Insight: Shop Local Marketing Campaigns Prove Successful

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, like many across the world, our retailers had faced significant disruption to their businesses and were ready to kick start trading as we looked forward to Spring and Christmas trading.

Our focus was supporting our retailers into the lead up to the busiest trade time of the year, and how we support them to connect with customers – existing and new. Insights into business performance, consumer and retailer sentiment, provided a compelling business case to drive renewed marketing efforts and investment into themes around community and supporting local.

With the clarity that the ultimate goal was to support the recovery of its local retailers, Vicinity’s marketing team determined the best way to achieve this would be through a three-pronged approach to drive awareness of retailers within the community, build positive sentiment and relationship, and encourage consumers to return to the shopping centres by rewarding their loyalty.

The resulting campaign was titled ‘We’re Here For Here’ and launched in September 2021 across 45 Vicinity centres nationwide.

A humble Shop Local program, ‘We’re Here For Here’, executed exceptionally, bringing to life the passion and knowledge of local retailers while incentivising and rewarding customers to Shop Local To Win.

At the heart of the campaign was a deep knowledge of the communities and retailers in which Vicinity centres are located, which allowed for a compelling and highly localised retailer content series. Retailer quotes and stories were shared with customers using the array of channels at Vicinity’s disposal including in-centre activation such as posters, digital screens and hanging banners, in addition to owned channels such as e-newsletters, website banners, organic and paid media.

Through clear strategy, consistent content and engaging retailers from the outset, the results of the still ongoing ‘We’re Here For Here’ campaign have been impressive and have delivered real-world results.

Most importantly, 85% of surveyed retailers believed the campaign had a positive impact on their business with 92% saying they enjoyed participating. The Shop Local campaign resulted in almost 3,000 retailers registering receipted sales totaling almost $1.5m with an impressive overall sale uplift compared to the same period in FY2019 (pre-COVID).

Campaign metrics were equally strong. Trade area campaign reach for paid media was measured at 9.1-million versus a target of 5-million, open rates of eDMs were 35% above target, and social engagement saw a massive 44.56% increase.

And while numbers are always a good indicator of success, anecdotal feedback from our retail partners is also important.

“Customer feedback has been positive, they feel proud and connected to us. They also appreciate our hard work more.”

“Thank you for choosing our store, it definitely made positive impact on the business.”

“The campaign was great and so many in the centre have commented to me about it and they all enjoyed it too. Thank you.”

After such success, we’ll continue to run the campaign at suitable times, encouraging customers to explore their local community and retailers.

This article featured in Shopping Centre News Vol. 40 No. 5 - Little Guns 2022.