These marketing calendars for pet stores have become a regular Insider item for us - you can use search function to find our past ones, and in order to stay up to date with the newer ones you have the options of following us on our social feeds or subscribing to our free, growing community of pet store owners!

With that being said, let’s jump right into our March 2020 Marketing Calendar for pet stores. Keep in mind that we advocate starting your marketing cycle for big events 6-8 weeks ahead, based on our experience with pet stores and their customer purchase/visit cycles. For special days and flash sales, you’ve got a bit less time that you need to adequately get the word out to your customers.

March 2020 Marketing Calendar
for Pet Stores

Month of March

March 19th is technically the first day of spring, so using the transition to your benefit is completely doable. Spring is a time of regrowth, regeneration, and renewal.

It also means the arrival of spring-styled items and the end of winter items, so it’s not a bad idea to get those perishables or out-of-season items on a blowout sale to reduce your inventory and free up some retail space.

As far as monthly observances within the pet industry go, none are so widely known or followed as Pet Dental Health Month (February), but in some circles and for some audiences these might be important:

Poison Prevention Awareness Month (Good for veterinary fields, consider partnerships and co-sponsorship opportunities)
Adopt a Rescued Guinea Pig Month (smaller audience but shouldn’t forgotten about!)
National Frozen Food Month (a bigger one than you may initially think because “frozen,” as a term, is going out of style but now frozen and raw foods are considered “fresh,” there’s some wiggle room there)

individual holidays in march

March 1-8: Professional Pet Sitters Week

Another good opportunity to find some local partnerships that you prefer and to support smaller businesses rather than Rover (no disrespect to Rover!).

March 8: International Women’s Day

Worth bringing up and celebrating, at least through social media. There are so many women in our lives that have a huge impact as business owners, staff, mothers, sisters, animal lovers, and beyond.

March 13: K9 Veterans Day

Worth mentioning and showing your store’s appreciation for the hardworking veterans, both human and canine. You could even make an entire monthly or weekly sale for veterans - you won’t lose a lot of money due to the small number of shoppers, but the opportunity to offer than looks good in the eyes of your other customers

March 17: St. Patrick’s Day

Maybe everything green is on sale? Get creative!

March 17: March Madness Begins

A great opportunity for you to host a “cutest photo” bracket contest for a small gift card to drive engagement and build some more brand loyalty. If you set this up early enough in advance, you could create a small photobooth area to get customers to pose for photos insde the store. If this sounds good to you but you can’t figure out where to start, well, a great place to start would be a free discovery call with our team.

Reach Out

March 20: International Earth Day

Sustainability is still a marketing hot word among younger customers, so don’t forget to show some love to Mother Earth.

March 23: National Puppy Day

A “must-hit” on social media

March 23: Cuddly Kitten Day

Ditto!

March 28: Respect Your Cat Day

Should be every day, right!?

March 29: Mom & Pop Business Day

A lesser-known version of Small Business Saturday, you can own or disown this one as much as you’d like. We like to celebrate it though because we only work with small, local, independent, “mom & pop” type of pet stores!

March 30: Take a Walk in the Park Day

People need a reminder here and there! Hopefully for our clients and supporters in the northern tundras of the United States this day will bring some sun.

March 2020 Marketing Calendar
for Pet Stores
Conclusion

So, our March 2020 Marketing Calendar has put everything nicely in one spot for you, in addition to a few ideas that you could run with when it comes to pet store marketing in March. Remember, don’t try to do all of these! You lose some novelty when you overdo it and events and sales should be special in order to bring people into the store. There’s a balance to be found.