Customer engagement and loyalty will be shaped for the year ahead by retailers who get the tone of their offering right this festive season. With just over two weeks to go until Christmas – plus the upcoming Boxing Day and New Year’s sales – there is still plenty of time to ramp up your marketing comms for the remainder of the Golden Quarter, and make important preparations for 2023. Retail Gazette has recently reported the biggest increase in footfall since April, with shopping centre figures up by 10.7% and high streets by 8.7%. We want our clients to make the most out of this key period in the retail calendar, and have a number of ways in which our landlords and tenants can make the biggest impact with their campaigns. Below, we discuss emerging trends in what shoppers want this Christmas, and how you can best utilise your service with us to deliver and achieve.
After two years of challenging trading due to pandemic restrictions and the curtailing of festivities, high streets and shopping malls had been hoping for a bounce back this Christmas. With the deepening cost-of-living crisis forcing consumers to cut back on non-essential purchasing, and a recent Zendesk survey reporting that more than 80% of UK customers are paying closer attention to prices this festive season, it is fair to say that there has been a marked shift in what shoppers will be looking for this year. In a bid to win at the most challenging festive period yet, retailers are taking their marketing and advertising spending to record levels this golden quarter – with predictions estimating a figure as high as £400 million into driving that all-important Christmas spend. While consumers will still expect to be uplifted, given the current climate, brands must be sensitive to the reality of the financial limitations faced by many this Christmas – which has already seen a more considered approach to many brands’ offerings and marketing tactics. Traditional retailers have adopted a far more emotive and endearing theme of advertising content this year in favour of more typical depictions of luxury and extravagance – evidently in response to what many are seeing as a desire to bring the focus of the festive season back to a sense of togetherness, kindness and generosity. Furthermore, brands and organisation who take active steps to make a genuine difference to those in need this Christmas will be the ones who are appreciated, remembered, and rewarded.
Malls across the UK will be looking to attract and retain footfall over the coming weeks. As the weather began to turn at the end of October, retailers have been reporting a swift uptake in purchases of ‘winter warmers’ from coats, hot water bottles, pyjamas, slippers and hooded blankets. As has already been reported over the last couple of months, many shoppers are buying cautiously and avoiding expensive products, and are preparing for increasingly higher energy costs over the winter months by purchasing more energy efficient appliances – particularly air fryers, slow cookers, microwaves and electric blankets. Supermarkets are increasing value ranges, offers & promotions, loyalty schemes, food donations and offering more free services in an attempt to mitigate the cost-of-living crisis for its customers.
It has not just been large brands and retailers making important changes in response to the current climate – landlords and councils have also been doing everything they can to help visitors and residents during these difficult times. For example, in recognition of how many people will not be able to afford to heat their homes this winter – which poses a serious risk to health for the very young, elderly and infirm – many councils are adapting public spaces such as malls, libraries, galleries and community centres to become ‘warm banks’. Similarly, more and more foodbanks are opening across the nation to meet the skyrocketing demand. On a more positive note, many shopping centre landlords are facilitating free Christmas events such as photo competitions, tree decorating, arts & crafts and carol singing alongside traditional winter wonderlands, Santa’s grottos and late-night shopping events. While these fixtures are undoubtedly an effort to increase footfall and spend this festive season, this year in particular many landlords will be looking to bring as much festive cheer as possible to their visitors this year in recognition of the hard times many are facing.
The effectiveness and uptake of the vital services on offer undeniably relies on people’s awareness of them, with many landlords keen to spread the word of the facilities, services and events available to their visitors. While shopper spend may be lower this year, their engagement with their community facilities is invaluable, and may help to instil a sense of togetherness for the months ahead – inspiring loyalty and appreciation for the future. Engaging with and investing in effective methods of marketing and communication has never been more important, and it is vital that all types of visitor are considered. Our combined offering of WiFi portal advertising and out-of-home digital screens provides the perfect combination of outreach platforms – allowing landlords to target mobile phone users as well as those who respond to more traditional, visual mediums of advertising.
Our state-of-the-art digital panels are perfect for positioning at entrances and exits, bathroom facilities, seating areas and other high-traffic spaces – and are strategically located to display brand messaging, promotions and offers at multiple key points throughout the customer journey. We have created unmissable opportunities for retailers to capture attention and influence customer behaviour during their visit and beyond, with the ability to display dynamic, vibrant and ultra-contextual visual content. With QR code integration, our screens unlock vast potential for internal retailers to bolster their call-to-action, and encourage direct engagement with shoppers in proximity to brand messaging. We are proud to have displayed a range of landlord content on our digital screens, and are always keen to encourage our centre managers to take advantage of their complimentary content slide to help spread the word of their services, facilities and offerings. We also offer a discounted internal retailer advertising rate, to help tenants make the most of their audiences whilst onsite.
Our core business offering of free public WiFi further reinforces the effectiveness of retailer marketing campaigns, and is an essential integration for landlords seeking to increase visitor dwell time. With the current climate in mind, where shoppers are more likely to stay locally to save on fuel, and potentially staying on site for longer to make use of the facilities on site, offering a free WiFi service is perfect for making the customer experience a more positive one. The vast majority of visitors require an internet connection throughout their shopping trip for a multitude of reasons – to check prices, redeem discount codes, open loyalty apps, pay for parking, or simply access information – preferably without having to dip into their own personal data. With household budgets tightening, customers are likely to be cancelling their expensive mobile data contracts which they now consider to be a luxury rather than an essential commodity. If retailers are to continue to attract a cash-strapped consumer, who are now more likely than ever to shop around for the best deals both online and instore, the existence of a free WiFi network will enable tenants to continue to facilitate strong customer engagement through access to discounts, offers, loyalty schemes and services.
Each WiFi login also presents an opportunity for landlords to learn more from their audiences, which in turn empowers decision makers to tailor their premises, tenants and marketing strategies directly to their audience. The AdCard registration and connection page features an invaluable data capture device, enabling clients to collect names and postcodes, as well as hugely insightful demographic and behavioural statistics – ranging from gender, age, dwell times, time of visit and whether they are a first-time or returning visitor. Our user-friendly monthly analytics report equips our clients with the tools they need to recognise and gauge visitor trends which are essential to optimising the on-site shopping experience. Most importantly, we also enable our clients to collect visitor email addresses as part of the registration process, meaning that everyone who logs in to use the free WiFi service can be incorporated into retailer marketing plans, enabling them to keep their finger constantly on the pulse.
By combining WiFi portal advertising, digital screen advertising, and a free WiFi service; landlords and tenants can greatly benefit from new and effective ways of capturing customer attention, as they have numerous platforms through which they can unlock and engage with retailer promotions and brand messaging throughout their shopping trip. With the flexibility our services offer – from refreshing content to measuring the results of campaigns – we offer retailers the chance to make the most out of their audiences, and generate genuine customer engagement and loyalty, even in the most challenging of times.
There is still plenty of time for you to refresh your festive content and get ahead on your marketing plans for 2023 – contact us today to find out more about how Inkspotwifi can bring your campaigns to life!
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