What are the Top 5 ways to quickly increase footfall to retail spaces? Across the country retailers are struggling. Even in traditionally strong areas, there are more empty stores than ever before. For the community, the businesses that operate and the people that work there, the question is simple. What can we do? And what are the top 5 ways to quickly increase footfall to retail spaces?
There really is no time to wait and it is undoubtedly something that must be taken seriously. Shops laying vacant, breaks down communities. Data shows the direct links to increase in crime and the lack of open store leaves local shoppers more likely to either online shop or look elsewhere.
Lets dive right in with our Top 5 ways to quickly increase footfall to retail spaces!
Top 5 ways to quickly increase footfall to retail spaces
- Let’s Talk – How effective is your communication to the local community?
- Let’s Feel – What is the user experience like generally?
- Let’s Engage – How can we create a focus and draw people in?
- Lets Brighten – What can we do to brighten up closed spaces?
- Let’s Grow – How can we build on these for sustained momentum?
1 – Let’s Talk – How effective is your communication to the local community?
If people don’t know what is going on, they are unlikely to visit. So how good is your social media strategy? You’re local signage? Community outreach. What do you currently do? What’s your mix or Comms and Promotions? How well to you work with your retailers for comms content?
These are questions you need to ask and from there, find the answers. Looking at each one objectively will help you find the areas for improvement.
Social Media strategy? Do you have one or is it more about throwing a post up and hoping it does well? How many times a week do you post? Do you know and track the posts times and types with the best engagements?
Signage and Community outreach, what are you doing to let people in the local area know about what’s going on and how they can get involved?
2 – Let’s Feel – What is the user experience like generally?
This is a big one and it’s not always easy to fix entirely, but there’s often something that can be done. How is the lighting? Any low music, or tones? How clean is the space and what can be done you improve any of it? You can hire a mystery shopper or do a poll or survey about what the local communities think to find out where the gaps are. It can be hard to hear what people think is wrong but feedback is so important. More so, it could be the key to improving things.
3 – Let’s Engage – How can we create a focus and draw people in?
Creating a focus and engaging the community is the key to drawing people in and increasing footfall. But what should you do? Well if you’re on top of the social media and outreach, you’ll need something to talk about. If you’re on top of the venue, people will be happy to visit, but what is the draw?
Event Activations with Creature Events are an incredible way to stir up the local community and give them something to be excited about. These events go wild on social media in the build up to the event, on the day and in the period that follows as people share the pics and videos from the day. With everything from Dinosaurs to Apes, there’s endless options to excite a local community and create a draw!
CLICK HERE to find out more! OR Email us for a Quote
4 – Lets Brighten – What can we do to brighten up closed spaces?
There’s no denying it, a closed retail unit looks pretty bad. Several looks even worse and the knock on it can have is huge. But, what if there was a way to turn closed retail unit’s into something fun, engaging and beneficial?
There are two key ways the utilise closed spaces quickly and easily that can transform closed units.
Virtual Reality Trails and Experiences. A locked unit can be vinyl wrapped (or other signage) with QR codes that can activate Virtual Reality experiences on visitors phones. So rather than a dark, dull closed retail space, the space can be truly transformed. With some cost effective branding and some Ultra Reality QR codes the space is now an experiential attraction. More than that, the experiences work on social media, so it is also highly marketable. These are available from just £14 per day.
Activity Spaces. This is a fantastic solution but requires a little more effort and budget. We can help you turn a closed unit (or part of it) into an Activity space that can be utilised by the local community.
Examples
Use Case A: Brighten up the decor, add some attractions, entertainment, games, or chill out zones and let people come and go as they please. With no staffing cost the space runs itself and is designed to be low input, low cost. Want it to generate some revenue? It can! With our automated rev gen options we can provide you a host of solutions that transform the space and add revenues. Ask us for more information.
Use Case B: Create a space that can be used by the community. Be it for a meeting, a yoga class or a pop up art gallery, why not utilise part of the space for the community. Offer it free or rent it out via sites like YourStudios and let them do all the work for you.
CLICK HERE to find out more! OR Email us for a Quote
5 – Let’s Grow – How can we build on these for sustained momentum?
What is really important in the top 5 ways to quickly increase footfall to retail spaces is consistency. Maintaining that growth. Getting footfall up is harder at the start than it is the then maintain it, so ensuring consistency in the previous 4 points is imperative. But what else can we do?
Consider creating media content about each of the activations and editing them regularly posting whats happened and whats to come. If you utilise an Ultra Reality VR solution or a Creature Events Activation, why not show how much the local community benefitted and talk about what’s next. With a VR piece put a mini experience online for users to try and to engage with.
Consider a social strategy that build on community events, activations and keys into what the community needs as well as what you want to promote. Follow the 60 40 rule and ensure your content is packed with Engagers, CTA and RI. For more on how to do that checkout that article on Social Media Mastery.
What can Creature Events do to help?
We can save the high street, but it’s going to take some work! The good news is we have the answer. We have two entirely different solutions for you to really boost engagement and increase the footfall. From living characters and immersive event to VR trails, we have you covered.
At Creature Events we offer everything from Dinosaurs to Dragons, Robots to Rhinos and everything else you can imagine.
We have a huge fanbase of people keen to come and see our amazing acts! And when you put an amazing picture or video of our beasts walking around your venue, your community will be commenting and sharing and the marketing will almost do itself !
We have ways of working that promote loiter time, give people reasons to stay in the area and make purchase, thus giving you the benefits you need. We understand your requirements and have options tailored to those.
But don’t worry, nothing with Creature Events is set in stone, if you need some changes or tweaks for your venue we will be happy to help.
What does Creature Events Offer?
At Creature Events we offer:
You can see all our amazing Creatures HERE. Whatever you need we are on hand to make it happen. With 12 years experience and clients including the Natural History Museum, Petronas F1, Savills and many more, you’re in good hands. Our whole team is staffed with performance professionals of the highest standards, who are often recognisable from stage and screen!
You can put your trust in us to help in crease footfall and loiter time to you’re venue… but there’s more to us that beasts! Have you seen our Ultra Reality solution?
What does Ultra Reality offer?
At Ultra Reality we create a range of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality products to solve the problem. Shopping Centres, Business Improvement Districts, Councils and stores use our solutions to radically combat that footfall issue. We have created a range of out of the box products that cost as little as £14 per day! This offers you a low cost, high engagement solution to the problem.
There are no technical requirements, no barriers to entry and our solutions work on visitors phones, without the need for apps or headsets. Simply print the QR codes along with any signage, dressing or branding and you are ready to deploy.
Need an Example?
A Middlesex Shopping Centre deployed a series of our Ready2Use VR to increase engagement and footfall to their series of activations. The which visitors could follow a trail of Virtual Reality experiences.
Our client is responsible for the marketing activations and activities for the site. We have worked with them for a number of years, so they asked us what we could do to help on the project.
“We need something for space, sea, beach and jungle what can you do?”
Our team offered a 5 point VR trail experience for all themes, from our Ready2Use library. Our steam supplied the QR codes and all the support included in the price. This was a huge success, with a much higher than expected footfall and engagement for an activation with limited budget.
The Solution
The Ultra Reality Ready2Use library allows businesses to access VR engagement solutions at a very low cost. From just £14 per day you can fill your site with a VR trail or single point activation that draw footfall. That is unbelievable value and offers the community a fun, free activity and a reason to visit. While on site they’ll make purchases and visit the business, boosting revenues.
How will people know about it? Our solutions can be used online too, meaning teaser experiences can draw customers in and generate real buzz! We all need a talking point for our marketing and Ultra Reality solutions really are one! Highly shareable and engaging, see what they can do for you online and onsite.
Want to see more of what we do? Checkout the range of products and services we have here.
CLICK HERE to find out more! OR Email us for a Quote
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