The popularity of animals on the internet knows no bounds. As a result, pet stores have a big opportunity to maximize sales through their digital channels in advance of Halloween. No two brands know this more than PetSmart and Petco, who have ignited the passion of pet owners with content and curated events meant to drive engagement and build loyalty.
U.S. consumers are expected to spend a massive $350 million on pet costumes this year. That breaks down to 23 million people planning to dress their dogs, cats, and iguanas up as everything from Wall-E to witches. Here’s what two major retailers are doing to make sure those customers are spending their Halloween dollars at their stores instead of catch-all shops like Target and Wal-Mart.
Always Be Photo-Ready
“Any pet parent who brings a costumed dog to Petco during the week of Halloween (Oct 25 – 31, 2014) will receive a free bag of Creepy Crunchers dog treats sponsored by Old Mother Hubbard.” – PetCo Press release, October 2014
87% of the most shared Posts from Facebook Pages worldwide have a photo in them. With a content strategy build around photos and subject matter made to be in front of the lens, engagement is incredibly high in the Petco community. Fans share their own photos, comment on the pets of other users and are dominantly positive in most engagement across digital channels.
To ensure their community stays engaged, Petco runs in-store and digital photo contests and share mounds of user-generated content, especially on Facebook and Instagram. This strategy works because User Generated Content is 20% more influential when it comes to purchasing, and 35% more memorable than other types of media.
Year-Round Engagement Helps the Holiday Bump
It’s seven times more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. While it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the increase in traffic to digital and spike in sales that holidays like Halloween provide, the focus shouldn’t be merely finding ways to engage with new customers, but instead to retain them year-round. Retails brands should use the holiday crowds to identify the most influential members of their brand communities and build a lasting relationship.
Over the past month, PetSmart has retained the engagement of 22% of the advocates in its brand community leading into the holiday. Using the Crowdly platform, we saw that the brand had a spike in that retention over the past week, beckoning 25% of those advocates back to engage with its onslaught of Halloween cute. PetSmart has encouraged this behavior in its audience by engaging over 70 times with its customers within comment threads, thereby ensuring its advocates that it cares about their furry friends almost as much as they do.
63.2% of pet owners consider their pets to be family members. Brands like PetSmart and Petco have an opportunity to turn that love and passion owners feel for their animals into a trust and loyalty towards their brands. Given that a 10% increase in customer retention can result in a 30% increase in company value, a similar surge in advocate retention can return exponentially higher dividends.
Keep your eye on the pet store that does the best job engaging pet lovers this Halloween instead of pushing its own sales and agenda. It will reap the benefits of an engaged, loyal community throughout the holiday season.
Photo Credit: Petco Facebook Page