Your Halloween Kit: Thematic Design Templates, Photo Collections, and Marketing Ideas
Halloween is just around the corner and there’s not much time left to come up with and roll out a thematic campaign. You need to consider plenty of things, from a key message to the project roadmap, and make decisions quickly as the holiday is approaching.
Although it might be hard to stay productive under the pressure of a burning deadline, you have nothing to worry about. This Halloween, we’ve got you completely covered so you can quickly bring top-notch projects to life.
Discover free design templates on Depositphotos
Every great project starts with an insightful idea and a clear message. However, eye-catching design also plays a crucial role to make your campaign visually appealing.
To help you stand out with your thematic projects, this autumn Depositphotos launches the ‘Templates’ section. It features over 30,000 thematic and trendy templates from Crello that you can use to create both static and animated posts.
What’s even more exciting, you don’t have to be a designer to create outstanding Facebook posts, Instagram stories, or blog banners. All templates are professionally designed by the Crello team and are ready to be used for your thematic projects.
Where to find free templates on Depositphotos
In the upper top corner of the Depositphotos home page, you’ll see the ‘Templates’ section.
You just need to click on ‘Templates’ to get access to a great variety of ready-made designs in different formats. Whether you plan to launch an entire campaign or just create several posts for your social media account, you’ll definitely find what you need.
There are special templates for Pinterest graphics, Twitter Ads, blog banners and headers, Facebook and Instagram posts, Stories, and Highlights covers, and much more. Basically, there are templates for almost all types of marketing materials or ads that you plan to launch for any occasion, for instance, Halloween.
In addition to formats, you can explore different categories of templates. On the website, they are ranked in order from the most popular to niche ones. Categories include fashion, healthcare, food and drinks, education, technology, travel, holidays and celebrations, and many others.
In case you have particular keywords in mind, you can also find templates by typing keywords in the search field. You’ll get a chance to explore all the available thematic designs and formats or filter the search results according to the necessary format.
Free Halloween templates for thematic designs
Are you ready to wow your audience with spectacular Halloween designs? Explore dozens of spooky, mysterious, and cheerful templates in the thematic collection below.
Collections of photos, illustrations, and video for all kinds of Halloween projects
Thematic templates allow you to create eye-catching designs in just a few clicks but there’s one more thing you can do to reinforce your message and make your project look even more appealing. You can add some great visuals to your projects and leave a long-lasting impression on your audience.
You can simply download a photo, vector, or illustration that fits your project best. Or by clicking on the button ‘Create design’, you can adjust it by removing the background, adding text and other design elements, or even integrate the image directly in the template.
We share six collections of photos, illustrations, and videos to save time when searching for stock images this Halloween.
1. Getting ready for Halloween 2020
Searching for visuals on stock photography websites can take time. You can spend hours scrolling through thousands of photos, overwhelmed with choice. Or you can turn to thematic collections carefully curated by the Depositphotos team. Images in this selection are hand-picked from over 5 million new files that are uploaded to the library every month so you could find a perfect fit in the shortest time.
Here’s a photo collection of the newest thematic photos that you can use for your Halloween projects in 2020.
2. Halloween illustrations
If you want to give your projects an artistic touch, we’ve put together a collection of thematic illustrations. Most of these visuals are hand-crafted by the talented Depositphotos contributors that used paper, paint, pencils, pens, and 2D or 3D software to produce their works.
The collection features drawings, paintings, watercolor illustrations, and other images that will make your seasonal or thematic campaigns look artsy and striking.
3. Halloween footage
In 2020, including video in your marketing campaign is a recipe for success. Stats show that over 80% of businesses use footage as a marketing tool. The reason for that is that viewers retain 95% of the message when watching a video. Today, you’ll hardly find a more effective tool than video when it comes to marketing activities on social media in particular.
In this collection of thematic stock footage, you’ll find dozens of ambient video clips. You can use them for Instagram or Facebook posts and Stories, to create ads or short movies that would say ‘All treats no tricks this Halloween!’.
4. Halloween video collection: find your fears
For those who’d like to come up with a really spooky campaign this October, we’ve created a video collection that features characters from your nightmares. There are clowns, ghosts, witches, corpse brides, and skeletons that will make your audience feel chill on their back.
Whether you’d like to use these clips for your website, social media, email marketing, or all together, in this selection you’ll definitely find what you need.
5. Halloween backgrounds for projects
Do you have just a couple of hours to come up with an idea for a Halloween marketing project? Here’s a quick tip. Plan a thematic makeover for your website or social media. All you need to do is simply change a background in the Facebook account or on the website, post some Halloween-themed visuals in the feed, and write a couple of catchy lines to keep your audience engaged.
To help you find amazing backgrounds for your social media or website makeover, here’s a photo collection on the topic.
6. All the little things we love about Halloween
Halloween has long become one of the favorite holidays for children but also for grown-ups. We start feeling its special vibes in the middle of October when the interiors of venues get decorated and farmers start selling pumpkins on the open-air markets.
To translate the Halloween vibes in your marketing campaigns, check out this collection that features images of all the little things we love about the holiday.
Halloween boost: 6 last-minute ideas for marketers
It’s no secret that Halloween is one of the most important days in a marketer’s calendar. Halloween campaigns are usually planned several months in advance. However, if you just recently realized that Halloween is close, you can still use the hype around the day to raise brand awareness. Here are some proven marketing ideas that don’t take a lot of time.
#1 Use Halloween hashtags
Halloween is a newsbreak that you don’t need to generate. The content you create during Halloween week can automatically go viral as social media users will search for the content of this kind using seasonal hashtags. All you need is to select the right hashtags (or keywords for headlines and articles).
Trending Halloween hashtags for social media in 2020
#halloween, #horror, #spooky, #horrormovies, #halloweenparty, #halloweenmakeup, #halloweencostume, #halloweendecor
Popular Halloween-related keywords and Halloween phrases
halloween, spirit halloween, halloween costumes, halloween 2020, happy halloween, halloween movies, halloween decorations, when is halloween, halloween jokes, halloween songs
You will find more Halloween hashtags here. We don’t recommend that you simply add these hashtags and keywords to your content on any topic. Integrate the holiday theme into your copy so that it doesn’t break the expectations of your subscribers.
See hashtags we used for our Halloween 2019 post on Instagram (first comment to this post):
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4AYaPYHQoh/
#2 Run a Halloween challenge
Social media challenges on Instagram and TikTok are a cool way to stimulate user-generated content. In turn, such content is a free opportunity for your brand to increase audience reach.
Typically, a Halloween contest or challenge means that you give users a task and ask them to post the results of its completion on their pages, tagging your brand page and using your challenge hashtag.
To motivate users to accept your Halloween challenge, you can promise a gift or something else (for example, all Instagram Stories with a hashtag will become part of your commercial).
An example of a successful TikTok hashtag challenge is #savagechallenge. It has over 1.2B views now. #savagechallenge is a dance challenge where users are invited to repeat the dance moves to Megan Thee Stallions’ song Savage. #SpookyChallenge is an example of Halloween dancing on TikTok from the last year and this year the #GhostPhotoshoot challenge is already very popular.
Running successful social media contests is not always an easy task, so we advise you to offer your users something that is easy to complete for them. For example, to take part in your Instagram pumpkin-carving, cooking, or costume contest.
#3 Create Halloween packs from what you’ve got
If your products and services can be useful to people every day, they can be useful on Halloween too. And if they are usually forgotten on Halloween, think about the global quarantine that changed the way people celebrate holidays. Your product might come in handy just because the world has changed.
Service example
Let’s imagine that you provide cleaning services. An idea for you: offer cleaning and sanitization services for ‘before’ and ‘after’ Halloween parties. Now all you need to do is create multiple ads and target your social media ads.
Product example
Let’s say you produce hats. How can hats be useful in the context of Halloween? For example, they can be part of a costume for this holiday.
Create collages that show famous characters’ outfits and integrate your hats into them. Post your ideas on social networks and offer users to buy your hats as a Halloween special. Add thematic postcards to your special packs. You can easily create them with templates from Depositphotos.
Halloween-inspired Spider Donut by Dunkin’ Donut:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGfTbhADPuD/
Annual Halloween Horror Nights by Universal Studios:
#4 Share Halloween-related content
The production of thematic content usually takes much less time than creating special Halloween products to sell. You can literally ride the wave of Halloween hype by creating content on the fly. Template-based visuals or ready-made trending stock images from Depositphotos will help you to save time.
The rule of thumb for holiday marketing is the following: thematic holiday content is more liked and shared by users as it is associated with holiday joy. And here are some content ideas for you:
— Halloween how-to’s related to your product AND Halloween
The hottest Halloween topics are costumes, decor, sweets, and horror movies.
— ‘Scary’ facts and myths about your product, industry, or company
It is all about crashing myths and dealing with customer objections in a light, amusing way. Such content can be accompanied by Halloween visuals.
— Planned content infused with a holiday spirit
People love holidays. Share Halloween spirit through your palettes, design elements, and word choice. Even changing your logo colors for one day will draw positive attention.
Oreo DIY ideas on Halloween:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGaKBKhleoK/
#5 ‘Scary’ collaborations
You are not the only brand looking for low-budget last-moment ides to boost sales on Halloween. This year’s events (including lockdown) have taught us that collaboration is what can keep industries alive.
Before Halloween, try to find brands and influencers with whom you can double your Halloween marketing hit. How do you find the right partners? Choose influencers whose audience matches yours and brands that don’t directly compete with you and are popular among your customers. You can also choose competitors and have fun with them for one day!
Some Halloween collaboration ideas:
— Brands ‘dressing up’ and cosplaying each other
— Creating Halloween product packs (see # 3)
— Halloween packs unpacking
— Hashtag challenge launch (see # 2)
— Useful live broadcasts (see # 4, making costumes, decorations, watching movies, and cooking)
See how ‘rotten’ Zombie Skittles went superpopular as numerous bloggers published reviews on them!
Product:
Review:
#6 Act like your brand is a human enjoying Halloween
People project onto things the same feelings and emotions they have for other people. In other words, we tend to animate ordinary things. The more your brand looks like a real person, the more credibility and sympathy it will have with the target audience.
There are many examples of the brands being really human and relatable on social networks. We can watch brands argue with each other on Twitter, comment on each other’s content on Instagram, and chat with customers on instant messengers like WhatsApp.
Why not let your brand act like a real person this Halloween? Come up with a costume for your brand on social media, ask your followers for scary movie advice, and finally get in on some Halloween challenge too.
Wrap up
Whether you plan a quick social media makeover or would like to run a larger campaign, we hope these collections, tips, and ideas will help you make the most of this Halloween.
Now, set some time aside to choose the idea that fits your brand best and start planning and preparing Halloween marketing activities to entertain your audience!
