Growing Your Retail Roots: Social Media Strategies with Crystal Vilkaitis

Independent retailers struggle with declining foot traffic, social media overwhelm, and marketing fatigue. But what if there was a way to turn things around? In this episode, Pete Mohr sits down with social media expert Crystal Vilkaitis to uncover strategies that help retailers grow their business, connect with customers, and increase sales.

What You'll Learn:

→ The best ways to use social media to attract loyal customers

→ How to get your customers to post about your store

→ Why paid advertising still works for independent retailers

→ How to create events that actually bring in foot traffic

→ The power of the "5-Mile Famous" strategy for dominating your local market

Guest Info:

Crystal Vilkaitis – Founder of Rooted in Retail

Website: rootedinretail.com

Instagram: @rootedinretailhq

Special Offer for Listeners:🚀 Save $1,000 on Evolve Conference tickets! Use code PETE at rootedinretail.com/evolve

📩 Connect with Pete:

Email: pete@simplifyingentrepreneurship.com

Website: Shoetopia

Podcast: The Footwear Retailer Podcast

PLUS: Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you move from the Operator’s seat to the Owner’s seat in your business:

1. Take the Value Builder Assessment to better understand the areas of your business that add the most value to your business - Click Here

2. Uncover your Kolbe. Whether just for you, or for your full team, better understand leadership strengths and ways you can advance your People - Click Here.

3. Listen my other podcast Business Owner Breakthrough podcast as well for quick tools and tips - Click Here

Transcript

0:00

Crystal Vulkaitis, it is wonderful to have you here on this new podcast, the footwear retailer. We've chatted so many times on your podcast back on my other podcast, but great to have you here in this channel and I'm excited to go through all things social with you here today as we bring it into the footwear world. I am stoked to be here. Congratulations on the new podcast and this is going to be a great conversation. Oh, thanks so much. And you know, for those of you listening, we'll kick it off right off the bat. I'm going to be speaking at Crystal's big event. She does a yearly event and it's called Evolve. And Crystal, why don't you give us a little blurb on Evolve that's coming up here soon. Yeah. Okay. So I started this conference three years ago to really create a memorable, powerful in person experience to help independent retailers evolve and adapt. Because if we keep doing what we've always done in this fast channel changing industry of retail, as well as how fast marketing and AI is moving, we will be left behind. And the consumer just has so many choices when it comes to where they're shopping and how they're shopping. And so I really wanted to help retailers be found, master customer service and make more money. And that's what we're talking about at evolve. We have 18 speakers. You're one of them. I can't wait for your session. And you know something that's pretty cool with Evolve is the speakers are participating the whole conference too. Like you get access and you can talk to them and so great networking. They can learn more about our agenda and see everybody's topics. And all the speakers at rooted in retail.com evolve and we have a special offer for your people. Awesome. And we'll have that in the show notes and we'll chat about it a little bit later here too. But you know, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on right off the bat is it's my belief that retail success is rooted, as you would say, in, in connection, both in store and online as we transition. And we have things going these days. And today we're diving into really how footwear retailers, like you, the listener, can harness social media to deepen relationships, attract loyal customers and grow your business. Right, Crystal? I think all of these things are the reasons why we want to be involved in social and the variety of different things we're going to talk about today. It's interesting as I was chatting with, we haven't a co op student at Shootopia these days. And I was going through some stuff with her, and she's doing some marketing and kind of learning, and we're. I'm a big believer in helping the next generation. And so it's like, come on in. And we're, you know, going through. And she's taking the term with us. And I said, your job. And let me know how you feel about this. But my, my feeling is that marketing, all those things that you do, whether it's to get them in store or on your web store, which is also the. Another door to your store. Right. All the market stuff is to take you all the way up to that point of transaction, which either puts you onto the web store or puts you in the store for the store experience. And from there the sales take on and then marketing comes back in after they leave the door so that we're ready and prepping for the next time they come. And, you know, that was kind of one of these things that she was like, wow, this is. This is sort of a different thing. Because I thought marketing was always something that's ongoing. I said, yeah, but if you look at it that way, where all of the things we do for marketing is really just to get them in the door, and that's whether. Whether it's in the door online or in the door in store. And for me, my. My main focus and we do online business, but my main focus is always get them in the door of the store. I always find that that's where we really want to do and hopefully we can talk about a couple of little tidbits of things that you've got up your sleeve that can get them in the door of the store as well today, for sure. Oh, for sure. Awesome. Why don't you. You've been at this a while, Crystal, what, 12, 15 years now? Something like that, since you started your first online or your first social business? Yeah. I had a company called Three Elements that I started back in. I think it was 2009. Even before then, I was doing social media marketing like before Instagram came out. Like, I was doing social and I got shut down by Facebook a few times because I found out shortcuts to help grow the brand I was working with. And then I started managing people's social media for them and. And then joined the retail Space exclusively in 2010 when I joined a company called Snap Retail and really helped their retailers learn social media. And from there, in 2012, I started what was Crystal Media then? But last year we went through a brand change and we are now rooted in retail. And so we'll be celebrating 13 years in business this year. Wow. Congratulations. 13 years in business. That's longer than a lot of marriages these days. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's good for you. And it's a milestone. I mean, for all of us listening, these different milestones along the way mean something and we want it to continue and we want it to last and we want to build these legacies and tell us as you, as we look ahead, we're recording here early in 2025. Give us a bit of the social media landscape for retailers. Some of the trends, some of the challenges, some of those things that are going on in the world as it. As it would look for footwear retailers. Yeah. So as far as what to really think about with 2025 when it comes to social, you know, it's not that different from last year. It's kind of double tapping on what was, what has worked over the past year and then just really finding the way for it to work for you. Because the thing is, is I've talked to thousands of independent retailers and I will tell you, majority do not like marketing on social media. Like for one reason or another, social media is just not their jam. And I understand that. I totally get it. If they have somebody in store helping like you do, that really can help support the store. It is one of those great channels for you to stay top of mind and build the connection, like deeper, meaningful connection with your customers because of video, really, you know, you can. Or more open captions. But this is a place where they get to know you. And so if we can embrace that or have somebody on our team, you know, that is something that we really want to make a priority. It's not going to work if you're just doing it like once a week. You know, it's just. Consistency is key in any aspect of marketing, especially social media though, because it's moving very quickly. And so in order for you to stay top of mind with your customers, you do need to post consistently. And so when I say that, I mean daily. You know, if we can commit to daily, that's been a best practice forever. And still going into 25, we're going to want to focus there too. But I really want your listeners to focus on that meaningful connection. And instead of thinking like, how am I going to advertise, how am I going to promote, how am I going to sell, how am I marketing? I want you to really think of how am I connecting with my customers and through that lens changes what you're saying on social or in your emails or even how you're texting or even print. You know, we really need to focus on more of the connection. Our consumers are craving connection and experiences past that transaction. Like they really need something that's more meaningful. And so this can come into play with storytelling, with entertaining, with education, with behind the scenes, with being honest and you and authentically you. Relatable is the new word. Not authentic. Relevant's great too. But we want to be relatable. So if we think about our customers and how am I being relatable? Well, just talking to them as if they're in the store, they're your friends, like you're. That's relatable. Posting what's happening in the store is relatable. Having your customers post is relatable. So when we have user generated content where our customers, or maybe micro influencers who could be fashion or you know, fashion bloggers could be like runners in your town and they're talking about a shoe that they love, a line that they love, they're reviewing items that you sell. Well, that's relatable because the runner who's like, man, I really need new shoe. I'm not a runner. So I don't know what those, what they're saying exactly. But you know, they need, they need comfort, they need support, they need what xyz. And when they're hearing that from someone they admire, they relate to, it's going to sell way, way better. And they watch that content versus just scroll. And that's, you know, that's going to be a challenge in 2025 for all of us marketers is how do you stop the scroll? I've got a couple questions before we carry on just to finish some of your thoughts. How do you get the average person to share that sort of thing? And the other question I had with regards to posting every day was at Shootopia, we use a platform called Publer and Publer, we put everything into Publer and then it posts out to us so that we can be consistent. So we may batch create content and then get it out. From that perspective, what is your thought on using scheduling programs? I mean Publer is just one of them. There's all kinds of them out there. But it's the one that we particularly have used in the. And we've used other ones too along the way. But what's your idea as an expert on using those kind of scheduling programs? What do you find to be effective? What do you find not to be working with those kind of programs versus doing it every day. Because the biggest thing that I hear from most people is like, I just can't stay committed to doing every day. The fires of the day come up, their stuff goes on. I can't get to it. Which is why we went many years ago to a scheduling program. Yeah, great question. And so here's the deal. Batch creating does help us be consistent. Because if we are, if we're counting on ourselves every day to create a piece of content, like, forget it. I am also a small business owner. Like, that's not gonna happen. So if we could batch create, that's a win. And that should be part of your process as far as scheduling. It's. So this is such a mixed bag and has been for years. That's why I wanted to get your take. Yeah, it's, it's like the controversial topic in the industry because there have been a lot of studies of people that will use a scheduling tool and then they test and then just post directly in real time. And some have seen that better results on posting in real time directly to the app or website and then others haven't really seen any difference. And so this is what's challenging to answer that like this is where anyone listening and this would be great for you guys to do at Shootopia is do two weeks of using your scheduling tool. You know you've been doing it for many weeks, right? So you got the data. So now for the next couple of weeks, don't schedule, post directly and see if your engagement and reach changes and if it changes enough to make a difference in do we schedule or not? Because like I talked to some retailers a couple years ago and they were like, it was maybe a 1 to 2% difference. So it didn't make sense for us to really change it. So you just have to do your own testing. But the, the last thing I'll add to this is these apps do really like when you post directly versus any kind of third party. And if you are using Instagram and let's say that you're working with one of these micro influencers or a customer and you want to invite them to be a collaborator of that post, you often, you can't do that through these apps. It's just going to schedule directly. So you need to go to Instagram, post that, invite, collaborate, and then that goes on their Instagram also. So you're getting leveraging their audience too. So in those circumstances we definitely don't want to be you Know, using a scheduling tool. We want to post direct. That's awesome. I mean, that's going to help me here, even with the footwear retail Instagram as we roll out our episode. Yeah, invite me to collab. I'll totally accept. There you go. And I just got a collab from you today because of the one I was on with you on the, you know, on your podcast. Yep. That's awesome. You know, I do get those calls and I just don't have the answer for it. So I like how you brought that through. Yeah. What else are you seeing? You know, what are the questions people are asking you Crystal around some of these things like that. That was one of them. Do I use a scheduler? What are some of the other things that people come to you and they're saying, should I do this or should I do that? And then we can talk about some of the sort of actual things we want to do in our footwear businesses along the way. Yeah. Well, first let me answer your second question of how do you get people to like, yes, yeah, participate. Right. Like how do we get customers or micro influencers to do something for us? So from the influencer perspective, it's often their job. Like they're a content creator. They love creating content so they're easier. They might want in store credit. Maybe you do pay them. Maybe there's some fun collab that you could do. Talk to them, see what they do with brands when it's just the customer. And how do we inspire them to post? You know, that can be challenging because people do feel like, you know, a lot of people don't like posting on social. They don't want to see themselves in the post. The thing with shoes is that they don't have to be like, they can just be taking like a foot selfie. You know, they don't need to be showing their face or even like shoulder down to show outfit of the day or to really just, just be like kind of be spotlighted. So if the shoe store did something where you know, you have to market this, you have to promote it. It's a campaign that you're running. So give it a name and, and really promote it and rally. I'd have in store signage, email, post to social and say we want to spotlight our customers. Take pictures of your shoes, shoe selfie or like you on vacation with your shoes or what. What's the campaign you want to do? Yeah, Honestly, go to ChatGPT and get some good ideas on I want campaign that rallies my customers to get them to post. So they're curating the content for me. They're tagging me. You know, create this campaign. And then when you gamify something, it's a little more fun. You need to then have your team talk about it. Like, hey, here's a flyer. I'm sending you home. Like, you could take the picture right now. You know, try to get them to do it right. Right in the store so they don't forget. But a lot of people like being spotlighted, highlighted, or winning. And so if you gamify or you say a customer of the week and you're gonna put them on your social, you're even gonna print a picture and put them in your store. Yeah. They're gonna come into your store and take a selfie of their picture, like, look how awesome I am. And look, they might not even buy anything that day, but they're gonna post that to their social, and then their friend sees it, and then in two months, their friend needs a new pair of shoes. And where are they going? The place that had my friend on their wall. So I would look at ways to, you know, inspire them and motivate them through being highlighted or winning something. Yeah, I love that. I mean, years ago, we came up with a mat basically on the floor, and it had hashtag on it. So you take your pick. But we could never get people to do it. Crystal. It was just one of those things to actually get them over the tipping point of. Of standing on that mat, taking the pics. Because we said the same thing. They may not want their whole picture, but they won't mind taking the picture down below. But, yeah, I like some of the ideas that you've brought up there, and I think that's something that we can change it. Maybe we'll bring those mats back out and see if we can. Well, okay. So were they pretty? Like, were they beautiful? Were they Instagrammable mattes? They were. I wouldn't say they're pretty pretty, but our store isn't a fashion boutique. It's more of a, you know, running store, hiking store, everyday type shoes. So I. I don't know that having something that's glamorous would be our customer base. Because that's not our customer for the most part. Right, right. So depending on your listeners, customers, and for you, I would create an Instagramable floor piece. Yeah. So if it is the runner, it's like you've got. Or the hiker. You've got a really beautiful scape of mountains. Yeah. And like a, you know, an inspiring quote that just makes them feel strong. They're gonna then take the picture, like. And even, you know, you see retailers who will create this beautiful mosaic, like, on the front room as you walk in. And it just. It's gotta be Instagrammable to motivate people to share. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Let's dig into a couple of other marketing campaigns too. You know, one of the things that we've noticed at our store, and I've talked to several other footwear retailers, is that for a variety of different reasons, some of the special events that used to draw large numbers into our stores aren't drawing anymore. And it's harder to get through to the people. It's harder to make. You know, what has always worked from a perspective of special events in a store, not necessarily is pulling the same amount. And what sort of things can we do socially to be seen differently, even if they are some of the same events and what have you, but some of the. Some of the social stuff that we've been doing for years, some of the emails that we've sent out for years, all of these different things. Now, of course, everything evolves, right? And of course, we're always trying to make it better and better every year. But the actual door traffic is. Is a big issue for independent retailers these days, right? Not just in footwear, but across the board. You and I both work across the board, not just in footwear. And we're seeing door traffic counts come down, we're seeing events counts come down. And what sort of things seem to be really hitting it, hitting the mark these days to really make that, that next event shine and make people see that it's coming. Great question. Because there is a flip side. I've talked to retailers who are crushing it with events. Like, that's what we want to hear. That they have had, you know, and so I think that with sometimes if we are always doing what we've always done, that can get stale and old and we tune out. And so if it's an event that you. That really needs to evolve, then I would mix it up. You know, I really feel like the things that are winning is there's some sort of theme or there's some sort of like, wow factor or like, I think of there's a retailer, Serendipity, and she does these annual Harry Potter events and like, they decorate full out all these little areas that integrates Harry Potter and they dress up and it's so fun. People, of course, are taking pictures. They want to be A part of it they're posting it gets people excited. They want to go next year. They're bummed they missed this year. And so I just feel like it has to be more than just. Just I'm having an open house or I'm having a sale. Like, is there going to be. Can you bring in somebody who, you know is an author and they're gonna do sign books and maybe read part of their, you know, their new inspiring book of how they climbed Mount Everest? And maybe you even have limited tickets available, you know, like creating urgency. And the reason why you need to say yes now will help make sure that people get there. If it's just like, hey, this is happening. Come if you want. And there's not really anything that they get a benefit from. So can we teach? Can we inspire? Can we have a comedian? Can we have a dj? Can we have, you know, a sampling of food? Like, what can we do to really pull people in and make a difference? And. And then we have to properly market that. So I feel like sometimes with independence, you know, we're small businesses, we're doing so much all at once that we don't often give ourself enough time to properly promote. And so it could be like, oh, I'm having my event next Friday and I haven't even posted about it. So, you know, we have to have a promotion plan at least two weeks out. You know, we're not going to go. A month can be kind of too far out. Unless it's a really big, like, we're doing a big giveaway or you are selling tickets to something, then you might need longer, but you know, at least two weeks where we're really promoting this thing like every other day. People know about it, they hear it, talk about the benefits. Why do they need to come? What's in it for them? And then running some ads, paid ads still work really well. Obviously you need an ad budget for that, but you're paying your way to get more eyeballs because on average, 2 to 6% of people, you know, these are meta stats. 2 to 6% of people are seeing what you post organically. So if we're really trying to raise that foot traffic, I mean, I recommend running ads daily, but if we are limited on our budget, then maybe we're putting that attention to an event or promotion that we have going on. Leverage your emails. And also, how can we leverage other people's audiences? You know, how can we get our coffee shop down the street to be talking about our event? Can we have you know, postcards, can we give that their customers something special in return? Can we buy everyone's coffee on, you know, this day? And it's hey, Shootopia bought your coffee today. They hope you can make it to their event. Like that's powerful. So, and this is, this comes in to my 15 mile famous which was born out of talking to you because so long I would say, you know, we really need to focus on connecting with the local audience. We do so much to try to get our online audience, but if you have a brick and mortar store, chances are you haven't done enough to connect locally. And so if Everybody in a 15 mile radius knew your store, what you sell, the events you have going on, loves you, your business would probably grow, you're probably doing great. So let's look through the 50 mile lens on how I can promote my event. Other people that are local magazines, are we submitting a press release to them, are we getting quoted, are we inviting the journalists and the news anchors to come because we're doing a big giveaway or we want them to be our VIP guests. Like how are we really leveraging our local audience to promote these things? And when we are like sending press releases or inviting special guests or inviting micro influencers, we need time to do that. So we need to spec back, you know, like when is this happening? And really all the deliverables that we need to get done to have an effective event, we got, you got to put in that effort and then you deliver an amazing experience and people talk about it and then they're going to the next event. Like you get that momentum but you really have to have something that's interesting and a theme and market it well. I think one of the big takeaways here for the listeners is that if you're planning a special event, you can't just jump into it and go, there has to be some planning, there has to be some thought, there has to be some strategy, there has to be sort of a flow of things and it takes time and there's process involved and there's people involved and it will cost some money to do this kind of thing. It doesn't just happen for free. And I think a lot of people who have been at this for a while think that things still happen that way as easy as they once did. And they don't, right Crystal? They don't know we gotta work a little bit harder to connect. I mean, like I said earlier, the customer has just so many choices and so we do have to work harder and it's. And what's great too, there's a lot more tools at our fingertips to allow us to really connect to the right people. You just have to make sure you've got the right message, you really understand your customer and you are consistent. I love it, you know, and I love the whole 15 mile famous thing. And just to bring that up, it wasn't my idea. I love the idea and I've been spouting it for years, but I actually heard it from one of my marketing coaches too. His name is Dean Jackson. And Dean Jackson is just an amazing dude that has all kinds of interesting concepts, but I love that one because you and I are both in the independent retail world and it's like, let's make our, our individual stores shine. And we don't have to be number one in the, in the country. We need to be one number one in our 15 mile radius, right? Yep. And for those of you who are listening that if you're in a heavier, densely populated city, well, that radius shrinks down. You might only need to be five mile famous, but you know, whatever that radius is, own the radius and then expand the radius afterwards. So if you start off with being one mile famous and then you expand it next year to five miles and then the year after to 15, whatever the case is. And for those of us in Canada, we can talk kilometers, but, but nonetheless it's, it's this concept of really, you can't start with being world famous. We need to bring it back down into the, the that area. And I think that's an interesting piece when we look at even putting the dollars behind like we talked about, when you do have a limited budget and we all have a limited budget, let's face it, some of it's, some of them are bigger than others, but we all have a limited budget and we want to be spending those dollars to the best use case. And I really, really, really believe that this idea of trying to get people in the door of your brick and retail store as opposed to trying to compete with everybody online for who's world famous and who's spending the most dollars online is the way to go. We've, we've lost a lot of money over the years trying to get that next, the next web store dollar. And yes, we've got them, but it's cost a lot too. And at the end of the day, it's not, it hasn't, at least for us, been incredibly profitable or at least not nearly as profitable as getting that same customer in the store. Because when they come to the web store, they'll often come, it's like, I'm going to buy that pair of keen sandals and they buy the pair of keen sandals and that's it. But when they come to your store and your sales team like the marketing gets them to the door and then the sales team takes over, the sales team now is like, I'm coming in for the keen sandals and I'm going to get this, this, this, I'm buying a pair of sunglasses. I'm going to take this, you know, all your add ons and maybe another pair of shoes. That's if we can spend the same amount of money and get them in the door and have our sales team get them everything they truly want and have them leaving as a satisfied, happy returning customer, isn't that better dollar than to try to get the next web store sale, which generally is cost, you know, is price sensitive. And not always are you having your returning customer. I mean, there's ways to get a returning web store client for sure and we do. Everybody's doing their best to get that. But once you get them in your store and you've treated them with that experience you talked about a little bit earlier and you leave them, you know, looking back, as I often will say after they go through our sales process, if they, if they leave the door and look back at the store and say, you know, shootop, that's my favorite shoe store. That's the feeling we want them to get. Right. Exactly. It's about a feeling. In fact, I teach a lot about hospitality. I think hospitality is an independent store's number one competitive advantage. I love it. And hospitality can fuel being 15 mile famous because when you deliver that great experience, the customer is going online and talking about it. They, you know, they might not be writing a positive review because we're more likely to do negative reviews, but depending on the experience, they may go and write that, but they're, they're going to social media. Like I flew Delta a couple days ago and when I sat down there was a postcard that said thank you and on my seat. And I just thought it was like a promo piece that somebody left behind. Like, honestly, I thought it was trash and somebody accidentally left it on my seat. So I go to put it in the front pocket and I notice that it's handwritten and it says Ms. Vilkitis. It says my name and I'm like, what? And I read it and it's thanking me for being a loyal customer. Well, I saved that I showed my dad and his wife. I'm gonna post that on social media. I am now the social media, you know, content creator for Delta. Like, so when we create great experiences, our customers post for us. And that is the ultimate win because then you can share that they're tagging us and then they're coming back for more and more. And I just want to say, you know, before COVID I always said a lot of retailers were thinking about launching a website. Yeah. And to your point, it's just so. I don't think people realize how much work it is. Like, you don't just launch a website and put your products online and now you start making money. Like, if only. I know. I wish it was that easy. All right, like, if I figure that out, I will come back and do another podcast with you. But in the meantime, you have to. It's like you open a second store. You have to put effort into constantly marketing it. And now we're talking about SEO and Google AdWords and social ads. And I mean, there's so much that goes into your online store. And so what's happening is a lot of retailers launched all these websites, but not really seeing many sales and they're losing. They're not spending the time on the 50 Mile famous. Right. And really connecting locally now. So I often said before, COVID like, do you really need that website? The thing is, is now we do expect omnichannel if I can buy on. On social, on mobile online. But what we're doing for a lot of brick and mortars is nail the experience and the local focus and what I say, be a local legend. And then you have your website for people to continue to order, to browse online. You can, you'll definitely get some sales other places, depending on how you're marketing. But it's more of an extension to help your current base when they need something now and they trust you. So I just think we've got. Unless you really have the resources or dedicated person, E Comm will take a lot of time and money. Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, when what ran through my head there was in our. We have two stores and in our stores we have definitely more local traffic in the winter months and more transient traffic in the summer months as people are traveling to and from the cottage and all that kind of stuff. And for those listening that have stores in tourist areas, if you're doing that great job in the, you know, in Florida, it would be sort of from January till April, but in the northern parts of the country or in Canada. It's more sort of those summer months if you're doing a great job in. And we have people coming in, you know, that only come to the cottage every summer, let's say for a couple of months. But they buy all of our shoes with us. You know, they'll actually buy their fall shoes before they go back home because they want to spend with us. But the other thing that the website will do is it allows them to take the store with them when they can't be with you. You. Exactly. And I do think there's some power there. I also think there's some power in the fact that they can pre shop. We see a lot of pre shopping crystal where people come in knowing exactly what they want. They, they can see it's in our, you know, it's. Oh, it's in the Mount Forest store. It's in the Fergus store. I'm going to Fergus and the size 8's there and I want to try the shoe on. They'll come in specifically saying I know I've already looked through it all and I want to try the shoe on. And that tightens up our sales procedure too because we don't have to go through the whole thing. We can then take get them that shoe and then now we're looking for those other pieces to add on. But that whole first part of the sales procedure and finding out what they want and everything has somewhat helped by having that information available on the site. So the websites are a lot of work but there's a lot of good reason to do it as well. Totally. And I think that's why we just have to change our mindset about it and our understanding on how we're using it because we do need to connect it with in store with social it all, you know, Omnichannel we're going to continue to hear that. We do really want to have that Omnichannel and as much as we can bring that in store feeling to the website. But that's where you're absolutely right. Like you can't provide that extra experience and that next level service on the website. There's some things that you can do but it's just not the same if they're not in the store. And one thing I'll add is like when people come in and they know exactly what they want to buy, this can often come from great social media content. And so I recently heard, you know, in order to have mind share and wallet share we have to first start have screen share and So I love that. Yeah. And so in order to get that screen share from the shoe perspective, like a simple. One of the easiest things that listeners could do is when you get new items in, you're just unboxing and showing the new items like because it is in kind of the fashion industry like and people will buy multiple pairs of shoes for sure. That is great content of just showing what's new. We love knowing what's, what's brand new. Right now you're helping me shop while I'm on my couch watching a TV show because we are multi device and so that's easy content to do reviews where you do like a green screen and you have the shoes behind you and you can kind of point out like okay, love how this stitching is here and why these soles are really powerful. Like it makes it kind of a cool content piece. When it's green screen behind. I've never thought of that one. Yeah, people love the green screen so that can really help showcase the items. Of course you could showcase the items in person too but I think like there's just test the different content types also like for me I go to TikTok first as we're filming this. It's currently unavailable in the US we'll see if it comes back. But when I'm looking for trends like I'll go to TikTok and I'll put in comfy cute shin high boots or winter tennis shoes. Stylish, you know, like I want to know what the people are saying on TikTok and so you can be the person who's sharing that on reels or YouTube shorts or TikTok if it comes back or Facebook reels and say, you know, this is what think of those keywords be in the mind of the searcher. What are they looking for? It's often the, the year or the season and comfy or trendy or stylish or versatile or whatever they're kind of looking for there you're really understanding your customers and creating those types of content so they find it. That is really great. And that's where you could get some of those web orders if they're not local. Yeah. But I will tell you and again this is where I hope TikTok does come back. The TikTok algorithm for local, really strong. I hope Instagram and Facebook and YouTube get better. And what I mean by that is if I'm scrolling the local algorithm with reels because those are open to anybody, you don't have to be following the brand so that's why we want to use reels. It knows where I am and it will deliver the content from my local shoe retailer because it knows that I live in the same area or I'm visiting the same area. And so TikTok's the best, best at that. I, I hope other platforms get better for our locals because then it's like I could be searching for trends and I'm in your town and I know exactly where to go. Like what a benefit. So those are just some of the things and I just also want to say too, like live streaming and live shopping is still really working well. Like Facebook is not dead. Live selling is bigger than ever. And those are times like especially if you're slow or bad weather or you know, some or like have a consistent day of the week at the same time so you connect with your people, you have your own like show. But we are selling, retailers are selling items from going live. It's a strategy you should consider in 25. I love that. I mean in footwear we basically have two seasons and there's a mini one for us in the northern states as too but or in the northern, you know, in the northern states and in Canada the first season is spring, summer and the second season is fall, winter and sort of then for those of us in snow areas we kind of have deeper winter. Right. As a, as a mini season sort of separation there. But when we look at this, the launch, the unboxing, like so much of our stuff comes in over a period of let's say one out, six weeks out of every six months as we transition those particular seasons. And even if we did a live show for six weeks a season and that was a recurring season, let's call it of your live shows and doing here's what's in this week. So we can take the unboxing and then we can also at the unboxings for your stories and all that kind of stuff. But then we can do the live show for the more intricate sort of things. So I love that idea. I think that's really interesting. Crystal. Well, and I like the idea of it being having a start and end with your show, if you will. And because that helps the consumer know like okay, this is going to be a four week thing. I want to tune in, I want to know the trends, I want to, you know, I want to know the things and then I'm not committing is this every single week because then you start seeing the fade. Right? Like that's harder to keep people. It's also harder to be consistent. Do that every single week. So. But then if you come back with, you know, our newest thing six months later, they're like, oh, I love the first one. Totally tuning into this, this one, you can really grow a nice captive audience that loves listening. So that, that would work so well, I think for your listeners. Crystal, we've talked about a lot of stuff. We've talked about some current trends, some challenges, some marketing campaign stuff. We've dug into user content. Right. We want to be on screen. We've talked a little bit about paid advertising, not a whole lot, but a little bit. We've talked about some emerging trends, how to better get people in the door both at your retail stores and online. I think the future of retail, independent retail is bright, Crystal, and I know you do too, and give us sort of your overarching and it doesn't have to be sort of absolutely footwear specific, but with all of the talking that you do, all of the people that you see in the industry, let's sort of take it all to this sort of global side of things that retail isn't in a bad space, it's actually in a good space. The world is abundant. And what are your thoughts on independent retail today? Well, this is one of my most favorite questions because on my podcast at the end I have six, six questions in the resilience round and the last one is what's the future of independent retail? Yeah, and I mean I love everybody's answer there and they agree with you. It's bright. I agree with you too. I think it's super exciting and I feel like the playing field has been leveled like from big box to indie because of AI. You know, you, our retailers have access to technology to where it can be your creative department to help you navigate these campaigns that we discuss the content you should be posting on social marketing campaigns, email copies, subject lines, optimizing your website. Like all of those things can happen with AI and you don't have to hire a big agency to do all that for you. So first of all, now we can become a little more competitive at this speed that we can do things and also really take time to dive in and understand our clients. This is where I feel like the indies that really understand their customers and show up consistently in whatever way works best for them and they know their customer is there, but they're consistent and they're showing up and they are relating to their audience and creating meaningful content and then they're providing an account experience that the customer feels Something like you said earlier, they have to feel something. And that's, that's what hospitality is. Service is what we do. Hospitality is how we make people feel. And so the independence that can master that, you know, getting found online, creating connection, mastering customer experience, they will be resilient. And when we are resilient, we can weather any storm, another pandemic, a competitor moves in across the street, you know, E Com, all the things that can happen. If you can master those things, then you've created loyalty and long relationships and you keep showing up. And so just leverage what you have. Independence, have so many benefits. They're people. Big boxes can't do that. Like, you can create relationships with people. You have your brick and mortar to create experiences. You are a part of the community. Be a part of the community and, and just be yourself. You know, like, however that looks, people will resonate with that. It will be relatable, enjoy it and connect. I think the retailers who do that, they're golden. And, and I just, I'm so excited for what's to come this year. The word of the year. Relatable. Exactly. Relatable. That's the word. I love it. Thanks so much for being a part of the footwear retailer podcast, Crystal. I'm excited to join you in Denver at Evolve here shortly. And if anybody wants to more information on that or wants more information on you, we'll have it in the podcast notes. But why don't you tell them how to learn a little bit more about Evolve and how to learn a little bit more about Rooted in retail. Yeah. Well, we have a really special offer for your listeners. So if they get a ticket by March 12, they can save a thousand dollars on their ticket by being a listener of your show. Nice. So you can just go to rooted in retail.com evolve and use the code Pete and you will save a thousand dollars. And I know that both Pete and I would love to hang out with you for sure. Of course, if you have questions, the fastest way to reach me is through our info@roOTedinretail.com also connect with me on Instagram, RO, retail HQ, or personally. I'm Crystal Vilkitis, would love to connect with you there. And Pete, just thanks for having me on the show and I'm super excited to watch this podcast grow like your other one did. You're such a great host and I'm just really glad to be here. Thanks so much, Crystal. Thanks again. And we'll talk to you in a short while at Evolve. Super excited. Until then, make it a great day.