• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 17, 2012

With Fall around the corner, and WalMart doing Great Pumpkin setups, here’s some trends from last year’s Halloween campaigns compiled by Experian to anticipate this year.

2011 Key Trends:

• Over half of Halloween-related email volume was sent from Catalogers and Multi-Channel Retailers
• ‘Costumes’ and ‘candy’ were key topics for Halloween subject lines, as well as basic ‘Happy Halloween‘ greetings
• Over a third of all Halloween mailings are sent in September
• 37% percent of volume was sent within one week of Halloween, but only 27% percent of revenue was received during that week.

Mid-September (6 weeks) to mid-October (3 weeks) may be a good time to increase Halloween mailing volume, says the report.

Subject Line Tricks (According to The Study)

• Urgency in subject lines worked well for driving higher transaction rates and revenue per email
• You do not have to wait until just before the holiday to create a sense of urgency. Mailings in early October saw higher than average transaction rates when they included phrases such as ‘final day for free shipping’ or ‘time is running out to shop our sale’ in the subject line
• Halloween offers are popular, and mailings with offers in the subject line had both higher transaction rates and revenue per email. Offers that “treated” marketers well had “Dollars Off” deals in the subject line, with over 60% higher transaction rates than the Halloween average

To visit Experian, please go here.