Introduction
The spooky season is here. Halloween is hardly a couple of days away, and it is one of the most profitable Holidays for marketers across all industries, including eCommerce. According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey, Halloween spending will touch USD 12.2 billion in the year 2023. Around one-third of this shopping will take place online. So, your eCommerce marketing strategy has to be on point so as to achieve the maximum sales this season.
Despite all the prior planning and timely execution, there are still some last-minute adjustments that you need to make to be Halloween-ready.
7 eCommerce Quick-fixes for Halloween
Here are the last-minute fixes that will help you level up your eCommerce marketing for Halloween.
1. Ask your audience to share an interesting Halloween story and organize a costume contest
Most people would have a spooky story to share with you. So, why not revive the same during this Halloween? Ask your social media audience to share their unique scary story. You can go first and tell your story around Halloween. Add humor and spookiness in your story to engage your audience. It will inspire them to share their own experience.
Halloween is the most delightful Holiday for most people as it allows them to get dressed up and party. Organize a costume contest to add to the fun. It also helps you build your online presence. So, it’s a win-win situation for you as well as your audience.
2. Send Halloween gift cards to your customers
You still have some days to go for Halloween. And it is a great idea to send Halloween gift cards as a remarketing/ re-engagement strategy. You can even send e-gift vouchers after Halloween. It will help you get repeat sales from existing customers or re-engage the inactive users who have purchased from you in the past. People are high in their shopping spirits during the entire Holiday season. And it would be best to leverage this splurging mood with freebies, loyalty points, and vouchers.
3. Email last-minute Halloween deals
Send out last-minute emails to promote your Halloween deals and prompt the customers to purchase from you. Work on your email subject lines and come up with something other than “Trick or treat and spooctacular”. All these phrases are over-exploited and add no originality to your campaigns. As your email subject lines influence the open rate, make sure you give enough time to draft them rather than keeping it as an afterthought.
4. Add a reference to pop culture in your Halloween campaigns
Brands should put together trending memes, images, and quotes that align with pop culture events. Get your creative juices flowing and see how your product will fit into Halloween films, TV shows, or movies. It will increase the likelihood of your campaign going viral and increase its reach.
5. Create product bundles to power up your upsell and cross-sell strategy
Holiday shopping is more about buying the products in bulk. It would be a good idea to create product bundles to sell complementary products in groups. As a result, you will not only increase the average order value but also make the entire buying process more convenient for the customers. In addition, you can also offer exclusive discounts on these bundles or incentivize the customers with loyalty points.
6. Set up a Halloween “Sold out” splash page for the out-of-stock items
Customers are on a shopping spree during the Holiday season. Chances are that your Halloween-exclusive products run out of stock in the middle of your offers. That’s why you must have a Halloween “sold out” splash page that informs the users that the item is out of stock and lets them set notifications once it is available. Include product recommendations on this page to cross-sell similar products. It will help retain the customers and prevent them from bouncing off to your competitors.
7. Always have a contingency plan in place
As with every campaign, there could be things that don’t work for your Halloween marketing strategy. In view of this possibility, be prepared with a contingency plan. For instance, there could be technical glitches while completing the purchase or payment gateway issues, or slow loading speed of product pages. Have a team of developers who can resolve such issues on the go and curb the loss of conversions.
These 7 tips are like the last-minute revisions you do before the final exams. They don’t take too much time yet ensure that your Halloween marketing strategy is at par with the customers’ expectations.
Beyond these 7 tips, we also have an 20-point checklist for technical considerations you should bear in mind for any Holiday campaign.
Here you go…
20-point Technical Checklist for Halloween
- Create low-fidelity wireframes for home and landing pages for any last-minute ideas.
- Have the same URL for the Halloween landing page every year
- QC mobile and desktop responsiveness to ensure they are optimized.
- Apply and integrate provisions for shoppers if you are allowing them to create Black Friday & Cyber Monday wishlists early
- Have a developer on call just in case of any last-minute disruptions
- Make sure to inter-link the right products displayed on the holiday-specific landing pages to avoid churn
- Build a dashboard to monitor performance on the day—find out whether your provider has a dashboard that you can also monitor, e.g. Google Data Studio
- Double-check with your PSPs (payment service providers) for support. Note: Adding new payment methods requires lead time
- Test the checkout funnel early on to gain insights and optimize. Bite-sized improvements create big-time impacts around the holiday season
- Check all analytics and tracking codes ahead of time to analyze data and ensure accurate tracking
- Determine how quickly prices will update during Halloween or other important holiday shopping days to implement optimizations. It is important that the start of the holiday sale is smooth and on time.
- Test the order processing flow from platform to ERP, pick-and-pack warehouse process, 3rd party channels, and delivery competition.
- Prepare a contingency plan in case of overselling or quick stocks running out.
- Determine backup resources and hardware to assist customers with their needs.
- Define your return policies and make sure the customers can navigate through them easily.
- Determine whether to disable certain payment methods.
- Don’t forget to add ‘buy now pay later’ partners.
- Decide whether you will disable or extend certain delivery methods. Ensure delivery methods are clearly communicated at checkout.
- Keep a maintenance page ready. No one wants to see this page, but plan to have a page ready to keep the customers well-informed.
- Keep your support team ready for quick responses and maximum customer satisfaction.
Wrapping Up
Halloween spending in 2022 was USD 10.6 billion, and it is all set to break this record in 2023. Missing out on this golden opportunity would mean lost sales and paltry conversions. So, if you want to spare yourself of this horror, ensure all your marketing materials are Halloween-ready and have spooky vibes to woo maximum customers.
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Minal Joshi is a content marketer at Krish with a flair for eCommerce and Digital Commerce aspects. She is a MarTech fanatic with a knack of writing with which, she helps brands to curate, create, & commence digital brand positioning. Sharing insights via articles, case studies, eBooks, Infographics, and other forms of content creation is what she lives for. Being an ardent traveler, when not writing, you'll find her sipping coffee into the mountains or petting a stray.
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