Problem

Honey Creek Mall is a powerful retail draw for nine counties in west central Indiana and east central Illinois. Nearly three-fourths of the area's population visits the mall at least once a month. Local research showed that customers wanted their regional mall to be more than just a shopping center. They expected an entertaining experience and family-oriented activities. They were Internet savvy and were willing to read eMessages from the mall.

Facing competition from local super stores and strip malls, as well as from malls and stores in Indianapolis just 60 miles away, the mall's management company set business goals of aggressively growing sales and maintaining market dominance. To assist in achieving those goals, the mall enlisted help from its marketing firm, MillerWhite.

Solution

Employing its proprietary MW Fusion® formula, MillerWhite proposed a detailed data analysis and integrated marketing plan. The marketing goals were driven by the mall's business goals. They were to create a new image/brand, increase sales-per-square-foot, increase sales in the food court and build additional sources of revenue. Based on this, MillerWhite put together an initial two-year marketing plan with objectives, strategies and tactics.

As a first step, MillerWhite used its Unlocking the Power of Your Pledge® formula, to develop a pledge that led to the creation of a new tagline, jingle and creative direction. The pledge exercise analyzed responses to several questions about the mall's benefits, customers and competition. The pledge that emerged was, “Honey Creek Mall pledges to make each shopper's visit an experience that is entertaining, family oriented and one-of-a-kind.” The tagline created through this exercise was “It's All About You.”

To move toward the objective of increasing sales-per-square-foot, MillerWhite recommended targeted messages through specific communications channels to reach the mall's frequent shoppers, its not-so-frequent shoppers (which includes people over 50 and those under 25) and potential tenants as well. Because of the response from Internet savvy shoppers, MillerWhite developed web strategies to support the objectives of getting more people to visit the mall, getting current customers to visit more often and getting them to increase the amount of their purchases.

Marketing tactics to increase sales per square foot included developing the online MeClub and an eNewsletter for frequent shoppers offering store specials and other features to encourage them to come in more often and spend more. eMails to MeClub members offered a $5.00 mall gift certificate for every new member they got to register. Even the mall's traditional advertising messages were designed to drive traffic to the web site and get people to sign up for the MeClub.

Strategies like establishing a community room, a Lunch & Learn series and more activities for the younger and family audience were designed to increase food court sales. Raggs, the mall's dog mascot, was a favorite of kids. A Raggs Birthday Palace was built in the mall's food court, and Raggs put in an appearance at birthday and members-only parties. Not-for-profit groups and mall tenants used the community room free of charge, while an outside business could only use the room by becoming a preferred marketing partner through the purchase of space on one of the mall's 4-ft. x 12-ft. free-standing indoor billboards. Leveraging the indoor boards met the objective of building additional revenue for the mall.

The marketing plan included traditional advertising with special events, the kids club and the web site getting airtime on local radio and TV. As sales continued to do well and the online database grew, the mall's management was able to cost-effectively control when and what messages were being sent to drive traffic.

Results

Implementation of the marketing plan definitely paid off, White said. The goal of the plan for the first year was to increase sales-per-square-foot by 2%. The actual increase in sales-per-square-foot came in at 5% for that period. In the midst of making marketing changes, sales for Honey Creek Mall held strong during the nation's the holiday season weakest since 1970. While figures reported by the International Council of Shopping Centers showed that overall, department stores suffered a 4.5% drop year-to-year in same-store sales in 50 selected U.S. markets, Honey Creek Mall's overall sales for the period were up 3%.