When you are thinking of holiday marketing ideas, you may not think of Halloween as the first holiday to market for. We generally immediately think of December when it comes to ‘the holidays’, and the season typically not until Thanksgiving, but Halloween is a billion dollar business, taking in $6.9 billion dollars in estimated total revenue in 2013.
The average consumer spends about $75.03 on Halloween items such as décor, costumes, candy, and fun excursions such as haunted houses or farm visits. Many businesses will fall under a section of that market share, and surely want a piece of the revenue generated by this holiday. The majority of Americans start shopping for Halloween at least two weeks beforehand, making marketing most efficient at the start of October.
Halloween Consumers 2013
$6.9 Billion estimated total revenue
$75.03 average spent by consumers on all items total
$2.6 Billion estimated total spent on costumes
$27.85 average spent on a costume
2.08 Billion estimated spent on candy
Online and social media marketing is more important than ever, so doing a Halloween sale through a Facebook page or website is a great idea. Some ideas for Halloween social marketing might be costume contests with the goal of page likes and shares. This expands your audience through your existing customers by encouraging them to share their entry on your page, getting you views, likes, and even sales through the exposure. If your business doesn’t deal directly with any goods that relate to Halloween, there are the aforementioned contests or social media campaigns that can help generate more interest. Perhaps require contestants to take the photo of their costume in your store, etc.