Ricky Martin caused havoc when he visited the centre where I have one of my newsagencies yesterday. One entrance to our newsagency was blocked by people lined up to see him. The other entrance was hard to navigate because of the thousands wanting to see him on the stage just across from us.
The marketing people for shopping centres hire celebrities to spike traffic. This only works for the retailers if their sales are up. We can’t tell in this store since it’s our first Mother’s Day. The feeling, however, is that the Ricky Martin crowd hampered our sales by blocking traffic and making our part of the centre less appealing for shoppers who may have purchased Mother’s Day cards and gifts. But we don’t know for sure.
Despite the experience yesterday, I am all for newsagents using celebrities to drive a traffic spike. The keys are to choose a celebrity relevant to what you are promoting / selling and to live within your budget.
For as little as $1,000 you could get a celebrity in-store to boost a promotion. While anyone with a national profile will cost considerably more, a local radio personality, a local TV personality or a local reality show contestant could be accessed for this type of money. Promoted appropriately and for a decent amount of time you could get a good return on your investment.
If you want to get together with some nearby retailers, you could get someone with a higher profile for around $5,000. Well known comedians and current chart singers would appear for this amount – especially if they have something of their own to promote too.
We can’t rely on the name or type of our business to attract shoppers. We need to get outside our four walls and actively promote our shop, we need to grab only people in our catchment area and drag them in for a reason beyond what they remember about our business. And, when they get there, we need to excite them and get them happily spending money with is.
Sportsco in our centre did this with huge success early this year with an Essendon Footballer and the Telstra shop has done the same a few times now with Billy Brownless and various accompanying AFL players. The Telstra store is right near us and except for selling lots of Sharpies sales were impeded simply due to our usual shoppers being deterred by the crowds. The stores holding the promos did well out of them and Sportsco were very switched on on held it just as most retailers closed which extended their sales day and did not disrupt other stores, it was very well done.