By Halloween each year on October 31, the performance of most B2B business is already determined with just 40 work days left in the year. According to various sources, Halloween is the #2 retail spending holiday of they year with over $10 Billion or $35 spent for every man, woman, and child in America. Unless falling on a weekend, nothing is closed and no one gets a paid day off. Who said fear doesn’t sell?
On LinkedIn, the number of Halloween articles is difficult to determine and worldwide there appear to be over 150 related companies and groups with Halloween in the name. Like any good promotion, the business reality of Halloween pales in comparison. There are a lot of conflicting ideas about Halloween and you can either ignore it or stay relevant.
Halloween Storytelling
As a kid, Halloween was always a confusing time. We didn’t have a lot of money, so fancy costumes and big parties were not a thing. When you live with deformity year round, you can never be the cool kid no matter what the hero costume – yet other kids playing monster never bothered me. With the houses being at least a mile apart in rural Oklahoma, treats (which are heinous tricks unless chocolate) were always shared with close family and friends.
Back then there were only 3 TV stations. You heard about history and read about and repeated ghost stories. What you conjured in your mind was always much more frightening than anything you saw or experienced. Regardless, basketball (the king of sports) had started in earnest. That’s often what’s missing today in most marketing, just telling something relatable and educating rather than promoting your product or expecting an instant customer and sale.
Halloween Facts and Myths
- One will be charged a fine of $1000 if he uses or sells the Silly String in Hollywood for Halloween.
- It is the Celts where the Halloween dressing comes from. The Celts alleged that the spirits and the porous ware a wall between the paranormal world and our world during Samhain. And thus, the Celts used to wear these costumes and masks during the festival to befuddle the evil spirits.
- The Halloween symbols like the black cats, bats, and spiders aren’t just random but relevant due to their scary history tying to Wiccans.
- The Daylight Savings Time used to be influenced by the Candy industry and Halloween.
- Another fact you must know is that these tricks have been around since medieval times. It was known as souling or guising in the past. The children and the poor wore costumes during the Hallowmas and begged for money and food in exchange for their prayers.
- One must beware of the razor blades in the apples. However, there is no or very little fact about this happening.
- Halloween is typically an American holiday. It is, in fact, a feast and a big family celebration in Ireland.
- The Halloween is satanic. While you will definitely see devils as the symbols of Halloween, but it is a time when people show their fears in happy and safe ways.
- The trick-or-treating is a central feature of Halloween. Instead, it is not. It is just an appropriate way of saying that the children enjoy their holiday.
- Halloween is incomplete without pumpkins. Actually, the jack-o-lanterns were made of giant turnips. They were hollowed, carved and carried as lanterns, set in places like the graveyards. Pumpkins are just replaced with turnips in America.
Halloween Marketing
My buddy Spike (below), the celebrity dog, may not have too much more time left and he’s a Texas Ranger this year. For certain, you should be nicer to your marketing folks because they do a hell of a lot of work over months or years before it pays off. If you’re doing direct response marketing, you’re also destined to offend someone. For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, I grew about a thousand followers personally and 100 for the firm and we added some new recurring business on a mountain of activity and content:
- Free Data Breach Training offered to 20 Million LinkedIn subscribers with a daily cyber tip.
- Secret History of Cybersecurity Awareness Month
- Man Made Problems In The Digital World
- 7 Ghosts of Cybersecurity
- Turn Your Digital Security From Zero To Hero
- Save The Screams for Halloween! Avoid Human Error in Cybersecurity (recording)
- 200 hours of LinkedIn Learning shared on hacking, dark web, and cybercrime
- Dozens of videos, infographics, and replies to questions
No Trick Or Treat At The Top
For all of you business leaders, only you can appreciate what your colleagues go through running a business. Thank you and lets all be grateful as we go into November. Your mission is to protect those around you as we finish out the year:
- Gather up that bone pile of old equipment wiped for privacy to donate to charity and tidy up the office
- Invest in your business and lower tax (including the services) with Section 179 Expense as out of warranty hardware and unsupported software are an enormous business risk
- Schedule a cyber risk analysis as required by law for all businesses under the FTC Safeguards Rule – as well as most cyber liability insurance.
My mission is to help ONE BILLION business leaders avoid willful neglect and leverage competitive advantage using cybersecurity. Usually, it’s less about technology and more about solid business practices like having an ever-green post for Halloween sharing what you’ve done to do your part for Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It’s a strategy to both share your insight, document your journey, and already have a defense against any negative posts. Privacy is one of the biggest issues of our time and you need to get in the game.