For many retail stores, Halloween marks the beginning of the busiest season of the year. The retail fun starts with buying costumes and doesn’t end until the last Christmas present has been opened. You can take advantage of all this excitement by participating in different ways during Halloween. From decorating your store to becoming a trick-or-treat destination, the possibilities are endless. Here we’ll suggest five different ideas.
Host a Costume Contest
Dressing up is one of the most enjoyable things to do during Halloween. Both kids and adults occasionally enjoy pretending to be someone they’re not. It also brings out a creativity you don’t see every day. In fact, many families even make their own costumes, which can be rather elaborate. You can use that fascination with good costumes to garner attention for your retail store by hosting a costume contest.
The easiest way to hold a contest is to use social media, such as Facebook. It allows people to take a picture of themselves or their children and submit it online. These images may be shared on social media many times, which can help you get more followers without any extra effort. All you have to do is pick a costume and award an amazing price to the winner/s! You can even use Facebook’s algorithm to pick the winner for you.
Decorate Your Store
It may be obvious, but if you don’t decorate your store for Halloween, people won’t associate your business with this holiday. Ask your employees to help you come up with great ideas and implement them. You can even solicit input from your customers on social media to help you decide how to decorate your storefront and store interior.
Of course, it’s important to find a good balance. If you have many young children come to your store, you don’t want the decorations to be scary. Additionally, you don’t want your customers to get sidetracked by all the decorations and not peruse your merchandise. A few carefully placed decorations throughout your store are probably enough, but you can go all out on the storefront window to attract attention.
Hand Out Goodies
It’s not surprising that Halloween is a big favorite with children. Not only do they get to dress up, but they also get to receive and eat lots of candy. It’s not always easy for parents to find a good neighborhood to go to, which is why becoming a trick-or-treat destination could be worth your while. Just make sure to let people know ahead of time that you’ll be handing out goodies!
Another important point: if you’re going to hand out candy, make sure it’s something the kids will like. If you get the good stuff, they will remember you fondly, and they’ll come back next year and tell all their friends, too. Along with candy, you should hand out useful coupons for your store. Really good coupons will entice parents to do their Christmas shopping at your store.
Offer Free Face Painting
Halloween is a big deal for kids, but not all parents have the time or means to provide everything their child desires. While it may not be feasible for you to offer free or cheap costumes to every child, you can make their day by having a few people available for face painting. If you don’t have enough employees, you could hire a few college students to provide this service to your customers for a few hours on Halloween or even the entire week beforehand.
If you advertise the face painting on social media, you’ll be sure to see a surge of traffic to your store. And while the kids are getting their faces painted, parents will most likely do some shopping in your store. That’s a win-win for everyone.
Send a Halloween Newsletter
If you already have a mailing list, you should utilize it around Halloween. Many of your customers may appreciate coupons, reminders, and helpful tips to stay safe during this time. You can also incorporate Halloween on some of your other marketing materials. For example, you could hand out specially created business cards during the month of October that are a little spookier than normal.
Your marketing efforts on Halloween don’t have to be expensive to make a difference. In fact, handing out candy and coupons is relatively cheap and only requires a couple of hours of your time that evening. The resulting goodwill you’ll generate towards your store by participating in this community tradition will be invaluable.