Your Guide To Boosting Sales with Halloween Marketing and Promotions [2021]

Halloween is soon to arrive with spooky decorations & excitement all over. And for eCommerce store owners, it’s the time when customers want to shop & get amazing deals! Compared to last year, customers are likely to spend more in 2021. This year, consumers in the United States are expected to spend nearly ten billion U.S. dollars for Halloween. Furthermore, the average spending per person is also noticeably higher in 2021 when compared to previous years, along with an expected surge in internet spending throughout October month.

Source: Statista

For eCommerce and online sellers, this is a huge pie to grab. Though the festival itself is on 31st October, the preparation and shopping start weeks earlier. To make the most out of popular holidays, you must have a solid marketing and promotions plan. It will help you stay afloat in the competition and get in front of your potential customers.

Despite the pandemic, Halloween 2021 preparations are in full swing. Give a look at top celebration plans this year:

Source: Statista

Hopefully, it is very much convincing for you to start planning your marketing ideas and kickstart your business’s festive season craze. As sellers today are leaving no stone unturned to lure their customers with new product launches, lucrative deals & new marketing tactics to cope up with and meet the new consumer behavior caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; It is imperative for you to see, find, and implement creative ways to attract shoppers amid the haunted joy and fun of Halloween.

So, wondering how you can come up with some eerily good Halloween marketing and promotions to boost sales with just a few days to go? The answer to this question will be uncovered in this post so you better stay tuned till the end…

Spook up your online store with Halloween elements

Halloween is all about celebrating the scary and spooky, so your online store should embody the same spirit. Popular elements of shock, scare, and surprise includes – pumpkins, ghoulish art, skeletons, spider webs, lanterns, etc., and you can easily start incorporating these on your eCommerce website.

Here are some tips to prepare your eCommerce store for Halloween –

• Landing page banners are the first element shoppers will see, so make sure to add Halloween-themed banners on your landing pages. If they like what they see, they’re more likely to buy what you are selling.
• Include Halloween-themed copywriting on product pages (for example – you can go with phrases like ‘offers that are too scary to be missed’, ‘want to get tricked or treated from us’, ‘an eerily amazing offer awaits you’ and so on).
• Revamp your email newsletter popups and fill-up forms with a Halloween theme and give your visitors something interesting to see and engage with. You can also include the concept of easter eggs to add an element of surprise to your store.
• Add a spooky, Halloween-themed welcome coupon pop-up that catches the attention of shoppers as soon as they land on your website. To further sweeten the deal, you can include a Halloween-themed quiz or contest to keep things interesting.
• Update all your social media platforms and make necessary changes. Don’t forget to add a special Halloween cover and profile photo for all social media platforms you are active on. You can also launch a Halloween-themed social media campaign and put together your products & offers along with designing elements like zombies, vampires, pumpkins, etc.

Halloween is a fun holiday and thus a great opportunity for eCommerce store optimization in a unique way. Give a character to your store and establish well-thought-of copy and design elements to excite and engage your customers.

Optimize Your Online Store

Shoppers love to splurge on costumes, makeup, accessories, and much more during the Halloween season so your store should be more than ready to give them what they want. To optimize your marketing and sales for Halloween, start with optimizing your eCommerce store first.

Here are few optimization tips that you can incorporate to prepare for Halloween 2021 –

• Discount the right products – Costumes, makeup, and accessories are the most popular Halloween products, followed by candies, pet costumes, lights, and home decor products. Prepare your store for Halloween by giving good deals and discounts on the most popular items that most people buy. You can also run combo offers and give extra discounts on multiple products.
• Write and publish content (blogs, articles, guides) related to popular Halloween search terms like – ‘Halloween Gift Ideas’, ‘Halloween Costume Ideas’, ‘Halloween Makeup Ideas’, and so on. This way you can make sure your content is read by people searching online for such keywords and you get more search traffic to your online store.
• Make sure your eCommerce store is mobile-ready and optimized for browsing and shopping. This Halloween, ensure that your landing pages, email pop-ups, offers, and other marketing elements are optimized for mobile devices. Nothing scares shoppers more than poor browsing and shopping experience.
• To prepare your store for Halloween, start with stocking the right products on your website. Think about what type and style of costumes, accessories, decor elements and makeup products are most popular during the Halloween season. The idea here is to be well-prepared and properly stocked up to meet sales demands. If customers don’t find popular products in your store, you will miss out on sales.
• Create a Halloween category in your e-commerce store where you can try consolidating all Halloween-related merchandise into one place, making it easier for visitors to find items. This category includes all Halloween-specific items or items with discounts for your Halloween promotion.

Market Your Online Store

There’s no dearth of marketing ideas for Halloween, but the key is to pick the right ones and ignore the rest. To prepare for Halloween marketing and promotions, it is advisable to first understand your target audience and what they could be looking for.

Include these ideas in your eCommerce marketing strategy for Halloween 2021 –

• User-generated content: Marketing works best when it is word-of-mouth. Getting people to participate in your Halloween-themed marketing strategy is a good way to boost sales during the holiday season. You can do this by inviting shoppers to share their Halloween selfies, scary makeup ideas, and weird costume hack in exchange for freebies and amazing giveaways.
• Social media promotion: Halloween marketing and promotions are incomplete without social media and so your eCommerce store should focus on getting maximum social value during the season. Start with running ads on popular Halloween products on Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can also run Halloween-themed contests on your brand pages and invite your fans to join in the celebrations.
• Email marketing: Emails are a great way to promote your Halloween deals and discounts. If you already have an email subscriber base, prepare your marketing emails with Halloween-themed content and design. Start the promotional emails 2-3 weeks before the festival and continue to include product recommendations, deals of the day, sale reminders, and additional discounts to attract shoppers.
  For eg: Use catchy liners like:
  “Hi *customer’s name*, Halloween’s here, and it’s time to get ready with spooky t-shirts and scary masks”
  or
  “Halloween discounts await you, Get 40% on these items; Check out now!”
• Influencer marketing: collaborating with influencers who are big on followers is a good way to get your message to maximum people. Although cash-intensive, influencer marketing can get you a great return on your marketing money. Look for local influencers in your area and ask them to endorse your store or brand online.
• Google Ads: Halloween season is also a good time to use Google Ads as your marketing strategy. You can also modify your ad copy for any Google Ads campaigns that you have been already running. While running your ad campaigns, if you have a good ad budget, you can specifically target Halloween-related keywords. However, if you have any budget constraints, you can simply update the copy in your ads & continue to target your standard keywords.

  If you have any special Halloween promotional offers, discounts, or specific products, make sure you highlight them in your ads. To inspire greater clicks, create a sense of urgency and FOMO by putting up the number of days left until the promotion or offer ends. Also encourage CTAs like “Sale ends today”, “Get 30% off now”, “Claim your freebie”, etc.

For optimizing your marketing and sales smartly, use a strategic mix of the above methods and see what works for you. Once you find what’s effective, build on that to attract shoppers and sales.

Prepare Exciting Halloween Creatives

Halloween-themed cover photos, creatives, Instagram stories, tweets with engaging graphics and exciting videos can do wonders! Make sure that you have creatives prepared in advance to get them rolling on time.

• To increase the visibility of your posts, make sure that you use relevant hashtags such as #Halloweenoffers #Halloweendeals #Halloweensales, etc
• Prepare some exciting videos to grab the attention of your potential customers. Create videos that connect with your audience, instill emotions and give goosebumps feeling for your audience. You can also add some spooky lines like “You can’t watch this ALONE!”
• Prepare creatives with eye-catching Halloween elements like vampires, ghosts, pumpkins, lightning, witches, candles, spooky house, and much more!

Roll out your Marketing campaigns at the right time

Using tools like Google Trends can help you get relevant data on when is the best time to start your marketing campaigns and promotions. The data suggests that searches for the term Halloween are on the peak in the week leading up to Halloween, which starts climbing from late August.

This implies that if you are running any special campaigns or promotional offers on Halloween, the best time to run them is the last week of October at the very latest. You can also launch the offers two weeks before Halloween which may provide you a little more visibility & exposure.

To make the best of your Halloween sales, make sure that all your blog posts, social media content, and email marketing should keep running throughout October, and plan to post them on your schedule.

If you are planning on running Google Ads (based on Halloween), make sure that you launch them from the start of October up until the 31st of October. Throughout October you must focus on putting Halloween-related merchandise out on display in your ads.

Start Selling on Large Marketplaces

As an eCommerce seller, you must already know that the top three popular marketplaces with the highest Halloween sales are Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping. Now that you know that most of your potential customers will look for products on these platforms, the best thing you can do is list your products on these marketplaces.

So, if you haven’t considered it yet, you must try it now! You can promote your products in multiple marketplaces, including Google Shopping, Amazon, and eBay Seller Center, during the Halloween sales campaign to reach millions of potential buyers without putting in much effort.

Summing Up Our Guide on Halloween Marketing and Promotions in 2021

Halloween is an amazing time to be a shopper and a seller. And remember, you still have time in hand. All you need to do is just use the right tactics to escalate your store sale.

To make sure you tap into the huge opportunity, get started with your eCommerce store optimization and marketing using the ideas listed above. Hype up your Halloween spirit on time and reap great sales numbers during the holiday season.

We hope our Halloween marketing and promotions guide for eCommerce helps you acquire more customers and increase business.

If you need professional help to prepare your store for Halloween, do not hesitate to utilize our eCommerce store development services. From website design and development to product listing optimization and beyond, our professionals have the right mix of knowledge and experience to help you grow.

Get in touch with us and plan smarter holiday sales! We’d be happy to hear from you at info@suntecindia.com

FAQ

1. Why Is Halloween Considered A Golden Opportunity For Online Stores?

Halloween is one of the biggest annual retail events with high return prospects. The event garnered $8 Billion in sales (in America only) during the peak of COVID-19 in 2020. This year, the expectations are even higher.
From a marketing perspective, Halloween is a superb sales opportunity, which is why sellers start preparing for it months in advance.

2. When To Start Halloween Marketing?

Ideally, Halloween marketing preparations should start at the beginning of September. That gives you enough time to formulate and promote campaigns, get a strategy in place, and get your target audience interested in what you are offering.

3. How To Optimize Online Stores For Halloween?

You can optimize your eCommerce store to attract better traffic and thus improve the chances of higher Halloween sales. Here’s how you can do it.

• Study the trends for the products that are more likely to sell this season.
• Discount products as per that research.
• Study trends to find out which products you should stock.
• Publish lots of relevant content (blogs, guides, newsletters) in the month prior to Halloween.
• Optimize your website or eCommerce store for mobile users.
• Revisit your eStore navigation path to ensure a comfortable browsing experience.

To simplify a shopper’s journey, you can also create a dedicated Halloween corner on your eStore. There, you can showcase all products on sale, discount offers, and payment coupons.

4. How To Market Your eStore For Better Sales Performance On Halloween?

Halloween marketing is very different from general marketing. It is more hurried and time-specific, and thus, it requires more on-the-spot ideas for a successful marketing campaign.

• Do a thorough, Halloween-specific user profile analysis.
• Create a social proof of quality via user-generated content.
• Promote vigorously on social media.
• Use newsletters and subscriber mailers to spread the word.
• Create and send authentic sales recommendations to users.
• Modify your already existing Google Ads copy for Halloween-specific keywords.
• Include your best promotional offers in Google Ads.

5. Why Should You Outsource Halloween Marketing & Promotions? Is It Risky?

Yes, you should.

No, it’s not!

Outsourcing Halloween marketing and promotions is a cost-effective way to expand your sales channels and marketing efforts. It is safe as long as you choose a reputed eCommerce store development services provider (like SunTec India.) It’s also beneficial because your team gets the support of expert marketers, access to the best promotional and analytics tools, and 24*7 support until the event passes.
And, you can outsource Halloween marketing & promotional services with a click.

6. How Does SunTec India Promote a Halloween Sale?

We help eCommerce store owners with Halloween marketing campaign ideas, assist the implementation, and follow up with careful observation and analysis. Our Halloween marketing services also include-

• Tweaking the branding to make it more Halloween specific
• Launch a Halloween based social media marketing campaign
• Create or modify Google Ads with new target keywords
• Create relevant content around Halloween elements
• Launch an email marketing campaign with Halloween-specific information
• Create location-based campaigns to target local users
• Encourage participation with engaging store activities and user content
• Create a Halloween-centric shop within your online store

All these benefits and more, without any hassle! All you need to do is send your requirements to info@suntecindia.com.