Apart from sellers of costumes, decorations, and treats, Halloween is sometimes overlooked by marketers who are focused on the bigger sales events that follow such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas. But even if your business doesn’t involve trick or treating, failing to take advantage of Halloween could be a mistake. That’s because Halloween generates high levels of engagement providing marketers with a great opportunity to reactivate customers, as well as create and test customized journeys ahead of the bigger holidays to come.
Use the Appeal of Halloween Treats to Reactivate Customers
Make the month of October your target for reactivating customers before the main holiday push. Send to your unengaged list 2 or 3 times to get customers to start opening messages again. Any revenue you generate is a bonus, but the real goal should be to re-engage your unengaged subscribers in advance of Black Friday.
Why is this important? Studies show recently engaged customers generate as much as 7 times more revenue. Taking the time to get customers engaged in October will pay dividends in November and December.
Make it a point to run engagement rather than dollar-driving sales. Thank You Sales are a good option for driving opens while Mystery Sales (especially with Halloween themes) are proven click drivers. Taking advantage of Halloween to activate more customers can also help protect deliverability as your mailing volume increases during the busiest time of your sales calendar.
Test and Learn Before Halloween to Improve Conversion Rates
It should go without saying that testing should be conducted year-round, but you should run your holiday-specific tests in October. Take advantage of the rise in consumer activity leading up to Halloween to run tests on imagery, subject lines, messaging, calls-to-action, and offers. Doing so can help you avoid unexpected issues during the critical high-volume purchase months of November and December. Whether your business is focused on trick or treating or not, using Halloween to reactivate customers, create custom jour