In early November, Malls Club held an industry conference on marketing – specifically for marketers of the shopping mall market. Olena Pogodina, Marketing Director of Arricano, shared her thoughts about what tools are used in the company to change cold traffic to warm emotions, and "turn" visitors into buyers.

Traffic is one of the classic indicators of the effective operation of a shopping mall. However, in addition to the absolute number of users, traffic also shows loyalty and audience satisfaction.
We measure and analyze traffic in the Arricano shopping malls in figures, while comparing them year-to-year, season-to-season, weekends–to–weekdays. In other words, you can always find out how much the audience has increased/decreased/not changed in quantitative terms.
At the same time, you can analyze several other important points: evaluate the efficiency of entry points to the shopping mall, the "thermal" map of the gallery – how streaming individual parts of the shopping mall are, how effectively anchor tenants work, how much time the audience spends in the shopping mall, and so on.

From intent to action
The most desirable degree of efficiency of the shopping mall is the formation of targeted traffic. In other words, the validity of when a user becomes a buyer. This means that they have already moved away from their intention to buy something, completed the action, and were satisfied.
By translating this process into the business language, the customer joined the increase in turnover in the store, generated their receipt and increased the conversion rate.
It is worth noting that the dynamics of traffic and conversions in different product categories differ significantly. For example, the highest conversion rate is in electronics, food, sport, or beauty categories – turnover increases/decreases depending on the season.

Pandemic patterns
After the resumption of the shopping malls operation in the post-lockdown period, new behavioral patterns appeared that affected the traffic of the shopping mall. Among them are the fear of visiting public places, refusal to use public transport unless absolutely necessary, the actual or expected decrease in the solvency of the population, and restrictions on the operation of the entertainment area of shopping malls, restaurants, and cinemas.
At the same time, these difficulties opened up new opportunities. Fear of public places – this means that a user who is determined to make a purchase will come to the shopping mall, which means that traffic becomes more converted. Refusal of public transport – which means that "neighbors" will come to the shopping mall and will not go to another one. With the decline in solvency, the segment of "investment" purchases and stock purchases is growing. And the restriction of classic entertainment provokes the search for new event formats that increase audience engagement in the brand's activity.

Cross-promotions
At Arricano shopping malls, we experiment in partner projects to create an atmosphere in the shopping mall together and influence the buyer's decision. For example, the collaboration project "Prospekt shopping mall: Food plus Mood" together with food court operators - Multiplex, Salateira, ilMolino, NoodleDoodle, Brynzabar, Savor, CAVAUA BAR, Coffeelat, Merry Berry Cafe, Krylia, Sushiya",
"Yaponakhata", McDonald's, Roti.
The mechanics were simple: by buying something from any food court operator, visitors could register a receipt and win a movie ticket. We got good results – an increase in the turnover of food court operators by 17% compared to the previous month, positive reviews and active participation in publications on digital channels – likes, comments, reactions, which added an increase in organic coverage by 23% compared to the previous period.

Emotion or empathy
On the birthday of the Sun Gallery shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih, a laser show dedicated to the whole city was shown for the first time in the city. The content was developed specifically for this event – after all it is the city of miners. As a result, the shopping mall's brand showed its empathy and the same wave with the city community.

As a result, this idea worked to restore traffic, because on this day the traffic rate was 24% growth compared to last year, taking into account losses due to lockdown. And again - positive feedback, active involvement on the digital channels of the shopping mall.
Therefore, the following can be called the main points on which work with the audience is built: first, it is knowledge, because thanks to data analytics, you can quickly get information about changes in consumer sentiment and the wishes of customers of shopping malls. The second is the flexibility of marketing tools, because audience sentiment and external circumstances change too quickly for tactics based on classic annual and monthly planning tools. And third and most important, it is the synergy of the shopping mall and buyers, as well as the shopping mall and tenant partners.
Source: mallsclub.com