Table of Contents
The customer experience you provide in your store is the bedrock of your success as a retailer. People counting solutions can provide valuable insights that reveal opportunities to improve customer service, optimize staffing and boost sales.
Customer service is one of the top factors people consider when they decide whether or not to visit your store — and whether they will return in the future. According to research from Gartner, more than 80% of customers will repurchase from a company when they have a positive service experience.
Across America, the traditional mall experience is morphing. Major U.S. mall owners like Simon Property Group, Westfield America, and GGP, faced with flagging mall traffic and unused space, are thinking outside the box to attract shoppers and non-traditional tenants. The attempt to reinvigorate and revive the mall is resulting in a shopping, eating and entertainment mall model for the modern retail era.
Ready to start boosting your mall traffic? Request a quote for a people counting device today!
Malls allow customers to connect with their favorite brands. Engaging promotional activities can increase mall foot traffic, as these serve as incentives to get customers into the door.
By investing in fun, eye-catching displays and workshops, you can inspire people to participate and explore the rest of the mall.
When customers see how a product or service works, they’re more inclined to interact with the brand. These interactions make an impression on people. For example, you could arrange for stalls or workshops in an empty space of your mall and have skincare or makeup tutorials. One of your tenants selling electronics could set up shop in the middle of the mall for the weekend.
These popups entice mall-goers to have a closer look and find something that catches their eye.
Augmented reality creates immersive shopping experiences that allow customers to visualize the products before they purchase them. Virtual reality can make clients feel as if they already have the products and create memorable experiences about the store and your mall. You can also take this a step further and host games, challenges and competitions.
You can use geo-location to send location-based messages to increase traffic. These messages can offer discounts and other limited-time-only offers to customers in the area. Geo-marketing offers or location-only promotions can create urgency and could increase traffic to your mall.
You can do this on a repeat basis and use a people counter to test how well this promotional activity captures your audience.
Online shopping has opened up a whole new world for the retail environment, where customers can purchase goods without leaving their homes. By giving them an incentive to leave the house, you could attract more customers. People generally continue to shop in stores and visit malls for the human experience. Leverage mall promotion activities like competitions, raffles and games to get people to visit your mall instead of choosing online shopping.
Try to focus these mall promotion activities over the weekends when more people have free time. Metrics are key, and measuring how well your promotional efforts are doing by measuring store and foot traffic can inform future campaigns.
If you are looking for ways to boost your mall traffic and get shoppers through your doors, here are five creative ideas and mall marketing strategies that can give your mall foot traffic a renewed boost.
You need an incentive to attract customers into your mall and to spend time there. Consumers want more than a place to eat and shop—they want experiences. To increase mall traffic, dedicate spaces and hold events that offer forms of entertainment. Turn customer apathy into excitement with a variety of venues that entice them to visit your mall and stay longer. This is a key element of effective mall marketing strategies.
Your current, unused mall space has the advantage of being large enough to serve as an event venue. This opens up opportunities to invite community groups and non-profit organizations to hold events year round and increase foot traffic. These shopping mall event ideas can significantly boost engagement.
Create a Wi-Fi café or multiple hot spots that promote a quiet haven for the growing work-from-home workforce or constantly connected mall visitor. You could offer snacks and drink choices that can be purchased while they check their email or reply to messages. This is an excellent mall engagement activity.
Mall traffic can be increased dramatically by offering empty spaces to non-traditional types of tenants that offer entertainment options rather than retail shopping. How about a laser tag, indoor skate park or trampoline venue for the kids? Fitness centers, consignment shops, and specialty shops can also increase foot traffic. Consider these shopping mall event ideas for unconventional spaces.
If entertainment options don’t necessarily work for your property, you may want to consider a mixed-use scenario to increase mall traffic. Many mall complexes around the country have adapted their empty areas to incorporate hotels or apartments, offices or play space. Target the people using those facilities by making them aware of the convenience of shopping nearby. This mixed-use approach is a robust marketing strategy for shopping malls.
Having a people counting solution in place before initiating these traffic-boosting strategies is important to measure the effectiveness of your efforts. Strategically place people counters in entrance points, parking garages, and entrances to specific venues spaces to track where your visitors are going. Over time, the data collected will help give you an idea of successful mall traffic trends and also areas that need improvement.
Keep in mind that your investment in these solutions will provide a return long-term with increased traffic and an upswing in revenues. The data you collect will help you adapt your vision of mall spaces and choose the most profitable options for your business.
One smart way to get shoppers through your doors is to offer customer-friendly services such as “Buy Online, Pickup In-Store” (BOPIS). This smart strategy is the best of both worlds in a sense; it gives shoppers the convenience of purchasing online and the speed of retrieving their purchases at no additional charge and more quickly than waiting for a package in the mail.
What’s more, BOPIS is a retail customer experience that drives additional sales beyond the products your customer purchased online. A Forrester report revealed that 46 percent of shoppers are enticed to spend above and beyond the original BOPIS purchase if they receive a personalized discount or deal when retrieving their purchases in store. Integrating BOPIS can be part of your mall marketing strategies.
One of the biggest challenges for small to medium-sized retail business (SMB) owners is attracting customers to your store. To increase sales, you need to get people in the door, keep them coming back, and inspire them to tell their friends about the great shopping experiences you provide. Tools such as a people counting solution will help you work toward these goals and determine the success of your efforts as well. This is where mall marketing strategies come into play.
Start increasing sales at your mall today with a Traf-Sys people counting device. Request a free quote!
Learn How Malls Can Benefit From People Counting
Giving your shoppers a high-quality and highly enjoyable shopping experience is the key to ensuring that they visit your business again. Shopper counting and understanding how foot traffic moves and flows through your store can help you drastically improve your customers’ experience. This data is valuable for mall marketing strategies.
Retail traffic counters help keep eyes on nearly every aspect of your retail store. Gathering these analytics can help you make the changes for a better, faster and more pleasant customer experience at your business.
Contact Traf-Sys or request a quote below to inquire about our services and how we can measure your mall traffic for a brighter and more successful future.
