Planning Your Online Halloween Marketing Campaigns – Start Here First

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September 2, 2010
Guest Post by Christian Gordun, Founder & CEO of CouponCraze.com

More than ever Halloween is a lucrative holiday for online merchants. The combination of an increase in online shopping and the recession has created a surge in coupon use and thus a new breed of thrifty consumers that retailers can market too via online deal programs. The trick to capitalizing on this year’s spending is to understand what deals and coupon programs work best for this holiday shopping season.

The bottom line is that merchants need to be able to both plan ahead and be ready to throw out last minute curve balls in order to grasp the attention of online shoppers. Here are a few tips that all merchants should take into consideration when planning their Halloween marketing programs:

1. Start Early: Typically, larger retailers such as Target and Walmart will start their coupon and deal programs in mid-September which is a couple weeks ahead of smaller retailers. This is something that smaller merchants should take note of so they don’t miss out on valuable sales opportunities.

2. Order Matters: Merchants should always align offers with consumer buying patterns. For example, costume merchants usually kick-off the deal season in September with the candy and gift merchants waiting until its closer to the big day. This works well because costumes often require more planning, while items like candy can be bought at the last minute.

3. Stand Apart: Promoting a unique or one-of-a-kind item is a good way to stand apart from the crowd. If a merchant has a product that is hard to find or is very niche, then it’s a good idea to attract attention to it using a deal program because that will increase the overall visibility of an ecommerce site. Over the past two seasons, deals and coupons for Halloween contact lenses from Coastal Contacts have been some of the most successful coupons on Coupon Craze because of the unique nature of the item.

4. Mix It Up: Throw a curve ball to spook the competition. Generally merchants start offering shipping deals later in the season but to mix things up and generate traction with the early birds, merchants should start promoting some general ground shipping offers toward the beginning of the season. This will help edge out competition and capture sales on bigger items like costumes, which need to be bought earlier as opposed to smaller, last-minute items like candy.

5. Accommodate the Group: It’s important to remember that Halloween is a social holiday when putting offer programs together. Buy one, get one half-off Halloween coupons can be extremely successful as many costume purchases are made by couples or even groups of friends.

6. Be flexible: Random short term or one day campaigns can be incredibly successful because they often create viral or word-of-mouth attention within the coupon user community. During the last two weeks in October, merchants will assess the results of their campaigns and will often create incredibly large one day promotions depending on product availability. These sales are coveted by the ultimate bargain hunters and can be very lucrative.

Hopefully these tips will help you have a successful Halloween season. Check out Coupon Craze’s Halloween category to find some examples of the types of deals and coupons that are out there.

About the Author: Christian Gordun is the CEO and Founder of CouponCraze.com, a website that offers free online coupon codes and Internet coupon shopping discounts at select name brand Internet stores. If you are an ecommerce merchant wanting to advertise your deals and coupons, consider contacting Coupon Craze to meet your needs. If you are an avid deal finder, then use Coupon Craze to find all the discounts you need for the 2010 holiday shopping season!