Day of the Dead Promotion Ideas

Kamila Palka
Kamila Palka
Halloween arrives side by side with the end of October, both followed by All Saints’ Day. However, over the last years, Day of the Dead, a popular Mexican tradition, is also starting to gain traction in other - not necessarily Hispanic - countries. If you’re looking for a more unique way to surprise your audience you should check out this blog post. We take you through creative and colorful examples of Day of the Dead promotions that will definitely differentiate you from the competitors setting up scary Halloween campaigns.

Before we start with our list of Day of the Dead promotion ideas, let’s take a look at the origins of this special celebration deriving from Mexico. In 2008, UNESCO added the Day of the Dead to the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. According to many different sources, Day of the Dead originated from different Mexican ethnic groups. The fear and uncertainty of death generated a series of rites and traditions that have lasted until today. 

The wide range of celebrations, decorations, and colorful props associated with the Day of the Dead, leaves us with a handful of ingenious ideas for Day of the Dead promotions. Sugar skulls, traditional Catrinas, dressed-up altars, and typical dishes… All these aspects can help you come up with some interesting and engaging ideas. 

Let’s take a look at how you can boost engagement with Day of the Dead games and promotions while entertaining your audience and fostering customer loyalty and trust.


Boost engagement with Day of the Dead social media giveaways

Publicizing your product or brand means attempting to reach as many individuals as possible. Luckily, in the era of social media, this is a task much easier to complete than years ago. Day of the Dead is yet another opportunity to launch a social media giveaway to touch base with customers and attract new potential customers. Did you know that social media algorithms favor posts with high engagement? Posts with likes and comments will be seen by more people than a post with little interaction. Algorithms understand that posts with interactions are more relevant and interesting – therefore they’re shown to more users.

Running a Day of the Dead social media giveaway is a fantastic solution for brands looking to get out there! Sweepstakes tend to increase brand visibility on social media platforms and that’s thanks to all the likes, comments, and mentions. And here’s how to get them!

In the first example, you can see how a tattooist boosted his studio’s social media visibility with an Instagram Giveaway. He ran a Day of the Dead sweepstakes in which he raffled a free skull tattoo. Every user who followed the organizing account and mentioned three friends got a chance to win a free tattoo! 

Day of the dead promotion idea. social media giveaway for day of the dead

Next up is an example of a Facebook Giveaway organized by InfanKids. The brand asked their social media followers to explain their favorite thing about the Day of the Dead, and what they like about InfanKids stores. Open questions generate loads of desired engagement. In this case, there were many interested participants, who voluntarily shared opinions about the brand’s stores. 

Day of the dead promotion idea. social media giveaway for day of the dead

Do you want a head start? Make sure to take a look at our Day of the Day social media giveaway templates – save some time and launch a promotion following best practices.


Entertain online communities with Day of the Dead games

Do you think your followers would respond positively to Day of the Dead games and promotions? If that’s the case, you can surprise them with a Minesweeper where users try to reveal mines without setting them off. The best part of this branded game is that you can fully customize it! Take control of the background images, logos, colors, and even the game icons.

day of the dead promotion, branded minesweeper

If attracting as many participants as possible is your main concern, incentivize participation – discounts, new product launches, gift boxes, and product hampers will definitely do the job. And that’s the case for all Day of the Dead games and promotions! An idea that always works is to reward all participants with discount coupons or vouchers and organize a random giveaway for all registered users once your promotion finalizes.

Need more reasons to launch a Day of the Dead game? Apart from boosting engagement and visibility, our Day of the Dead game and promotion apps bring about new leads. Each user fills out a registration form in order to enter a prize draw or receive their discount.

Another game that social media users tend to love is a branded Memory game. In order to enter a prize draw, users must find matching pairs as quickly as possible. Remember to use images associated with the Day of the Dead like in the following example: 

day of the dead promotion ideas

Try our Halloween Memory DEMO and if you like the idea, launch your own Day of the Dead Memory game to promote your products or campaign. The good news is that you don’t need any programming skills to create a game for your brand and you can fully customize the app.


Boost sales and promote products with a Day of the Dead Reveal & Win game

The next example is fantastic for promoting new products but also for distributing prizes and discounts. Users participate in this promotion by attempting to uncover prizes hidden behind the icons placed on a board. In this Day of the Dead game, participants look for perfume bottles hidden behind catrinas.

game idea: reveal and win

Try this Halloween dynamic by participating in our Halloween Reveal & Win demo.


Collect user-generated content this Day of the Dead

The most colorful and well-known aspect of the Day of the Dead are catrinas – decorated skulls. Organizing an online promotion with catrinas is a good way to attract a lot of attention and make your brand stand out from the crowd mainly focused on scary Halloween promotions. 

Here’s an example of a Scenes promotion that your brand can organize to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Users design their own sugar skulls for a chance to win prizes, which can be raffled among all participants or only those whose designs obtain the most votes. Enabling the voting system is a great tactic to encourage social media sharing and convert more users into leads.

Do you like the idea of running your own catrina contest? Test the user experience playing our Day of the Dead DEMO. If you like it, use our fully customizable ready-made template to launch your branded campaign

Another way to gather UCG from your social media community is to run fun photo contests, for example, with our PhotoFun app. Users upload their pictures and decorate them with Day of the Dead stickers and frames, which can also represent your brand. All pictures are then displayed in a public gallery, which can be shared on social media channels. You can incentivize all participants, or simply organize a random prize draw for the participants.

day of the dead promotion ideas

Do you need help with your Day of the Dead campaign? Or maybe you have some technical questions that need answering? Chat with us