In 2007, Americans spent $5 billion on a holiday that most businesses ignore in their marketing plan.

Yep, I said IGNORE. I guess maybe they feel like the holiday is too childish to participate, or that it doesn’t seem right to use the theme of this holiday for a serious business like theirs. 5 billion dollars of adult spending is hardly childish.

Only 1 secular holiday – Valentine’s Day – generates more consumer spending than the holiday that gets ignored.

You might have guessed by now that the mysterious holiday is Halloween. You still have 3 weeks, so what would do you do?

Ask yourself a few questions to get yourself thinking about a promotion or ad campaign:

• Does your business involve reduction of fear?
• Is there anything scary about buying a new house?
• Getting surgery? Having a tooth drilled? Scary.
• Getting a will or other legal paperwork done?
• Scared of spending money on <any service> and not getting your money’s worth?

I think you could do a lot better than these, but they should get your thought process rolling.

You have 5 billion reasons to think about it and take some action.