Time to Send Out Your Halloween Greeting Cards
Americans will spend more than $9 billion on Halloween this year, and nearly 70% of the U.S. will celebrate or participate in Halloween activities. 
Despite all the interest and a positive PR environment (except for the scary clown costumes), Halloween is not utilized as a promotional device for most businesses. It seems like the December holidays get most of the effort. Yet Halloween is a growing holiday in interest and activity.
This is a great time to differentiate yourself and be the first to make a holiday connection in the fourth quarter of the year. If you want to swim out of the sea of sameness, look for other ponds. Halloween could be your new pond.
When does Halloween really start? When Starbucks launches Pumpkin Spice Lattes — end of August (Aug. 27 in 2019).
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
