Happy Halloween!
But how can you say that in the B2B world without looking cheesy, off-topic or insane?
Here’s my experience; based on what has worked in the past.
Acknowledge the holiday without abandoning your brand
First up: a visual solution for your Halloween woes.
If you want to acknowledge the holiday but don’t want to spend too much time on it or change your brand, we've got a great giveaway for you.
Me and my assistant Jo have created a series of various Halloween graphics and images that you can use in your email.
The idea here is that you can alternate between cute, gothic, or subtle horror. Use the images and the tone that works with your brand. This gives you the chance to add a bit more heart to your next promotion, your next newsletter, or your next general keep-in-touch email.
If you go to the link, you'll see it in Canva. You can make a copy and save it to your own Canva. From there, you can drop in your own logos, edit colours and add your own text or touches. Download them as images or gifs and drop them into your email.
Warning: Do not download the moving images as video. Canva automatically offers this as an option, but it won’t play in your email.
When you run that download, make sure you set it to the correct size. You should go slightly bigger (and do fit-to-size ratio in your image settings on your email) to keep these images crisp and sharp, especially on mobile devices.
What you get
- A header
- A sub-footer (drop this in at the end of the email, just before the legal footer)
- Two square images that you can drop into a 50/50 layout with text.
Instead of redoing your entire email template, or uploading a single graphic file, you can add in the images as a light touch, with your own twist.
You can obviously resize them, make them bigger, make them smaller. You can adjust the colouring, adjust the background, and drop in your own logo as you see fit.
Go forth and pick from cute, gothic, or subtle!
You can be as playful as you want or as soft as you want.
Make it playful
Let me walk through the various ways that you can use Halloween emails, especially if you work for or work with business providers that don't typically celebrate it.
Think banks, businesses, insurance companies, the big CPG brands, the Fortune 500.
The trick is to make it a human and playful whilst still being relevant.
The Cute Approach
If you're running a cute brand, let's say you're an app or software service, with tiktok memes and emojis in the text.
You absolutely can go for cute ghosts, spiderwebs, bats and pumpkins huddled up to your logo.
You can also play “spot the spider” (or a visual image of your choice), to get people to read your email. Everyone who replies to you with the correct number of spiders can enter a free prize draw or gets an amusing response. (“Sixteen spiders? Our cobwebs are exploding!”)
The Gothic Approach
If you have a classic brand or elegant brand, you might already have a gothic vibe going on with your fonts and wording. Take a look at our gothic kit - black and white graphics that complement your colours.
It allows you to say to people, hey, we've got something going on. Think the Addams Family.
Or you can even do subtle shading and shadowing that gets people going, "hang on a second, this is kind of eerie, why?"
The Subtle Horror Look
The final thing - which is brilliant for financial services - is subtle horror. Again, it lends itself to a game; but this time you want it in the text.
Ask people how many horror references they can spot. Challenge yourself to change your phrasing to a darker, more tongue-in-cheek vibe. Instead of “cutting costs” you could say “slash your overheads.”
Instead of overt imagery, you can play with shadows, changing the shape behind your logo or using a filter on your photo that switches between your normal image and a skull. We have an example in our Canva pack.
Think as though you're doing a presentation to your boss, but you've also got a bet going with your coworker as to how many Halloween-related words you can work in.
There's a few different ways you can do that in email, but the trick is to bring the audience in on the joke.
They enjoy it. That way they get the entertainment, they get the value, and you stay memorable to them.
Stand out without selling out
This is the whole point of doing Halloween things.
It shows that you have a life outside of work. It gives you a little bit of a break from the mundanity of doing emails.
When you're running an email system, it can get mundane. Instead of pumping out promotions, newsletters and serious reports or stats, switch it up with some fun. You're not deliberately going off-track, but you are acknowledging what's going on in the world around you.
