And if retailers are struggling, eventually landlords will be struggling too - to cope with business failures (primarily the mom-n-pop stores which give texture and high rental rates to a centre) and also with the major nationals squeezing some kind of rental concessions upon renewal. 

So how does a landlord best spend the marketing fund / merchant’s association monies?

This is an era where “every Rand counts” as never before, and smaller tenants in particular are strident in their calls for the landlord to somehow create a miracle flood of shoppers at their particular centre.

As you can see from this e-newsletter, we’re big fans of electronic marketing methods, because:

1. messages can be targeted to niche audiences, at an appropriate/relevant time
2. there’s minimal wastage (in comparison to say an advert in the Sunday Times),
3. its immediate,
4. it can be very, very cost-effective

“But not everyone has an e-mail address”, you say. Spot on, but thanks to the Herculean efforts of MTN, Vodacom et al, essentially everyone in SA is indeed connected.

E-mails are great for more complex messages and distributing coupons, but SMS text messages are perhaps even better (if only one could get all that news across in the limited number of characters available!), given their low cost-per-thousand and the fact that almost all customers have cellphones.

And besides being cheaper than large circulation adverts or knock-n-drop mailings, an e-mail or SMS holds out the Nirvana of targeted, niche-message, personalized promotions relevant to each shopper. And Facebook is potentially even more powerful, given consumers are voluntarily going there to seek out info: permission-based marketing.

In my case, Scooters have somehow worked out that I often order pizza on Friday nights, so lo and behold I get a carefully timed SMS from them late Friday afternoon offering me some kind of special deal. And it works like a charm – the few cents they spend on each SMS should translate over time into making me a regular customer, and once my brand loyalty and new Friday night purchasing habit builds up, their cunning plan is that I end up purchasing pizza (from them, naturally) 3 times a month instead of my initial once a month habit.
SMS money well spent.

While landlords and their tenants should be attracted to the lower-cost of e-solutions, many still struggle with how to embrace the new digital world. Many traders won’t give up the cellphone numbers of their clientele to the centre marketing person, there’s a (well-founded) fear of spamming and some retailers don’t believe their shoppers are ready for — or want — electronic communications. And the CPA hasn't helped either.

The truth is, retailers often don’t understand that consumers are willing to make use of use digital channels and are quite open to messages, as long as they have useful value. And I’m not just referring to the massive-thumbed Mixit generation.

How is this for a wake-up call: According to a survey of more than 1,500 consumers compiled recently, 91% of shoppers recently downloaded or printed an online coupon. And 62% of shoppers said any “permission-based” e-mails they receive have a direct impact on their shopping and purchase habits.

And the ideas are endless. Discounts, bogoffs (Buy One, Get One Free), previews of new merchandise etc etc – all of these can be delivered by SMS to known customers. I’m particularly fond of the florist that sends me an SMS reminder the day before my wedding anniversary…priceless.

But it’ll take quite a bit of effort on the part of the centre’s marketing manager/provider to build a useful database, so that the touted one-to-one communication can become a reality. And then persistence to see it through, continually building/maintaining the database.

So, don’t keep your fingers crossed that the next advert will draw thousands of punters – get specific, get targeted, get electronic.

Michael Schirnig