Customers Acquisition on a Small Budget: A Comprehensive Guide
Your shopping center needs to compete with High Street retail — and, likely, with larger malls just down the road. You know you need to market, but today’s budgets couldn’t be tighter. How can a smaller shopping mall find and communicate with its shoppers and increase customer acquisition without a mega mall budget?
Relax. Most of the time, your shoppers will tell you. All you have to do is ask — in the right way and at the right time. Obtaining the data they share and using it to personalize your engagement with them — via email and social media when they’re at home and mobile apps when they’re on-site — will build a relationship that will justify, and even reduce, the costs of getting in touch.
Customer acquisition cost (generally calculated by dividing marketing spend by the number of new customers) can vary widely. Still, according to the Integrated Marketing Association, the average cost for a retail lead is $25. But the more shoppers you gain with each promotion, the lower the cost becomes.
The key is using digital to create a human relationship. The cost of obtaining the data is one line item, but the cost of not doing so, and using that information wisely, could be high. PwC has reported that 17% of shoppers will walk away after just one bad experience. How do you quantify what the shopper tells their friends about the situation?
Understanding Your Customers – Leveraging Data to Enhance Customer Acquisition Strategies
It’s critical to know the basics about your catchment area. What is the average household income within that radius? What is the education level? (A plumber earning $50,000 per year may spend quite differently from an assistant professor earning the same salary.) What is their median age? What media do they consume? This will inform how you should obtain more data about them.
Update Your Malls Website for Higher Conversion Rates
Your website is your first line of communication with shoppers who are not at your mall. Make sure that it’s up-to-date, informative, and inviting — and offers the opportunity to add to your database by providing a location to give their information (name, email address, mobile number) and preferred methods and times of contacting them to tell them about promotions and events of interest. Pop-up ads on the site can be particularly effective.
Free Wi-Fi in Your Shopping Center
It’s extraordinary how quickly people will reveal their personal information to stay connected to the Internet. Require your guests to offer name, email, and cell information, and your database practically builds itself at little cost.
Increase Social Media Activity for Cost-Effective Customer Acquisition
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (all of which should link to your website) allow you to talk directly to your shoppers. Upload your events and ask them to indicate interest. Promote giveaways. Answer their comments, both good and bad. Consider a Facebook ad with a link to your website or signup form.
Email Marketing Strategies for Successful Customer Acquisition
Email is affordable and effective when used judiciously. Tell shoppers about what’s going on, and continue to reward them if they show the email inviting them to a promotion.
Scaling Customer Acquisition: Strategies for Sustainable Growth
The results can exceed a company’s most ambitious goals. Irgen Retail Management wanted to increase footfall, engagement, and turnover at its Cilento Outlet near Salerno, Italy.
Utilizing Coniq’s Geo-Loyalty solution IQ Connect, Irgen collected shopper intelligence from multiple touchpoints, including mobile, email, web, and in-store devices, to interact with shoppers. The malls created geofences to anonymously identify a customer’s location, automatically triggering push notifications directing customers to personalized incentives to visit stores. Customers who purchase in-store continue receiving relevant communication and offers while earning points for future rewards.
Coniq integrated that information with a new loyalty program that sent shoppers personalized content based on their stated desires and previous actions and rewarded them with discounts, services, free products, and access to special events. The result lowered customer acquisition cost to $1.25 per active member and generated $92,000 in retail sales, 1,100 new signups, and a return on investment of 3.900% in just eight weeks – and on a small budget.
And it all started with a simple question: “Who are you?”
