. Share a lot of pictures or information about discounts you’re offering, use hashtags to boost your visibility, use location-based tags and engage with customers.

3. Care about SEO

SEO may be the last thing on your mind during Halloween, but it shouldn’t be. Good marketing should focus on SEO to help customers find you easier and faster on the internet. So ensure you include relevant keywords and rich snippets in your web copy to boost your visibility during Halloween and beyond.

You can use tools like Ahrefs and SemRush to find seasonal and relevant keywords you can target for quick traffic.

4. Leverage videos

Video marketing is currently one of the best forms of social media marketing. A study shows that videos will account for more than 80% of consumer internet traffic in 2022.²

Publish fun, spooky, Halloween-themed videos on your social media platforms to reach more online customers.

5. Make sure your storefront looks the part

If you are running an eCommerce business, you might want to keep your online store looking festive and spooky. This will catch customers' attention and make an impression that may lead to sales.

6. Design yourself

You can save money by creating your Halloween designs yourself. Whether it’s a gift card, a website banner, or a logo, consider using Canva or other free online templates.

7. Don’t make it all about promotion and advertisement

We understand that you probably came across this post because you are looking to launch a successful Halloween marketing campaign. However, it would help if you don’t make it all about marketing and promotion because your customers will get tired.

A better idea is to post relevant, value-added content that your customers will like. You could create blog posts on topics like Halloween costumes or gift ideas, share tips on Halloween, create videos on how to achieve a particular look, etc. If you focus on sharing content that helps your customer, you will be able to get them interested in your brand during and after Halloween.

Start selling on Alibaba.com

The spookiest season is about to be here, and it’s best to use all the tools in your grasp to connect and have fun with your customers. A great way to make the best of the Halloween season is by using Alibaba.com to sell your products to a global audience.

Alibaba.com is an eCommerce platform where buyers and sellers meet to do business together. With over 20 million active buyers across different countries and regions, Alibaba.com is undoubtedly one of the best platforms to reach a wider audience.

Alibaba.com also helps business owners with the following:

• Create a website without the need for coding experience
• Display your products/goods on your personalized storefront to increase sales
• Use ads and digital marketing tools to boost your brand visibility
• Reach customers from different parts of the world all on one platform.

To start with Alibaba.com, create a seller account, post your products and Halloween deals and wait for customers to reach out to you.