Halloween Treat: Increase eCommerce Sales By 10X This Season

The word Halloween or Hallowe’en has a Christian origin. Dating back to 1745, it is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31. This tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Here, people lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. In 2021, about 65% of consumers celebrated Halloween in America, up from 58% in 2020. US adults spent around USD 10 billion in 2021. Let’s learn how to increase eCommerce sales By 10X in this season.

The year 2022 ought to see grandeur and splendour. It’s no secret that Halloween in New York City is big and bold. Londoners are not behind! They have the Ghost Bus Tours, The London Dungeon, Warner Brothers Studios, Jack the Ripper Ghosts Walks and many others. Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Berlin are all planning for the big Halloween bash of 2022.

The rise of online sales

The pandemic changed the way people shop. Nonetheless, creative and innovative forms got adopted. For instance, one can take steps like showing off Halloween products earlier than usual. This ensured that the shelves got stocked with seasonal candies and decorations for this important holiday.

However, in the general scheme of things, people resorted to home deliveries or curbside pickups. Also, people began working from home and avoiding indoor venues such as shopping malls and restaurants. Given these changes, leads to increase eCommerce sales and has continued to grow. Also, many brands pivoted their business strategies to remain competitive.

Incoming eCommerce Boom! According to the Census Bureau’s Annual Retail Trade Survey (ARTS) 2020 data, eCommerce sales increased from USD 571.2 billion in 2019 to USD 815.4 billion in 2020. In tandem was the retail revolution. In the face of the pandemic, retailers sought to capitalise on the convenience economy of online shopping and home delivery. Also, some traditional brick-and-mortar stores tried to enhance the shopping experience to give consumers a reason to return to in-store shopping. For instance, some retailers held in-store parties with DJs, refreshments and door prizes.

Also Read – 10 Proven Ways To Increase eCommerce Holiday Sales This Year

In getting back to Halloween! Though the traditional activities of handing out sweets or dressing up remain the quintessential preps, over half the consumers also displayed an interest in decorating for Halloween in 2021. In 2020, 52% of those celebrating Halloween planned to decorate their homes or gardens. Total spending on decorations reached an all-time high of USD 3.32 billion. Of all the categories, costumes were the biggest.

The 10X Process

Offer gifts or discounts relevant to Halloween

Let’s start with an example. Trusted Health Products launched a BOGO sale on their flagship products by sending a promotional email filled with Halloween vocabulary. It’s quite an easy-to-do campaign. The email template is quite bland and only contains one simple visual. They also used a website banner and ribbon to advertise the sale.

Another way is offering promo codes. Swoon launched a Halloween promo campaign offering a publicly available SPOOKYSAVINGS discount code for $5, which leads in to increase ecommerce sales . One should also consider adding redemption limits, including limiting promo code usage to once per customer.

Yet another aspect is Halloween-themed giveaways. PupSocks launched a 15% discount with the code SPOOKY and a giveaway. All customers had is post their pets’ pictures in a Halloween costume on Instagram and tag @pupsocks. Once done, they were allowed to enter a giveaway where a blanket or socks set was offered as a prize.

Halloween theme makeover to the web pages

One way is to go for a daunting Halloween kit. It includes design ideas, templates, icons, images and backgrounds, among other aspects. Together, these aspects shall transpire into a gruesome and gut-wrenching website.

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· The ‘Haunted Homepage’ Hero Header

This combines a silhouette section divider and a related raining background video. The result is a dark and fear-inspiring header that was impossible to ignore.

· The ‘Killer Feature’ Services Section

This one enables you to implement the Halloween icon set. One can easily transform their current services section and add the proper holiday spirit.

· The ‘Bloody Dreadful’ Call to Action Section

A simple yet effective CTA section that can display the Halloween sale in the best possible way. It combines the correct font with some minus margin and a rather bloody shape divider.

· The ‘Contact the Dead’ Contact Form

Adding a few small Halloween images can be sufficient for dressing up the contact form and giving it a new festive touch. This is perhaps the slightest touch you can make on your site. And it can also work for other elements such as slides and images.

Push Holiday season content

Did you know? About 64% of shoppers visit social media platforms to get inspired and find gift ideas. Facebook and Pinterest usually are in the driving seat during this season. The holidays provide an excellent opportunity to create engaging content that drives traffic to your website and social media pages and increase ecommerce sales. But great content is not enough. First and foremost, you need to add a holiday theme to your social media.

Next, create a holiday-themed cover image across social media. Also, update your logos by adding festival attributes. Do not forget to combine it with your cover image.

Instagram, especially, has incredible scope for decorating your stories with quirky Halloween stickers or changing your backgrounds to make them extra spooky. Once done, you can add things, including spiders, creepy eyes, pumpkins, blood and ghosts.

Another strategy is to ask followers for input on their makeup looks. For instance, create a ‘this’ or ‘that’ for all things Halloween. It’s easy yet engaging. An interactive story enables more people to take notice of it. Also, it encourages people to have their say or make their votes.

Someone crafty in the kitchen can go for Halloween food ideas. Either a food blog or creators who regularly post food pictures and share their Halloween-inspired nibbles. Another avenue is making new recipes and turning a traditional food into something spooky.

Yet another innovative avenue is Halloween home decor. If you are a regular, then this shall be an easy one! All you need is to take some photos. People love to get inspired.

Also Read – Tips for driving Holiday sales – Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Create Blogs targeting festive keywords

This is where you can get clickbait with your content! As per research by the National Retail Foundation, 40% of active buyers complete their shopping before Halloween begins. So, rack up the Halloween deals for customers to grasp during the early bird sales. With over 54% of online shopping, you are already driving a sale to your store. Surveys indicate the growing preferences for mobile shopping by users. Another aspect is the exponential rise of smartphone users. Hence, the need for mobile-responsive websites.

Collaborate with Bloggers, vloggers, and influencers

Today, it’s all about content. Collaborating with bloggers, vloggers and influencers is paramount. You can get on board by punching in the top Halloween influencers or YouTube channels on Google. Shortlist the ones that best suit your purpose and objective, and pitch that deal.

Halloween Pre Advertising

Whether an unconventional holiday or one of the staples, audiences invariably get excited to celebrate. What motive do marketers have for incessantly posting about holidays? It’s simple! The holiday marketing efforts elevate brand engagement.

In today’s Instagram age, it’s all about hashtags! For enhanced performance, brands can leverage hashtags to introduce the posts to a new audience. Both holiday-themed digital marketing and holiday advertising impact organic efforts and are deemed incredibly effective.

About 89% of consumers reported finding online advertising toward the discovery of new products and promotions. Furthermore, 31% posited being more receptive to ads during the holiday season.

Checkout Discount Coupons

One brand that has adopted an innovative mechanism is Total Diabetes Supply. The brand had launched an automatic discount of 10% off everything, with one exception for some products. The brand had used an image of a pumpkin turned into a clock to indicate the urgency. The campaign can either be code-based or applied automatically, with no promo needed.

SEO for Halloween

SEO or Search Engine Optimization often gets interpreted as keyword research. In reality, it goes way beyond! However, to begin with, one must research some ghoul-cool quotes and dark humour references and leverage them into the keywords. Another is to go simple with bone-chilling deals or spine-chilling discounts.

Conclusion

Get ghoul and ghostly this season! The 2022 celebrations shall unleash with a bang. As much as it is exciting for customers, it is hectic as much for brands. The fight for the top three spots on the search engine is no easy feat. With the rising yearly consumerism flows, the competitive streak of the business world shall get intensified. So, brands should plan and prepare as early as possible.

We at Apexon are here to tailor the eCommerce site with the brand personality. The team helps create demand-based, tailored brand recognition via a dynamic digital strategy that matches your objectives.

Contact us today.