Strolling through a mall’s e-mail marketing efforts
Shopping malls searching for ways to gather e-mail addresses as a way to harness the Internet for marketing can start by looking to their stroller rental operations, say the results of an e-mail campaign by Chapel Hill Mall of Akron, OH. Staffers at the stroller rental center were offered a gift certificate to whoever gathered the most e-mail addresses. The campaign resulted in 90% of stroller renters providing e-mail addresses, reports MC2 Mall Communications of Canonsburg, PA, which created the marketing program. Furthermore, recipients opened 60.5% of the e-mail messages and 31.4% clicked through to coupons offered in the e-mail.
A major drawback to such a method of gathering e-mail addresses, however, is the high rate of inaccurate e-mail addresses: 31% were bounced back with bad addresses. “Someone has to decipher the handwriting,” says Marti Craig, creative director of MC2 Mall Communications.
Nonetheless, those consumers are prime prospects, she says. “Young moms tend to be more price conscious, more apt to use coupons and very time constrained,” Craig says. “We’re presenting this as a shopping tool and when you present it that way they’re more than happy to give you their e-mail address.”
Chapel Hill Mall also has promoted e-mail sign-up through hand-outs at mall events, such as the recent trick-or-treat activity. Craig says e-mail sign-ups from that event were still coming in this week. But interestingly, three-fourths of e-mail sign-ups come from consumers who have searched for the mall name on the Internet, then signed up when they saw the newsletter offer on the home page. That may explain why sign-ups also shot up when Chapel Hill Mall re-designed its web site and placed the sign-up box at the top right of the home page, along with a sweepstakes offering. As part of the sign-up process, customers must provide information about where they learned about the newsletter.
Among customers who signed up for the e-mail newsletter apart from the stroller campaign 58% opened the newsletter, 27% clicked through to a coupon and only 10.4% came back with bad addresses.
For the holidays, Chapel Hill Mall is sending a Gift Guide with suggestions for five categories of recipients. A mall jeweler is offering a 10% discount to customers who mention the Gift Guide when they buy something.
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