30+ Spooktacular Halloween Sales Promotion Ideas and Examples
Why should you launch Halloween-themed promotions?
Seasonal promotions give consumers an extra boost to buy or, at the very least, browse your offer. During the Christmas season, national holidays, or special events people tend to be more relaxed, go out more, and consequently, purchase more. They are in a shopping mood and they often enjoy having seasonal or themed products (think pumpkin-shaped cups, pumpkin latte, pumpkin cake, scary costumes, and all that jazz). Additionally, people already learned to expect discounts on national holidays and may search for “Halloween deals”. If you position well for these keywords or surprise casually browsing customers with Halloween advertisements, you can get a slice of these Halloween sales.
Check out our guide to seasonal promotions to learn more about why seasonality works.
30+ ideas for Halloween promotions in 2023
Here is a list of over 30 real-life Halloween campaigns to give you some inspiration for this Halloween:
1. Selected product BOGO sales
Trusted Health Products launched a BOGO sale on one of their flagship products on Halloween. They have sent a promotional email full of Halloweenish vocabulary. It is quite an easy-to-do campaign as the email template is quite plain and only contains one simple visual. They also used a website banner and ribbon to advertise the sale. The sale was valid from October 20th till October 31st. Running a BOGO promotion on a popular product is a great strategy to get customers hooked and interested in your offer.
For more ideas on bundling and BOGO promotions, go here.
2. Promo codes with amount discounts
Swoon launched a Halloween promo campaign offering a publicly available SPOOKYSAVINGS discount code for -$5. Offering a standalone code is an easy, yet effective campaign idea. Due to high fraud risk with this kind of campaign, the discount value is relatively low. Note that if you intend to offer a higher discount, it might be a bette idea to run a unique promo code campaign instead. You should also think of adding basic redemption limits, such as limiting promo code usage to once per customer.
3. Targeted percentage discounts
Total Diabetes Supply launched an automatic discount of 10% off on everything with an exception for some products listed at the bottom of the mail and promotion T&C. They have used an image of a pumpkin turned into a clock to highlight the urgency of the offer. Adding urgency is a great addition to any seasonal campaign. This campaign type can be run as a code-based or automatically applied campaign, with no promo code needed.
4. Halloween-themed giveaways
PupSocks launched a 15% discount with the code SPOOKY and a giveaway. To enter the giveaway, customers had to post their pets’ pictures in a Halloween costume on Instagram and tag @pupsocks. Then they were allowed to enter a giveaway where a blanket/socks set was offered as a prize. Adding elements of promotion gamification is a fantastic addition to your Halloween campaigns to increase user engagement and buzz around your brand, especially if you are going for a more funky and light-hearted brand perception.
5.Free shipping promotions
Pottery Barn ran a free shipping campaign for Halloween together with 20% off bathrobes and slippers (season-specific products) and 50% off selected Halloween items. They have sent an email campaign with the subject “🎃 Your Halloween Treat 🎃 FREE SHIPPING (ends tomorrow!)”. Running a seasonal campaign on seasonal products is the jackpot you should go for.
6. Mystery coupon discounts
PetFlow launched two unique discount coupons for each customer, not disclosing the amount of savings. To check what is the exact discount, customers would have to insert the code at the checkout. One of the discount codes was valid only for auto-ship (subscription-based) orders, the other for one-off orders. The maximum saving was limited to $35 and the minimum order value to use the discount codes on was $15. They used the subject line “Pick a Pet to Reveal Your Deal!”. This kind of campaign refers to the good old Halloween tradition of trick or treating – a catchy idea that will get you customers hooked.
7. Site-wide promotions
Dunkin’ Donuts launched a Halloween discount code promotion where customers could get 31% off the whole order with a code BOO in their Dunkin’ Shop. It's an effective promotion due to the discount value – but beware of your margins. Too big of a discount can very quickly burn your promotion budget and cause you a lot of trouble.
8. Product bundles for Halloween
M&M’s launched a Halloween product bundle of 25 small M&M’s packages, Halloween-themed, for $25. If your business can create new Halloween-themed product variations, you should definitely try it this season.
9. Free product promotions
Teami Blends offered a free tumbler for all orders above $34,99 with discount codes SCARYPURPLE or SCARYORANGE (depending on the color of the tumbler). They also gave an option to use discount codes instead: SPOOKY10 to get $10 off above $50 orders or SPOOKY20 to get $20 on above $75 orders. One customer could use only one of the four discount codes provided on one order but could use one of each kind of discount code on two separate orders (one order with a free tumbler, one order with a dollar discount).
If your promotion management system allows you to run several Halloween campaigns at the same time, you should definitely give it a try. But be careful not to overburden customers with too many options – the phenomenon of choice overload is real and you can effectively discourage customers from using your offer by offering too much variety.
10. Extra discount for customers wearing costumes
Puma launched a promotion of 20% off for customers wearing costumes on Halloween. It was limited to Puma’s brick and mortar stores. Clearance items excluded. The sales reps had to insert a discount code 183_HALLOWEEN to all qualifying orders based on visual check whether the customer wore a costume. It's a simple, yet a fun promotion idea which is closely connected to the spirit of Halloween.
In short, my top Halloween sales ideas include:
- BOGO sales.
- Halloween costume parties.
- Halloween giveaways.
- Photo contests.
- Halloween-themed discount coupons.
- Spin-to-win campaigns.
- Mystery vouchers.
- Automatic discounts.
- Discounts for customers wearing a costume.
- Scavenger hunts.
- Free shipping.
- Free products & samples.
- Special product bundles.
- Halloween-special products.
Other Halloween-themed marketing ideas for 2023
As you could see from the real-life inspirations above, there are various ways in which you can participate in the Halloween craze in 2023.
In summary, Halloween marketing ideas include:
- Decorating your brick-and-mortar stores and dressing up your staff.
- Placing Halloween-themed banners on your website.
- Creating a Halloween landing page.
- Launching a photo contest.
- Launching a social media campaign.
- Crafting a spooky email campaign.
- Launching PPC campaign using Halloween promotion-related keywords.
- Throwing a Halloween party.
- Launching new, Halloween-themed products.
- Introducing Halloween-themed foods and drinks.
- Participating in trick-or-treating (as a store).
- Using Halloween-themed packaging.
- Running Halloween-themed games.
- Shooting a Halloween-themed short ad or movie.
Halloween promotions tips and tricks in 2023
To make this year's trick and treating a bit easer for you, I have a couple of Halloween promotion tips that may help:
1. Make the promotion Halloween-themed
While it may sound obvious, I want to reinforce that to make your offer appealing you should not only launch a discount on your products but prepare Halloween-themed, cheesy banners, emails, ads, making the discounted product ranges somehow related to Halloween. You can make your coupon code include Halloween in it, for example, HALLOWEEN20 or HALLOWEEN2023 or PUMPKIN. If you want to use unique codes, you can add a Halloween-themed prefix to them, for example, HALLOWEEN29401.
2. Launch Halloween campaign ahead of time
Even if you plan to offer discounts only on Halloween, you can decorate your store, send out communications and tease your customers with the promotion (or at least with the theme itself) earlier on, to create anticipation.
3. Discount Halloween-themed products
Encourage last-minute buyers to purchase Halloween decorations, costumes, treats, and drinks. This is the last day of the Halloween season when you can sell these items and the competition is probably huge. If you discount them that day, instead of just selling out leftover stock a day later, you can still grab more profit.
4. Use multi-channel communications
It is not enough to decorate nicely and advertise on one channel only. Nowadays, customers expect an omnichannel, immersive and smooth customer experience. Prepare your promotional banners in-store, on your e- and m-commerce as well as any social media channel and paid ads you are planning to use. Do not forget to ask your staff to dress up for Halloween, too!
5. Halloween discounts do not need to cost you a fortune
Halloween is a relatively small holiday, also sales-wise. You do not need to launch gigantic discounts on that day. A simple “free candies with the order”, free shipping, extra refill of pumpkin latte, free toy-spiders at checkout or funny packaging for all orders expected to arrive the week of Halloween can do the trick. On the other hand, as not many businesses launch big discounts that day, you could get competitive advantage ahead of Black Friday if you launch bigger sales.
6. Gamify your Halloween sales promotions
People want to have fun on holidays, Halloween included. Making your campaign or promotion gamified can bring much higher participation rates. Some ideas include making a promotion code hunt on your website (hide the promo codes behind Halloween-themed banners), spin to win Halloween giveaway wheel or a contest for the best Halloween costume (you can then reward either the best costume or assign the rewards at random amongst all participants). You can also gratify all customers who come to your store in a costume (for example, by giving them a 10% off discount). If your store looks fancy and Halloweenish thanks to all customers wearing fun costumes, you can attract more foot traffic. By making it fun, you will encourage more customers to participate.
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How to prepare for Halloween promotions in 2023?
Besides having a great Halloween marketing idea, you need to do the operational work of actually getting everything ready for your Halloween campaign. Here is a quick checklist of what you need to launch a successful Halloween campaign:
- Decide on the promotion goals and KPIs.
- Prepare Halloween-themed decorations in-store and digital assets for online channels.
- Craft Halloween-themed messages for all channels where you want to advertise your promotion.
- Choose which channels you will advertise your promotion on.
- Select the target audience, promotion settings and limitations.
- Plan how you are going to track the success of your promotion, implement analytics, and tracking where needed.
- Schedule the promotion in your promotional tool. Whether it’s a giveaway, coupon discount, automatic discount, or gift card campaign, you should ensure it runs smoothly on all channels you plan to allow customers to use it.
- Write the terms and conditions of the promotion and consult them with your legal advisor.
- Schedule the promotional posts and messages.
- Create a landing page if you plan to have one and launch it before, for SEO purposes (you can update it with the exact discount later on, first it may be just a teaser).
- Send out pre-promotion teaser communications.
- Send out promotional communications.
- Send out promotion reminders, if you want to do so, at the end of the day.
- Track your campaign success and analyze what you can do better next year.
Summary
Halloween is approaching quickly and if you want to launch a Halloween campaign, you need to do it now. If you have powerful, flexible promotion management software in place then you can set up the promotion relatively quickly. If your promotion engine is not that flexible, consider using Voucherify.
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Launch your Halloween campaign with Voucherify
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