The Best Way to Trunk-or-Treat
Trunk-or-Treats have traditionally been a part of car dealerships’ go-to fall festive events. They help to bring in new foot traffic, connect the dealer with the local community, and aid in gaining new customers.
Keep in mind that we are entering cold and flu season, plus the Coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon, so car dealers must adapt their fan-favorite events to an enjoyable, family-friendly, and comfortable space for the whole community.
New Ideas for a New Normal
Halloween events have changed over the years, and today’s families are looking for more than just a place to grab some candy. They want experiences that are fun, memorable, easy to navigate, and worth bringing the whole family to. That means there’s plenty of room to get creative with your trunk-or-treat setup, from interactive activities and themed decorations to music, games, photo opportunities, and plenty of treats.
With that in mind, we’ve found a few easy updates and ideas you can utilize to make your trunk-or-treat event incredibly fun, fantastically festive, and super inviting for trick-or-treaters and Halloweeners of all ages.
Create a Variety of Spooky Experiences with Festive Decor
There are so many ways to create exciting, immersive, and even slightly spooky trunk themes for your event. Get creative and switch it up to offer an extra-fun variety of experiences for all of your attendees. We recommend keeping it on the lighter side, though, to avoid getting too scary and frightening the little ones.
Here are a few of our favorite examples:
To create a more predictable and orderly event, you can also turn your lot or showroom into a mystery tour! Caution tape is available online and is an easy way to section off the trunk-or-treat route within the lot, but still, have fun with it!
PartyCity.com even has a full crime scene kit that will allow you to make it perfectly clear where to walk. You can even add clues for your trick-or-treaters to find along the way and have them solve a mystery for a prize!
Know Your Target Audience
Do you want to know who goes to trunk-or-treat events? They’re largely parents and grandparents of small children.
Why? Well, that’s easy.
Trunk-or-treating is a simple, hassle-free way for parents to offer a fun Halloween experience for their toddler or young elementary schooler.
Plus, most parents will go out of their way to avoid dragging their little kids up and down every street in the neighborhood on a potentially chilly late-October evening.
Once you have them there, keep them around for a while if possible. Utilize those spacious, family-friendly trunks of your new or pre-owned minivans and SUVs, and invite parents to tour each one along the way.
Engage Your Crowd
Offer complimentary coffee and water for the adults, hot chocolate and juice boxes for the kiddos, and some simple Halloween-themed snacks or even hot dogs to keep their bellies warm and full.
You can also set up some fun Halloween music to enjoy and invite your attendees to stick around for some simple yet fun Halloween-themed games or activities to take place throughout the evening. Add some basic prizes to hand out to participants and keep the little ones excited and happy.
As we know, happy kids mean happy parents.
If you can achieve that result, you’ll make your annual trunk-or-treat an event that families can look forward to attending each year.
Get the Whole Community Involved!
Unfortunately, many car dealers have a little extra available space on the lot these days – at least for now, anyway! Why not take advantage of it?
Your Trunk-or-Treat Event is a perfect opportunity to invite some local businesses and organizations to come set up and join in on the fun. You can also reach out to a few popular food trucks to help fill the crowd.
This will provide more incentive for people to attend and also give them more to do and experience while they’re at your dealership.
Spread the Word!
Halloween is a fun time for adults and children to be creative, use their imaginations, and explore local neighborhoods. If your dealership does plan to host a trunk-or-treat event, we highly recommend that you make sure all of the relevant details are hosted on your dealership’s website and promoted on social media in advance.
Create a landing page on your website with all your event details and create Facebook and Instagram posts that lead back to this landing page.
Remember, even though trunk-or-treat events are a one-day occurrence, this online traffic can be retargeted with your digital marketing in the future, and you can begin to build a rapport with new prospects.
You’ll want to keep the landing page around so you can make updates as you prepare to promote it again each Halloween season.
You can also utilize social media posting to tag any local businesses or vendors involved to gain more eyes on your event. This is also another way to make it easy for your customer to find your event online as they plan their Halloween evening.
Trunk-or-Treat FAQs for Car Dealerships
Planning a Trunk-or-Treat at your dealership? Here are answers to some of the most common questions about planning, promoting, and hosting a successful dealership Halloween event.
🎃 What is a Trunk-or-Treat event at a car dealership?
A Trunk-or-Treat event at a car dealership is a community Halloween event where families visit the dealership parking lot and children collect candy from decorated vehicles. Dealerships can turn the event into a larger community experience by adding games, food, music, costume contests, photo opportunities, local vendors, and other family-friendly activities.
👻 Why should a car dealership host a Trunk-or-Treat?
A dealership Trunk-or-Treat can help your business connect with local families in a setting that isn't focused on selling cars. It gives your dealership an opportunity to become more involved in the community, create positive brand experiences, generate social media content, and bring new people onto your property.
A well-promoted Halloween event can also strengthen local brand awareness and give your dealership something genuinely useful and entertaining to share across its digital channels.
🚗 How do you plan a Trunk-or-Treat at a dealership?
Start by choosing a date, time, and layout for the event. Then determine how many decorated vehicles, vendors, activities, and attendees you expect. From there, plan your candy supply, decorations, signage, parking and traffic flow, staff responsibilities, entertainment, and promotional strategy.
Don't forget to create a clear event plan for setup, check-in, activities, cleanup, and communicating with participating employees or community partners.
🍬 What should a dealership include at a Trunk-or-Treat?
The candy is just the beginning. Consider adding decorated dealership vehicles, costume contests, games, music, food trucks, local vendors, pumpkin activities, face painting, photo booths, raffles, giveaways, and a dedicated area for families to take Halloween photos.
The best dealership Trunk-or-Treat events give families several reasons to stick around instead of simply walking through the parking lot for candy.
🕷️ What are some creative Trunk-or-Treat themes for dealerships?
Dealerships can turn vehicles into almost anything with the right decorations. Popular ideas include haunted cars, classic monsters, superheroes, spooky movie themes, pirates, zombies, outer space, video games, circus themes, and Halloween versions of popular automotive concepts.
You can also challenge employees or participating businesses to compete for the best-decorated trunk and let attendees vote for their favorite.
📱 How should a dealership promote a Trunk-or-Treat event?
Start promoting the event several weeks before Halloween. Use your dealership website, social media profiles, Google Business Profile, email database, digital advertising, local community groups, and in-store signage to spread the word.
Create a dedicated event page with the date, time, location, activities, parking information, and any registration requirements. Social media posts can then drive people back to that page for the full details.
📸 How can a dealership get social media content from a Trunk-or-Treat?
Designate someone to capture photos and short-form video throughout the event. Get footage of decorated vehicles, costumes, games, food, employee participation, community partners, and families enjoying the event.
With permission from attendees, this content can become social posts, Reels, TikToks, Stories, recap videos, and promotional content for future community events.
🏪 Should dealerships partner with local businesses for a Trunk-or-Treat?
Absolutely. Local partnerships can make a dealership Halloween event bigger and more valuable to the community. Consider inviting restaurants, food trucks, schools, nonprofits, community organizations, photographers, entertainment providers, and other local businesses to participate.
Partnerships can also expand your promotional reach because participating businesses have an opportunity to share the event with their own audiences.
🎃 How can a dealership make its Trunk-or-Treat stand out?
Focus on creating an experience rather than simply handing out candy. Give the event a memorable theme, decorate the dealership and vehicles, offer activities for different age groups, invite local businesses, create photo opportunities, and give families a reason to stay longer.
You can also create a signature dealership tradition, such as an annual costume contest, decorated-car competition, charity component, or Halloween giveaway.
📈 Can a Trunk-or-Treat help a dealership's marketing?
Yes. A successful Trunk-or-Treat can support dealership marketing by increasing local brand awareness, creating community engagement, generating social media content, encouraging website traffic, and giving your dealership an authentic reason to interact with local consumers.
The biggest opportunity comes from treating the event as part of your overall digital marketing strategy rather than as a one-day activity.
🦇 When should a dealership start planning its Trunk-or-Treat?
Ideally, begin planning several weeks to a few months before the event. Starting early gives you time to secure community partners, organize employees, plan decorations and activities, order supplies, build promotional materials, and develop a digital marketing campaign.
The earlier you have the major details finalized, the more time you'll have to promote the event and build local awareness.