Halloween Products and Marketing Ideas for Frozen Dessert & Boba Shops

Did you know that for the spooky community, the people who love Halloween season, July 5 marks the beginning of the Halloween season? July 5th was selected because it is the day after Independence Day, the last holiday on store shelves before Halloween. While July feels too early for many to start celebrating Halloween, it’s certainly not too early now to plan how your froyo shop will celebrate Halloween.

According to an annual survey by the National Retail Federation, 69% of surveyed US consumers planned to celebrate Halloween in 2022 and spend a record $10.6 billion on Halloween. Halloween has broad appeal, and ice cream, boba, and froyo shops can easily create a sense of excitement, whimsy, and fun by showing the Halloween spirit.

There are many simple ways to show your shop’s Halloween spirit. As you plan for the Halloween season, keep in mind who your typical customer is. Are most of your customers teenagers or adults with young children? Try to appeal to your typical customer. It may help you to pick a particular theme, e.g., zombies, pumpkins, witches, or a Halloween movie.


Halloween Decorations

• It takes just a few themed decorations to create an attractive and festive display. Some restaurants decorate with things they already have on hand, such as their takeout supplies. Cups and spoons can be decorated and strung together to create a festive garland. Think orange and black, the colors most associated with Halloween. Frozen Solutions has Halloween ice cream/froyo cups with a Jack O’Lantern design, as well as solid orange cups, orange polka dot cups, orange spoons, and color changing spoons and straws. 
• Create a spooky backdrop to encourage customers to share their photos of the shop on social media. Offer cute props like capes, masks, and so forth to encourage customers to get creative. 

Spooky Food & Packaging

• Offering spooky food is effortless with Frozen Solutions’ soft serve mixes in flavors like Sunkist orange, Dole Soft Serve orange, and Nanci’s Dragon’s Blood, Red Raspberry, and Black Cherry. Some shops add food coloring to their soft serve mixes kid and beverages to achieve spooky colors. For Halloween toppings, make sure to offer popping boba, candy corn, and Halloween gummies. Be creative when you name your soft serve flavors and create Halloween-themed flavor cards. Think of Halloween-inspired names like Boo Berry, Cookies & Scream, and Witches Brew. Don’t forget to order Halloween cups, spoons, and straws and MAGIC Color Changing® Spoons, Bowls and Straws.
• Make Halloween-themed bubble waffles and waffle cones with a bit of food coloring added to your waffle mix. 
• Create Halloween-themed ice cream froyo cakes and cookie sandwiches. These items are perfect for Halloween events and gatherings. 

Halloween Contests and Events

• Costume contests and pumpkin decorating contests are an easy and fun way to celebrate Halloween. Sponsor a costume contest with different categories: adults, kids, and pets and offer gift cards to your business as prizes. Sponsor a contest for best-carved foam pumpkin or best decorated mini pumpkin for customers and/or employees and invite customers to vote. Or have a customer cup decorating contest with Frozen Solutions cups.
   
• Encourage customers to give out your shop’s coupons or gift cards for trick-or-treaters and party favors. For example, Jeni’s cone coins are good for one kid-sized cone at Jeni’s scoop shops nationwide. 
• Host a Halloween event. The event could include a Halloween costume or froyo decorating contest, free candy and treat bags, spooky music, Halloween movies, face painting and crafts (e.g., carve a pumpkin, decorate a rock), and more. Another idea is to offer free froyo or discounts for people in costumes. Furthermore, to make it a bigger event, join with neighboring businesses for a trick-or-treat block/neighborhood event or a scavenger hunt. Make sure to encourage your staff to dress up and show their Halloween spirit.

Don’t forget to start promoting your Halloween offerings and events at least a month before Halloween and keep up the promotions. We recommend daily posts on social media during Halloween week.