Shopping Centres are more than the sum of their retailer parts. They are a destination for shopping, eating out and spending time with friends. As social distancing has made it difficult to offer big bang experiences that draw crowds, and customers are spending more time shopping online, shopping centre marketing teams need to work even harder to communicate their offering and deliver footfall.
Influencing local conversation and increasing relevance to the community has to be at the heart of shopping centre marketing if customers are going to visit out of desire rather than just necessity.
Maybe* has profiled several shopping centres of differing sizes to understand what’s working for them to engage customers, and deliver a local experience.
How shopping centres drive influence in local conversations
by Amy RountreeThe importance of influencing a local conversation
Influencing a local conversation allows shopping centres to be at the heart of the conversation about place. Demonstrating local pride increases relevance to customers. The Ridings Centre gets this right.
The volume and engagement with their social media activity successfully enables them to feature prominently as a conversation topic in the conversation created by all businesses in Wakefield.
In addition their social media conversation regularly talks about brands such as Primark; talks about shopping, and about fashion. All of these topics feature in the most prominent and influential conversations in the Wakefield area.
Do you want your customers to say they need to go to Primark, or do you want them to say they need to come to you?
By influencing an entire local conversation, shopping centres stay at the heart of their community, and become something the community is invested in.
Further evidence that The Ridings Centre sits at the heart of the Wakefield community is revealed in their influencer report.
Charity partners regularly create content about the centre, as do local lifestyle influencers and news sites. By partnering with a range of local organisations, the centre increases its visibility and reach and position as central to the community.
How shopping centres can use customer conversation to influence experience
As with many of the large shopping centres, customer conversation still centres around whether mask wearing is being effectively enforced.
Bluewater knows that health and safety is its customers main concern. In response it has made health and safety easily accessible. You know what it's like, you’ve driven 5 miles with the kids in tow, only to realise you’ve ran out of hand sanitiser and you’ve only gone and forgotten your mask. Bluewater solved this problem by installing vending machines.
Falkirk’s Howgate really shone in the way they handled helping those with a disability who didn’t need to wear a face covering.
The centre recognised that not all disabilities are visible, and preempted there may be some misplaced judgement towards those legitimately not wearing a mask.
It proactively partnered with two organisations to direct customers to lanyards or badges they could purchase to demonstrate they couldn’t wear a mask. While subtle, this comforts those who were nervous about any negative attention they might receive and demonstrates a truly empathetic and problem solving mindset.
Both examples show that small changes can make a difference to reduce friction, improve experience, and how safe customers feel.
Using retailer content to influence engagement
There’s also lots to learn from the Howgate Centre. The centre is religious about talking about retailers. Almost every post mentions a retailer whether it's a local or a national.
The centre’s finger is well and truly on the pulse of what is on offer for customers within the centre. It champions newness, reopenings, promotions and contests, always supporting its tenants. In addition its shopping centre marketing shone a light on any outlets participating in Eat Out to Help Out scheme.
Meadowhall, the Bullring and St David’s used retailers and surprise and delight mechanics to engage customers
Meadowhall have got in on the Eat Out to Help Out action. Coinciding with the opening of not just the cinemas, but one of the first new films to be released on a big screen for months, Meadowhall reminds film fanatics that its local Vue are offering the Eat Out to Help Out offer on F&B. Meadowhall successfully solves for multiple pain points; something to do, something new, and a way to save money.
To support its Back to School campaign, the Bullring opted for something simple but effective. They produced a downloadable checklist complete with the retailers the items could be found in saving mums and dads a little extra on the sanity front.
St David’s went a little larger with their surprise and delight by literally wrapping the centre, and following this creative through to Instagram. We’ve not guessed what to expect, but we do know we’re intrigued, and so were customers who took to Instagram to guess and engage with what might be coming.
Why Maybe* for shopping centres
Key takeaway
Maybe* helps you listen to what customers are talking about first so you can create solutions to their pain points.
Shopping centre marketing teams can learn from what each other are finding successful, whether that be sister centres within the same group, or a centre of a similar size at the other end of the country.
Championing tenant offers, new openings and promotions not only supports relationships with retailers, but it also delivers customers the communication they will find the most useful and drives engagement.
Maintaining local relevance and demonstrating investment and pride in local places, ensures customers see you as the destination, rather than just the brands you play house to.
Learn more
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