We at The Close love Halloween! Not only is it the kickoff to the fall season with cooler weather and all things pumpkin spice, but it’s also that time of year to dress in costume, enjoy bite-sized candies, and stir up some screams with Halloween real estate marketing ideas.
Fall is typically a great time to focus on a few marketing strategies to refill your pipeline after the busy summer rush. And Halloween presents a bone-chilling opportunity to scare up clients with some creepy-crawly fun.
Worried you won’t get your scream-tastic marketing done in time? Fear not! We created some boo-tiful, fully customizable door hanger templates in Canva for you to use this season.
14 Fun Halloween Real Estate Marketing Ideas
1. Haunted Open House
One of the most ghoulish Halloween events I ever participated in was opening a listing on Halloween. We had so many people come through the home and got tons of leads.
We hired a DJ to spin in the driveway, blasting half the neighborhood with monster-themed tunes. We also decorated the whole front yard in Halloween style with spooky lights and some scary sounds. In addition, we had bales of hay set up around so people could sit and just hang out.
We invited everyone in to tour the open house. Tons of people stopped, looked through the home, and asked questions about the listing and selling their own homes. We coupled the open house with a fall basket giveaway, which included samples from a local spa, and some coffee with accouterments from our favorite coffee shop, encouraging people to fill out one of our forms to be entered into the drawing.
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2. Pumpkin Count or Weight Contest
You can tackle this idea in one of two ways: Stack several pumpkins (or get one giant pumpkin) and have everyone guess the weight. Or you can place a bunch of smaller pumpkins in a large container and have everyone guess how many there are. Either way, it’s fun for the community, and someone walks away with a prize.
This is a great way to make sure everyone knows where your office is. Keep the pumpkins on display in your office so people can see them when they come in. When people come in to guess, it’s a great opportunity to start up a conversation.
Most of the people who come in will be past clients, current clients, or people in your sphere. Some may be renters, if your brokerage manages rental properties. Take advantage of the fact they’re stopping in. This is your chance to offer your expertise and your services.
3. Give Out Branded Candies to Trick-or-Treaters
When the kiddos come knockin’, make sure you have plenty of candy with your name and contact information all over it. You can get candy with your info printed on it if you order early enough. But if you run out of time, you can do it the old-fashioned way—attach your business card to the wrapper. (I did this three years in a row! 🤷♀️) Either way gets your name in front of the parents of those trick-or-treaters.
4. Host a Trunk-or-Treat Event
How much fun are trunk-or-treat events? Everyone pulls into a big parking lot in their own car or truck and decorates the backs of their vehicles. Kids come around trick-or-treating to each person’s trunk, and the owners of the vehicles hand out candy. The kiddos love them, and they’re really a lot of fun.
You can partner with another group, like your local church or a school, and get as many people involved as possible to participate. Get all of your agents to bring their own cars and hand out branded candy or little gift bags with their business cards inside.
5. Scary Door Hangers With Candy
If you want to focus on your farm, there’s almost no easier way to make a connection than with door hangers. You can easily create some fun Halloween-themed door hangers, attach some candy to them, and tag your entire neighborhood. The best part is it won’t take long to hit several homes with your ghostly goodies.
We’ve taken some of the hard work out of this project. Grab our fully customizable Canva templates to make frightfully delightful door hangers. We created a few for you to choose from. Use one or use them all!
6. ‘Spooky’ Homebuyer Event
Homebuyer seminars are popular and always a great way to scare up new business. But at this time of the year, make it Halloween-themed to make it more memorable. You can use copy like, “Don’t get spooked,” “No need to be scared,” “Let’s find your boo-tiful home,” “Don’t let deadlines creep up on you,” and so many more. You can probably come up with your own real estate Halloween marketing copy if you give it some thought.
7. Fall Fire Pit Homebuyer Event
If you’d rather not have a spooky homebuyer event, make it a campfire instead. Invite would-be homebuyers to enjoy a fall fire pit, roast marshmallows, and make s’mores together while you alleviate your future clients’ fears around homebuying.
This idea works just as well for sellers if you tweak the content. You can host a fireside chat about investing or downsizing in a chill, marshmallow-laden conversational setting.
8. Have a Hayride in Your Farm
If you know someone with a truck and trailer, get some hay and let everyone in your area know that you’re giving free hayrides on Halloween night. You can use the door hangers from tip #5 to let everyone know you’re providing some chills and thrills for the whole family.
Make stops at every corner during the entire trick-or-treating window (it’s typically two hours in most places), allowing people to get on or get off wherever they choose. Keep a cooler in the back filled with drinks on ice that everyone can enjoy. (These small custom labels on bottles and cans work great, and make sure to keep a bucket for trash and recyclables handy for empties.)
Your neighbors will have spirited memories of the gesture. And when they get ready to choose a bewitched and crafty Realtor, they will remember that you live in their neighborhood.
9. Costume Networking Event
I don’t know about you, but I love dressing up! Halloween is the perfect opportunity to get out your best costume, use your imagination, and try to impress your friends with your frightful dress-up game.
Organize a networking event at a local business, like a restaurant or a bar and grill, encouraging everyone to come in their best costume. You can even partner with the business to share in the marketing efforts. At the event, have everyone vote for their favorite costume and reward the winner with a gift basket.
Silent auctions are great for these events too. Use them to get contact information from everyone who bids on items in the auction. Get donations from people in the community to build multiple gift baskets for your guests to bid on.
Use your imagination. There are so many different ways you can go with a networking event like this one.
10. Costume Drive for Underprivileged Families
Sadly, many kids don’t get the opportunity to dress up in fancy new costumes. So, host a costume drive! Talk to a school in your community to find out what specific needs their students have in this season and ask if you can partner with them. They will almost certainly say “yes” to a costume drive.
Ask friends in your community to bring new or unworn costumes to your office. Offer a drawing for them to enter while they’re there. Have the drawing after Halloween and announce the winner on social media. In fact, do a live video to draw the name.
This is great for multiple reasons. First, you’re doing something awesome for kids who can’t afford to get their own costumes. Second, you’re doing something in the community that’s positive. Whenever you do anything for your community, whether you think so or not, people take notice. The more good you put into your community, the more positive things come back to you.
11. Hire a Food Truck for Your Neighborhood on Halloween Night
If you have kiddos, you know that trick-or-treating can be utter chaos. Parents are dealing with a lot while kids run around, scaring each other, eating candy, screaming, crying, and pretty much acting like little demons.
You can be the good witch of the evening by hiring a food truck (with or without adult beverages) and providing food and drink to anyone who wants it. Hot cocoa is usually a big hit. Make sure to hand out your information to everyone who comes to the truck for a respite. You can also put a big sign in your yard announcing your treats. (No tricks here!)
This, like the neighborhood hayride, will stick in people’s memories like a sticky, bloody abscess. When they are ready to hire a Realtor, they’ll remember where you live. Win-win.
12. Host a Costume-making Event
There’s a special kind of magic in creating a unique and original costume for Halloween. So, tap into that wicked energy and host a workshop to create costumes that really scream. You can check out the fangnificent tutorials and kits on Etsy, like the stilt spirit costume in the photo above, and have everyone make their own version of it. Or you can run to your local craft store and load up on a cryptful of different costume pieces so everyone can create their own designs.
Ask some of your favorite vendors to sponsor the event to raise funds and provide supplies. And put the event on somewhere with a lot of open space, like the local high school, a church activity center, or even the local chamber of commerce. Invite locals of all ages to join in to make eerily cool costumes either for themselves or their little demons.
This is the kind of event that’s meant to be enjoyed by the whole family, so invite as many as you can accommodate. But make sure your name is visible. And, of course, make sure to break up the cryptic creativity from time to time to thank your vendors for sponsoring, and encourage cauldrons of sinister laughter. Maybe you can even do some giveaways during the event. Take tons of pictures and post them on social media.
13. Haunted House Tour
I love this next idea, and if you’re the type of person who likes to have the bejesus scared out of you, you’ll love it too. If your brokerage has a few vacant houses in your database of listings, why not turn them into haunted houses—with your sellers’ permission, of course—and offer a tour of them caravan-style? Brilliant, right?
Offer these tours the week of Halloween, showcasing the houses and community features in a fun and twisted way. Invite the entire community to join in the tour. You never know how many people are in the early stages of homebuying. And this is one spooktacular way to stay top of mind with those people.
This marketing idea might catch on so well that your neighbors come to expect it from you year after year. You’ll definitely solidify your place in your community.
14. Ghoulish Social Media Photos & Videos
If you’re already decorating your vacant listings (or occupied ones, as long as you have permission), why not have a little ghastly fun with your photos and social media videos? Take some photos of your decorated house to add to your MLS listing. And make some fun videos too, like this one from Shawn King! Have fun with this and let your creativity drive you. Spin some spine-tingling stories for TikTok or Instagram Reels, or try creating parodies of your favorite scary movies to get curiosity piqued and make things wickedly fun.
Your Take on Real Estate Halloween Marketing
These are just a few of the many Halloween real estate marketing ideas you can use this year and beyond. But I’m sure there are many more. Halloween is so much fun to plan around. It’s a ghoulishly good time to do extra marketing that incorporates mischief and mayhem.
I know I’m only scratching the surface. What kind of fun Halloween marketing ideas have you tried in the past, or are planning on doing this year? I would love to hear about them. Maybe I’ll update this list next year to include your ideas!
Happy Halloween! 🎃🧟♀️🕷️
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