Halloween is Just Around the Corner! September 25, 2018, | Posted by Samantha

One of the events on the yearly calendar that sometimes gets neglected from a marketing perspective is Halloween. While typically considered a day mostly for kids and partying, Halloween marks an important day on the calendar for holiday season email marketing efforts, and in and of itself it can be a great excuse to reach out to customers and create a friendlier connection. Site Impact’s experts have long been champions of finding offbeat ways to reach out to consumers, and a Halloween-related campaign is a fine way to do it. Whether your brand is more interested in providing tricks or treats, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Keep things light

Whatever you decide to do for Halloween-based marketing efforts, the important thing is to keep the tone light, friendly, and personable. Don’t go too dark with themes or too spooky with creative or copy; keep things the way you would if directing messages to kids, with an element of halloween creepiness but nothing so overt that it might be mistaken for a threat or dangerous--or spam, for that matter. Cartoon-like elements are a good call, as well as some of the great cliches of the holiday: jack o’ lanterns, ghosts, and so on. By keeping the tone light you can make the connection without overwhelming your recipients.

Some ideas for campaign efforts may include a themed quiz, rich content like a cartoon or video, how-tos for Halloween crafts or art, and so on; almost everyone enjoys getting into the spirit of the youthful holiday, so there are a lot of avenues to explore depending on your brand’s reputation, general tone, and the industry you’re in. Even just a simple “Happy Halloween from all of us…” is a great way to personalize and humanize your brand to consumers, and something that you should take advantage of.

Keep things appropriate

This isn’t just advice against including adult-themed material (with the obvious caveat that adult-themed brands will have some different rules), but instead to practice some consciousness and sensitivity regarding cultures, race, and other controversial aspects of the holiday. Avoid any creative or copy that might implicate cultural appropriation, racism, sexism, etc; make sure ideas are geared towards the target audience and not insensitive. Testing with demographic groups can ensure success on this topic, and prevent gaffes that can do more harm than good to brand and reputation. Avoid culturally-specific depictions such as sugar skulls and other sensitive images unless your brand has a particularly good reason for including them; stick to broad tropes that everyone can appreciate and you’ll have a successful campaign.

Halloween presents a great opportunity for brands to approach consumers in a way that isn’t directly sales-focused, and it deserves a spot on every marketer’s calendar. Planning, developing, and deploying a Halloween-themed campaign as an act of customer outreach and enrichment can be a lot of fun, and the results in customer loyalty are well worth taking into consideration. While putting together a campaign for the holiday, make sure to keep things light hearted and fun, and that you’re not likely to be stepping on anyone’s toes, and you can reap the rewards of a grateful and engaged audience. Contact Site Impact to discover how we can help you in developing and deploying a foolproof Halloween-themed campaign.