Top Dog - Total Retail

By Melissa Campanelli

15 Social Media Tactics for Retailers

We asked John Lazarchic, PETCO’s vice president of e-commerce, for his best retail social media tactics. He offered the following list

Start with small, simple tests on Facebook or Twitter. After all, it’s free.
Have patience — social marketing takes time to build.
Temper internal expectations on results during the early stages of your program.
Create compelling content, events and conversations targeted to the interests of your customers.
Don’t be a “me too.” You need a compelling reason for customers to give you their limited time!
Merge social networks into your other marketing channels -— such as email, brick-and-mortar stores and print.
Think about what adds value to a customer’s life (i.e., tips, tricks, how-to’s and did-you-know’s).
Share photos and videos from your stores, even if the quality isn’t perfect.
Start following other pages in your industry (corporate and noncorporate) to get ideas.
Speak with your fans, not to them. It’s a conversation, not a press release.
Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want your mama, friends, CEO, manager and legal counsel to see!
Be 100 percent transparent at all times.
Don’t be afraid of negative comments. A complaint is a tremendous opportunity.
Never underestimate the power of a simple thank you or apology when speaking with your customers.
Be flexible with your program and tool-agnostic. No one knows what the next Facebook or Twitter will be.

When it comes to cross-channel marketing, PETCO is at the top of its game.

The specialty pet products retailer sells its merchandise in more than 1,000 brick-and-mortar stores across the country and an e-commerce website, regularly using its online channel to bring customers into its stores and vice versa. But the buck stops in the e-commerce department.

"While my department is e-commerce, our entire multichannel integration is run through it," says John Lazarchic, vice president of e-commerce for the San Diego-based company. "The offline marketing department knows how important the online component is to marketing and promoting our brick-and-mortar stores, so it usually comes to us to see how we can support its efforts."

Having a multichannel presence is important to PETCO, says Lazarchic. "We all know that multichannel shoppers spend more money and shop more frequently than shoppers who confine their buying to one sales channel."

Email as a Leash
To bring prospects into its stores, PETCO relies on online tools — most notably paid search and search engine optimization programs. These programs direct folks to either a pop-up window or PETCO.com, where they can sign up for monthly e-newsletters. The e-newsletters offer information about store events in their local areas, coupons they can print out and bring to local stores, and the PETCO Foundation (PETCO's nonprofit foundation).

"Consumers today are looking for value, so special offers and discounts are more important to the average user than ever before," Lazarchic says. "Email is an important way for us to communicate with our shoppers and distribute coupons and offers that bring them into the store."

PETCO takes a serious approach to email marketing. It offers targeted content in its e-newsletters — e.g., cat owners receive different information, specials, promotions and coupons than dog or bird owners. Also, when customers first sign up for its e-newsletter, they receive a sequence of five emails over a five-week period. According to Lazarchic, "The emails educate people and bring them into a relationship with the PETCO brand and each channel."

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Melissa Campanelli Author's page

Melissa Campanelli is Editor-in-Chief of Total Retail. She is an industry veteran, having covered all aspects of retail, tech, digital, e-commerce, and marketing over the past 20 years. Melissa is also the co-founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle.

Cover Story: Top Dog