Holidays… aren’t they great. Not only are the holidays themselves enjoyable, but they can often be very beneficial for marketing your business. Halloween is no exception, especially if your business caters to children or parents in some regard.

Here are some ways your can take advantage of this ghoulish holiday:

Adapt Your Product
There are a lot of ways to show your product off for this or any other holiday. Add a Halloween twist to the packaging or, if you have some flexibility in your product, produce it in Halloween shapes and themes. Especially if you sell a food or candy product (gross out themes are very popular during this holiday), you want to take advantage of the holiday and be sure your customers know about your adaptations.

Play a Little Dress Up
If your product/service isn’t messy and doesn’t require a lot of mechanical work, then don’t be wary about allowing your staff to dress up if they work during the Halloween holiday. Depending on the environment you want to convey to your customers, you may need to place restrictions on the costumes your staff chooses (naughty nurses or zombies are probably not appropriate). However, allowing your staff to get involved in the holiday will help to heighten everyone’s attitude, including the customers’.

Throw a Party
Have a Halloween party and invite your customers. This is an especially beneficial marketing strategy if, again, your business caters to children or the college age crowd, both of which tend to thoroughly enjoy attending parties of any sort. It might be a good idea, however, to have your party close to the holiday, but not actually on Halloween. The reason being is that most people want to spend the actual holiday with family or close friends. Throwing your business’ party a day ahead or behind will be more likely to bring in more guests (i.e. potential customers), because people are always looking for ways to make a holiday last longer.

Make sure your party is loaded with tons of fun for the age group you’re targeting, with games and the ever popular costume contest. If your targeting a large age range, divide your costume contest up into divisions (0-3 years, 4-10 years, teens, adults, etc), so that everyone has a fair chance at winning (a two year old will typically be too cute to lose out to a 22 year old). Also, be sure to provide lots of delicious (and, as mentioned above, gross) treats for everybody.

Advertise
Whatever it is you do to take advantage of the Halloween buzz, be sure that you advertise your special events and holiday deals to the public. Fliers, newspaper ads, radio and TV commercials are all great ways to get the word out. If you don’t advertise beyond those that come in and out your business doors, then your event will likely be less successful than desired.

And, above all else, have fun with it! That’s what it all boils down to. The increased success of your business should only be a bonus.

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One Response to “Marketing Strategies for Halloween”

1. david says:
   

   Those are indeed great ways to take advantage of Halloween and get some more customers. Dressing sexy is also a great way to get some attention; I’m all for it if the person wearing the costume agrees!

   Posted November 1st, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
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