To put it really simply, a pet store social media calendar makes your life easier. It sounds like a big commitment of time, energy, and effort at first, but it certainly does pay off in a variety of ways. In this Insider post for pet store owners, we’re going to go over the benefits of a pet store social media marketing calendar, how to get started making one, what platforms or services to use, and our best practices in creating and executing on these calendars!

Keep in mind that while we are a pet store marketing agency and we’ve created many calendars for many clients, we have our own processes and platforms that we consider part of our “best practices,” but what works for you might be better for you!

And if you don’t have a social media calendar and you think you need one (you do), then contact us for a free 30-minute consultation and marketing audit to see if we can’t offer one of our services or packages to help your pet store marketing strategy take off.

Pet Store Social Media
Marketing Calendars

First things first! Let’s get into the benefits of thinking about, building out, and following a pet store social media marketing calendar.

why use a social media marketing calendar?

There are a ton of benefits we can list off the top of our heads, but we’re going to stick to a few short ones for the sake of simplicity and to keep the conversation moving forward!

1. It saves you time!

If you’re one of those pet store owners that would love to improve your revenue from using social media, but you don’t feel like you have time to handle it yourself, then we implore you to take advantage of our pet store social media services! We take it all off your plate and make progress on your marketing goals while you focus on other parts of the business.

Using a calendar lets you plan ahead for events and holidays, batch your work to improve productivity and efficiency, improve the quality of your content since you won’t be scrambling last minute, and schedule your posts to save you time.

2. Your social media numbers will grow!

How do we know this? Because using a marketing calendar improves your ideas and creativity, and that improves your content creation. It also allows you to post consistently. a key requirement in growing your pet store social media and hitting your goals.

In addition to this, and just as important, is that being involved in this will allow you to track your results and learn from your experience working on it. Remember, if it gets measured, it gets managed, so measuring and tracking on your progress will ensure that you’re making strides towards growth!

3. Your pet store social media will improve!

When you use a marketing calendar, your content will improve in quality, which will get your more reach and followers and eventually sales as more pet parents enter your marketing funnel. Staying organized with a calendar allows you to run more campaigns at once, with multiple audiences and goals in mind. Increasing your marketing ambition in this way means more eyeballs, more engagement, and more customers!

How to create a pet store social media marketing calendar?

Again, it’s worth mentioning that while we have a lot of experience as a pet store marketing agency and we like our processes, it’s not guaranteed to be the best for everybody! Let’s dig into some of the specifics on creating a pet store social media marketing calendar and the steps needed to make it as effective as possible.

Platforms and Channels

First, you have to understand which pet store social media platforms you want to focus on. Some boutique shops are better off putting their effort into Instagram or Pinterest, while most brick-and-mortar stores are going to get better results from Facebook.

Depending on your audience, you might find that Snapchat or Twitter brings the most engagement with your brand, so make sure you’re spending some time digging into this key question: who is my ideal customer and where can I reach them online?

Creating an Actual Calendar

There are a variety of ways to do this, and whatever you prefer might be based on what type of learner you are, or which programs or platforms you find most user-friendly. Here are a few ideas:

Excel or Google Sheets (try using a new sheet for each month)
Word Doc (this is a good starting point for brainstorming, but not highly functional as you move on)
Physical calendar (these are good for remembering things, but not good for everything else)
A content planning service like Hootsuite, Later, Trello, etc (check out our Freesources section for free pet store resources and platforms to use)

Our take? We like a combination of these. We typically start our pet store social media planning sessions with a written document to brainstorm, and then we shift it into a calendar like Google Sheets (and also use Google Drive to house all of our content!), before finally executing on a scheduler like Hootsuite.

A lot of this depends on how much work you yourself want to take on, and how much you can delegate to your pet store social media team. And if you don’t have one of those, contact us! That’s what we do for you!

Establishing Roles, Responsibilities, and Workflows

To build onto what we just mentioned, if it’s just you handling this, then guess what? You have to do all of it! The graphic design, the content creation, the branding, the ad copy, the scheduling, the customer engagement, the tracking… it’s a big job for someone that is already wearing every other hat in the business!

If it’s not you, then that’s awesome! But make sure that all of those different tasks are properly tasked out, everybody understands what they’re responsible for, what the expectations and timetables are, and so on.

Best Practices for Pet Store Social media Marketing Calendars

Here are some general tips we’ve got to make the most of your time, and get the best return on your pet store marketing strategies online:

Use a content library online (Like Google Drive) to house your work (and logos) and don’t delete anything. It’s good to make it accessible on your phone too.
Track what’s important to your business, but don’t forget the basics: platform, date, time, ad copy, creative, spend, conversions, and links to assets.
Multiple brains come up with better ideas and content than one brain. Use your team!
Stress clarity, responsibility, and expectations for communication and workflows. Ensure that there’s a repeatable process from idea to execution.
Revisit it frequently, and aim for 30-60-90 day check-ins on campaigns, ideas, events, content, and so on.

Chances are, the more you work on your pet store social media marketing calendar, the more comfortable you’ll get with it, and the less time it will take!

Pet Store Social Media
Marketing Calendars
Conclusion

In 2020, your pet store marketing strategy revolves strongly around your pet store social media. Making a marketing calendar and using our experience is the best way to maximize your return and grow your pet store online.

If you haven’t, check out our other pet store social media resources or other Insider posts in the Blog. You can also take advantage of our growing community of pet store owners on Facebook to get feedback on ideas, inspiration, share wins and losses, and more.

Comments or questions? Find us online!