The spooky season is drawing near! Many people love Halloween. For some, it’s their favorite time of the year. Others get into it because their kids love dressing up and having fun. No matter what your reason is, Halloween is a unique time of year, and you want to make sure your business’s displays, signs, and banners reflect that. If you’re a retailer with a lot of Halloween products, you’re definitely going to want to make sure they’re front and center for your customers.
One way of doing that is to use unique seasonal displays. Whether you want to add some fun spooky décor or are going to go all-out and transform your store into a haunted house, there’s a lot you can do for Halloween. Even if you’re not a business owner, you can make use of custom signs and other items to make your home look amazing this Halloween. Here are some of the ways that TNT Signs can help make this Halloween season truly spooky.
Change Out Your Current Signage
One option to create spooky seasonal décor is to swap out your current custom signs for ones with bats, pumpkins, black cats, and other fun Halloween images. You likely will want to keep these images on the cute side, especially if you’re a family-friendly store that often sees customers of all ages come through the door. If you’re a specialty Halloween pop-up store, you might be able to get into the more scary side of Halloween. It really depends on who your customers are.
So what current signage can you swap out? You probably won’t want to change your main sign that’s on the building, especially if it’s made of light-up letters or requires a crew to install. Instead, think about the small things your team can do. You could swap out the signs over each aisle that helps direct people. If you don’t want to change them all, you could swap out the ones for your seasonal or holiday section. Change that sign to something Halloween-related so people know that you’ve stocked your spooky stuff.
Another option is to change the signs over your register or that you have on the front of the checkout counter. You can also add Halloween-themed signs to your candy aisle since customers are going to want to stock up on candy for trick-or-treaters. Basically, think about the areas of your store where Halloween-themed signs would make sense and add them there.
Add New Halloween Signs
You can always add new signs to direct customers to your Halloween section. Signs hanging above those aisles or shelving can work, but you can be fun with it, too. For example, instead of signs, how about adding some decals to the floor? You can have a spooky set of footprints leading people to the Halloween section, or you could do a broken pathway and then have a cardboard haunted house front set up at the end.
In fact, you could transform an entire section of your store into a haunted house if you’re really into Halloween. Signs don’t always need to be hung—they can be used to create the illusion of a house, a cemetery, or anything else you want. You can affix them to the front of shelving, to the sides of display cases, and to the front of tables to make things look fun and spooky. Get creative, especially if you’re a store that caters to creative people. They’re going to want to see what unique way you’ve decorated for Halloween.
Halloween Signs Don’t Have to Have a Function
That leads into the next point: Halloween, and any seasonal displays for that matter, don’t have to be purely functional. You can use signs to change the atmosphere of your store or to have a little fun. If you have large glass windows at the front of the store, you can have signs made to look like tombstones, monsters, and anything else you want. Just attach them to the glass, and you’ve instantly decorated the front of the store. You could even use decals if you want something that’s a little more permanent.
Another fun way of adding décor around the entrance, checkout area, or where you have your Halloween products is to have signs made in the shape of bats and hang them down from the ceiling. These signs could be plain, but you could also use them to advertise some of the products you have.
Create Halloween POP Displays
Want to go beyond simple signs? POP or Point of Purchase displays are usually made out of cardboard and can be assembled into a cube or other shape. Most have built-in shelves and, once assembled, can hold product. Since they’re made out of heavy-duty cardboard, you can have custom logos, images, and text printed on them. For Halloween, the sky’s the limit here. You can have a POP display designed to look like just about anything, including haunted houses, graveyards, and much more.
The benefit of getting a POP display for any holiday is that it’s typically reusable as long as you don’t put any dates, prices, or other details on it. This means you can create a Halloween display or two and then reuse them year after year. Of course, you can always create one for specific products you have for this year. It all depends on what your marketing budget is and what you want to highlight.
If you are going to reuse the same POP display every Halloween, be sure to pull it out sometime around late July or early August to make sure it’s in good condition. If it’s not, you want to make sure you have time to design something new and get it ordered before you want to start advertising Halloween products.
What About Non-Retail Use?
Of course, there are many ways to use custom signs and displays in non-retail settings. Churches and schools may be able to make use of custom POP displays for Halloween parties and festivals. While these displays are often designed to hold products, there are many creative uses for them. Custom signs and banners can also be used at these events to help direct people or to provide instructions for party games and other activities.
Even those who are looking for ways of really spooking up their homes can make use of custom signs and banners. Halloween is a great time to get creative, so have fun thinking about the different ways you can make use of these materials. You can use POP displays in decorations, while signs and banners can be hung behind windows to create spooky looks.
How to Create Amazing Halloween Displays
Once you have some ideas for Halloween, it’s time to start creating your signs, banners, displays, and other items. You’ll want to first think about your audience. Again, you don’t want to create anything too scary or lifelike if you have families shopping in your store. If you cater to children and families, it’s always a safe bet to go the cute route. Draw some cute black cats, Jack-o-lanterns, funny witches, and other illustrations that are sure to make them laugh.
If you don’t get a lot of kids in your store, you can go a little more realistic or scary, but even then, you don’t want to go too R-rated. Also, think about your business and how to incorporate your décor into what you sell. If you’re a grocery store, it should be fairly easy to work in treat-or-treating and giving out candy into your signs.
What about an auto-parts store, though? You may not have Halloween products, but you could advertise preparing for the winter with Halloween signs. For example, you could draw Dracula and other monsters trapped in the snow as a way to advertise getting snow tired. Again, get really creative. Even if you just want a fun sign that wishes people a happy Halloween, there’s no reason for it to be plain. Let your inner artist go crazy. If you have an employee who enjoys drawing, this could even be a fun way of letting them combine their talent with work.
Other than keeping your audience in mind, there are no rules about what you can and cannot do with your Halloween items. You might want to go with something that’s currently trendy, but remember, you might have to replace those signs in a few years if that trend has fallen off. On the other hand, if you have something that’s connected to something that’s currently popular, you can maximize on that trend by incorporating it into signs. Doing so could help boost sales.
TNT Signs Can Help
If you’re stuck on how to put together amazing signs and displays for Halloween, our team of designers may be able to help. TNT Signs can help you work out what you want to do for Halloween, then print everything quickly and on high-quality materials. We can assist you with printing everything from large banners and custom signs to stickers and vehicle decals. To learn more about how we can help you, contact TNT Signs today at 707-528-8523.
