As the role of the store continues to develop and an increasing number of connected consumers shop across a multitude of channels, it is important that shopping centres have full control over their marketing efforts to drive maximum footfall and spend.

Take aim

When planning an email marketing campaign, it is essential that shopping centres don’t settle for blanketed and non-personalised messages. It takes time to develop and segment databases, and even more time to understand target audiences and what kind of content is relevant to promote. This means it’s important not to waste this valuable insight by distributing untargeted communications that could quite possibly end in lost loyalty and a negatively impacted bottom line.

Instead, marketers need to invest the time in segmenting marketing messaging and ensuring that each piece of content will resonate with the audience that they are targeting.

Complimentary mixes

To ensure marketing efforts are optimised across the centre, the retail spread needs to be carefully considered against the current and desired target audience of the shopping centre. This is particularly important as some brands will perform far better when they’re placed close to certain retailers.

For example, a promotion running in a TopShop will directly increase shopper traffic to shops such as Boots and Accessorise, so this kind of knowledge in brand spread and promotion targeting is invaluable in driving supplementary footfall and transactions throughout the centre.

By analysing brand data and the impact of changes, such as new stores, on footfall and average transactional spend, shopping centres will find that eventually, they can make holistic decisions on new tenants and promotion material, to the benefit of multiple brands.

Data sharing

At the end of the day, collated data is only as useful as how it is implemented. Shopping centres should, therefore, evaluate how much data they are willing to share – with whom – and how often. For example, by supplying frequent data samples to tenants, centres will ensure that retailers within the centre have a measurable standpoint from which to improve and plan against.

It is important for centres to bear in mind also that their tenants are their best link to shopping centre visitors, meaning that any data sharing will often result in mutual benefits.

Customer-centred

With every decision, shopping centres should ask themselves how and why this change will benefit the shopper. Why would shoppers care? How would it improve shopper experience?

Ultimately, by optimising the shopper’s experience throughout the centre, marketers will encourage higher levels of engagement, increased frequency of visits and subsequent dwell time, resulting in an uplift in transactional spend.

Measure everything

Once implemented, shopping centres need to be able to measure how the marketing efforts are affecting results and whether they are having an impact. And, as performance metrics and tracking technologies continue to evolve, centres should consider all types of measurements available to obtain a complete holistic view of the shopper and how marketing efforts are performing.

By investing time upfront to ensure that marketing activity is aligned to centre-wide and that achievable and appropriate targets are in place, centres will soon experience the perks of delivering messages that resonate with their high-value shoppers. By following the above top five tips, marketers will further reap the rewards of not just increased spend from shoppers, but incentivise their valuable tenants to work towards a common goal.


 

By Ben Chesser, CEO and founder at Coniq

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