Why âtrick-or-treatâ in marketing wonât work for your customers anymore

As Halloween arrives; ghoulish pumpkins multiply in retail displays across the UK, and kids in murderous masks start to pester us on our doorsteps – us marketing folk are reminded that context and relevance are everything.

It’s not only timing – or seasonality – which inspires a captive audience to act. There are a few other basic human principles to consider so you don’t completely creep out your customers.

First, let’s think about what digital marketing at Halloween might look like in the real world.

You’re browsing in a multi-purpose retail store to restock your new kitchen, and en route to the food processors you pause – fleetingly - to pick up a witch’s hat from a seasonal Halloween display. You replace it, remembering that you’re thirty-six years’ old; and more creative than that.

Driving home, your eyes leave the road to see the same witch’s hat atop an animated green woman on a passing Out-of-Home banner: not once, but five times. You speed up.

Your phone buzzes with a push notification, so you pull over – ‘EXCLUSIVE HALF PRICE OFFER ON BLACK POINTY HATS FOR OUR FAVOURITE WITCHES’.

Sighing heavily, you finally prepare to park outside your house and emit a small scream as a warty old crone leans in through the open window and whispers ‘last chance to buy…’

You get the idea. Campaigns can be quite the opposite of engaging.

So how do you treat, not trick people who indicate an interest in your product?

Respect individuality and remain relevant

Expressing unique behaviour isn’t exclusive to the last day of October. Humans vary regardless of costume preferences – and so one size doesn’t fit all in your marketing approach either. Being able to understand consumers on an individual level – from product preference, to next-best-channel and next-best-action, and deliver on those preferences as you would a real-life conversation – is a no longer technological idealism, but a reachable reality in customer communications.

Don’t be scared to experiment

Just like the delicate balance between horror and delight, marketers should consider themselves mad empathy scientists on a quest to find the right message and the right method of delivery. If it’s measured and benchmarked, it’s a lesson worth learning, and a constant test-and-tweak approach means you get it right quicker for your consumers.

Bewitch with your creativity

… And they’re kept on their toes with your surprising and well-placed interactions. Knowing your neighbours, from ghosts and werewolves to heroes and supervillains, means you can exercise the perfect combination of data-driven objectivity, and off-the-cuff inventiveness, to orchestrate the extra flair required to turn heads, impulse clicks and inspire brand loyalty.

Know when to stop door-knocking

No one likes a stalker; in the real world, it’s scary – or illegal. Somewhere along the way though, in the sheer explosion of consumer channels and databases, a scattergun approach to online marketing has become acceptable. Brands no longer need to blitz peoples’ peripheral vision with blaring banners featuring a product they had a passing interest in. Switching this for smart frequency capping to limit repeated views of a banner beyond their interest, with varied and carefully considered cross-channel messaging, means you’re making forward steps in your customer engagement strategy. If they don’t answer, stop hassling them.

Don’t risk hit-or-miss in your marketing

You can still invite the element of spontaneity and excitement into marketing without ominous trickery. Treating customers every time means people will interact with you, buy from you, and recommend you time and time again. But this means knowing who you’re speaking to, listening to them, and responding to their sweet spots where and when they want you to.

Our behaviours and rituals in relation to brands have changed. Remove the mask to remind customers they’re talking to you one-to-one in an increasingly digitised world – and in this world of human connection and contextual understanding; the customer, and the brand both win the treat.