3 steps to bring your mall marketing to the next level

Mall marketing often lacks innovation, transparency and the willingness to alter a current way of doing business. Today, marketing strategies offer boundless opportunities for shopping centres to promote and spotlight their brands as well as their offerings.

This blog post examines three different measures to be taken by mall operators in order to reinvent marketing for new experiences and to succeed in long-term customer retention and loyalty.

It is crucial for mall managers and owners to realise that their shopping centres are valuable, flexible media assets. The perception of malls must move away from malls being mere financial assets and towards a modern approach; i.e., retail in itself is a media asset that in turn needs to be marketed accordingly. Open space in shopping malls can be rented out temporarily to brands for short-term, pop-up events, thus drawing new audiences inside a centre and generating additional revenue. This would mean a significant change in mindset for some mall owners; however, it does constitute a necessity.

Today’s consumers expect and demand an experience when visiting a shopping centre. The mall owners face the challenge of pleasing both tenants and visitors. Owners can revitalize their strategies by engaging new retail concepts.

Currently, long-term and non-negotiable leases are often standard. However, temporary pop-up stores and concepts can drive new traffic into a mall, thus attracting new customers. Potential tenants can test their brands inside the mall and get a feel for their audience with the help of a small retail merchandising unit and a brand appearance for a day or two. This approach allows owners to generate additional rental revenue and excite visitors with unique store concepts. Additionally, the brands are able to create memorable appearances – and a win-win business is established.

Listed below are three simple steps to bring your mall marketing to the next level:

1. Get to know your media assets

Brands and agencies are highly unlikely to book a media asset without detailed knowledge and key facts related to it. In order to follow this rule, you have to collect all relevant data before attempting to market your media assets.

• Define target groups that would be relevant to a specific brand: What kinds of customers are visiting your mall?
• Be able to provide visitor frequency: How many daily visitors do you have?
• Provide detailed media information: How big are your promotional spaces and what additional utilities are you offering?
• Know price rates for your assets: How much can be charged for media assets?

An in-depth knowledge of your media assets is the starting point of successful mall marketing.

2. Digitise your media assets

The next step is to digitise all collected data with an integrated tool. Managing all available assets, such as promotional spaces, billboards or banners, will result in a structured overview of what you are able to offer. Digitising your media assets by use of a dedicated tool marks the second step.

3. Make your media assets visible and simple to book

To drive up sales in mall marketing, connect your offerings to a network of brands and agencies. First, you earn additional revenue by making your media assets more accessible to brands and agencies. Second, you gain even more revenue by making the process of booking easy for tenants and yourself.

Mall owners and managers should find ways to market and manage their promotional spaces digitally. Doing so can result in fast response times and a transparent overview on current bookings and provide an overall reporting on all marketing projects.

Author: Marco Müllner, Partner Manager at Berlin-based company store2be
E       marco.muellner@store2be.com 
T       +49 152 524 542 49
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