Planning
a yearly marketing campaign used to be quite easy. Plan for Mother’s Day,
Father’s Day, and Christmas and your job was pretty much done, but that has all
changed.
Mother’s
Day and Father’s Day are no longer the big sales events they used to be. Somehow
they have drifted into background and even Christmas is a pale representation
of what happened as recently as 10 years ago.
So
how do we plan our campaigns now and what are the kicker events that are likely
to give us the regular sales boosts we so badly need for retail survival? If
customers are not inspired by traditional sales events like Father’s Day they
are inspired by entertainment and fresh new concepts. And targeting customers
can make a lot of sense.
Special
events in a city the size of Melbourne can draw huge crowds. 55,000 fans at marvel
Stadium is potentially a great source of business. Last week’s Boomers/USA
basketball match is an example when the city was dominated by basketball fans.
Any Pink concert and sporting events like State of Origin Rugby League seem to
bring us a blip in sales. Then there are the growing number of pop culture
events like e-gaming, comic festivals, and technology shows.
We
know that many visitors to Melbourne visit our market but targeting specific
fan groups when they arrive would seem to make a lot of sense. Out photo shows
a group of Storm Troopers. Imagine those wandering the market during a Star
Wars or related pop culture event. Add in that amazing music structure
suspended from the ceiling in RK-RL booming out the Star Wars theme and the
entertainment starts to make sense.
The
retail world is in revolution. The industry has been thrown up in the air with
a whole lot of new demands and expectations placed upon it. It has been
broadened by the new ways that customers have to search for goods and there are
new priorities in spending. Finding new and exciting ways to entertain
customers is a big challenge. Now where is my Darth Vader mask?
By Greg Smith (with thanks to Kris Robinson)
