Put Visual Merchandising Strategies To Work Marketing For Halloween
Marketing for Halloween – or any holiday – means using visual merchandising to draw consumer attention and maximize retail sales. Business Dictionary defines it this way: “The use and manipulation of attractive sales displays and retail floor plans to engage customers and boost sales activity. In visual merchandising, the products being sold are typically displayed in such a way as to attract consumers from the intended market by drawing attention to the product’s best features and benefits.”
For many retailers, visual merchandising starts with store windows and doors, then progresses to floor plans and displays. Adding Halloween themes to your doors and windows can be as simple as integrating colors into your décor or as intricate as adding full-on Halloween-themed displays. What types of businesses benefit from using visual merchandising strategies when marketing for Halloween?
- Costume stores
- Department stores
- Bakeries
- Book stores
- Coffee houses
- Electronics stores
A distinctive, captivating retail window is a powerful tool. A well-dressed window display stops foot traffic and sparks word-of-mouth marketing, which turns your customers into brand ambassadors. It’s also a great way to set yourself apart from every other retailer sharing your space and sharing your ideal consumer. Think of it this way, every retailer on your street or in your local mall will decorate for Halloween. How you choose to decorate might just be the allure shoppers need to choose you over your competitors.
Our graphic design team can help you choose gloss metallic, non-metallic, gloss color, and gloss uncolored lettering and images. We can also custom design frosted windows along with banners, posters, and signage to make your windows truly yours. When you’re marketing for Halloween, banners, posters, and signs can also do double duty – first, as window dressing, then, as marketing that leads people to your windows.
Start designing your windows with a theme in mind. You can tell a story, promote a character, or play on consumer emotions. Halloween is associated with orange and black, but you can choose any color story – or incorporate your existing brand colors – to tell your Halloween story. For example, costume stores can feature specific, trending costumes, accessories, and other themed products, bakeries can feature specially iced and frosted sweet treats, and grocery stores can highlight the ingredients that go into Halloween snacks, appetizers, and other holiday party favorites.
Because Halloween is only twenty days away, you can also use your window displays and signage to prompt urgency and compel immediate action. Tell potential clients about current sales and how soon they will end and about the importance of not waiting until last minute scarcity kicks in. Marketing for Halloween is also a good way to incentivize existing customers with VIP discounts and exclusive special offers.
Keep these marketing ideas in mind as Halloween wanes and Thanksgiving and Christmas approach. Many of the decorative pieces you use in your windows for Halloween can be incorporated into your Thanksgiving window dressing because of their somewhat common color schemes.
When you are ready to start marketing for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve, call the graphic design team at DPRINT. We can help you create attention-grabbing doors, windows, corporate interiors, and retail displays that bring traffic to your door and an increase to your bottom line.
