Halloween is the perfect cauldron for marketers to get creative and charm up something they normally wouldn’t do. With an estimated $9 billion spent on Halloween related purchases, everyone is trying to get a taste of this magic. Reaching consumers this season goes beyond spooky storytelling and haunting video footage.
Below are some of the latest social trends to help you brew up a ghoulish campaign.
1. Give them an offer they can’t refuse
As with any seasonal or holiday campaign, offering incentive is a great way to grab attention. Offer ads are customizable, effective and easily accessible on mobile so people have the offer with them anywhere they go.
Paired with incentive, offer ads provide a sense of urgency with reminders—a crucial component to increase conversions and sales. When someone sees your offer on Facebook and chooses to save it, they will automatically get notifications about your offer before it expires. Depending on the offer type, consumers will also receive notifications when they are physically near a supporting store. Now that’s spooky.
This year, M&M’S U.S.A. is using offer ads in a carousel ad unit sharing how you can customize M&Ms during the trick or treat season.
2. Know what your audience is searching for
There have already been over 95 million Halloween-related searches on Pinterest. Halloween planning lives here, and Pinners are looking to top last year’s festivities with spiderweb-inspired eyeliner tips, scary jalapeño popper mummies, film-inspired costumes and drip-painted pumpkin decorating tips.
Keyword targeting helps increase in-store sales, boost traffic and drive online action. With the ability to reach people ready to act on what they find, Pinterest’s relevancy makes it easy to reach people looking for brands like yours. To help you reap the benefits of this Spooktacular time of year, Pinterest has identified the top Halloween trends that are rising from the grave.
‘Awkward office situation’ tip: To avoid showing up in the same costume as one of your coworkers this year, top-trending costume searches consist of Avocado toast, The Incredibles and Mamma Mia!
3. Use influencers to reach a defined audience
A popular trend among beauty brands is Halloween makeup tutorials. What better way to showcase the seasonal relevancy than by those who use the products daily —influencers. Using influencers allows brands to highlight content that is useful to an established and engaged audience. An influencer can reach consumers via their social networks that your brand may not be able to. 89% of agency and brand marketers said influencer marketing can positively impact how people feel about a brand.
Teaming up with a beauty influencer @WalmartCanada was able to showcase the simplicity of using their products to become a mermaid this Halloween with a sponsored Instagram post.
4. Create a seamless shopping experience
90 million Instagram accounts tap on shopping posts to learn more about products each month. The key to converting your audience is a seamless user experience. Target found a way to casually insert #Halloween into everyday life. Not only connecting with their audience (Yes, I for one feel dead inside while doing laundry.) but by creating a seamless shopping experience with Instagram product tags.
While Target used a static image with one product within their feed, the shopping experience can also be leveraged by creating a carousel with both static and video content and even Instastories.
5. Connect the moment to your product
You don’t have to sell candy, costumes or pumpkins to connect with people; any business can make the most of Halloween. People on Twitter love all things spooky. Last year there were more than 20 million tweets related to #Halloween.
By creating a connection with your content and the season you won’t just be inserting yourself into the conversation for the sake of it. You’ll extend your reach, add value and increase Tweet engagement. @Chameleon Cold-Brew connected the moment by highlighting the scary idea of a morning without coffee. Now that’s scary AF.