Don’t miss a trick this Halloween

It is that time of year when we go potty for pumpkins and it is completely normal to pass toddler-sized zombies and witches on the street.  Aside from the silliness, Halloween is now taken very seriously in retail and can be a real ‘treat’ for small businesses.

Whether or not you enjoy the spooky autumnal festivities, these sort of celebrations and holidays offer a valuable opportunity to engage with your customers.

Need some inspiration for themed marketing activities?  Here are some of the creative Halloween products and messages that our X-Forces Enterprise business-owners have come up with to maximise this fun theme.

Themed Products

If you make your own products, special variations based on a theme – for Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Divali or any other celebration – can ignite new interest from customers.

Just look at these cupcakes on offer at the Pothead and Panface cafe in Tidworth:

And these pumpkin pie dog biscuits by The Posh Pet Kitchen look good enough for humans:

Themed Content

If your product is not so easily adjusted to suit the season, then the theme can be the basis  for creative content to grab attention.

Healthy chocolate spread producer JimJams published a Halloween themed recipe for customers to try, using their product:

 

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👻🎃H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N 🎃👻 ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ With Halloween just around the corner, we thought it was time to get things a little more spooky.. Double tap if you’re getting in the Halloween mood with JimJams 83% Less Sugar Chocolate Spread this year!⠀ ⠀⠀ Want to make our 83% Less Sugar JimJams Easy Halloween Biscuits?⠀ ⠀⠀ This recipe is fool-proof and the biscuits are delicious, reduced sugar and perfect for kids to make.⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Ingredients⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 🎃 200g unsalted butter, softened⠀⠀ 👻 100g Brown Cane Sugar with Stevia (we use Whole Earth)⠀⠀ 🎃 1 large egg⠀⠀ 👻 1 tsp vanilla extract⠀⠀ 🎃 400g plain flour⠀⠀ 👻 1 Jar of JimJams 83% Less Sugar Chocolate Spread⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Method⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 🍬 Heat oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Line two baking trays with grease-proof paper.⠀⠀ 🍬 Place the butter in a bowl and beat it with an electric mixer until soft and creamy.⠀⠀ 🍬 Beat in the sugar, then the egg, vanilla extract and finally the flour to make a dough.⠀⠀ 🍬 Sprinkle some flour on onto your worktop before kneading the dough into a ball.⠀⠀ 🍬 Sprinkle some flour over a rolling pin and roll the dough to the thickness of a £1 coin.⠀⠀ 🍬 Using a biscuit cutter (we purchased our bat cutters from Sainsburys), cut out shapes and place them onto the baking tray.⠀⠀ 🍬 Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes (or until the edges are just brown).⠀⠀ 🍬 Remove from oven and allow to cool.⠀⠀ 🍬 Once cool, take half of the biscuits and spread them with some JimJams 83% Less Sugar Chocolate Spread. Sandwich each biscuit with the remaining biscuits.⠀⠀ 🍬 Place in fridge for at least an hour for the chocolate to firm up.⠀⠀ 🍬 Enjoy with a cup of tea / hot chocolate or make a batch for trick or treaters!⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ #HappyHalloween

A post shared by JimJams Chocolate Spreads 🍫 (@jimjams_spreads) on Oct 29, 2019 at 11:00am PDT

And the Fat Penguin Comedy Club, run by a ex-military entrepreneur, is hosting an award-winning, dark show for the Halloween week:

If you have a spookily good business idea but are frightened where to start, our new E-BOOK contains the start-up basics to help you understand the key areas you need to research prior to embarking upon business.

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There is also further inspiration to be found in our brand new PODCASTS featuring ex-military business owners, in which they speak candidly about their experiences and key learnings they would share with others thinking about starting a business: x-forces.com/podcasts

Happy Halloween!