To be online
How shopping centres should tackle apps, websites and social networks
Every communication channel a shopping center has is set up for different tasks. Social networks are responsible for providing latest updates, receiving feedback, solving problems and reminding the customers how lovely and modern the place is and all its tenants, too. A website is an information resource for the customers, while an app is a tool to communicate with the loyal ones. When doing marketing right, all three would become a medium to interact with the target audience as they round each other out. Though often a company first starts with a website, then it would add social networks and only then move on to develop an app.
Shopping centre in your pocket
In 2014 one of the very first apps for shopping centres in the Russian market was released; it was an app developed by the shopping centre Afimall.
While designing the app, it was planned to serve as an additional service to provide communication with the customers and offer them a unique product, on the other hand, it was meant to become an analytical platform, which would give more information about loyal customers, segment the audience and offer each guest what they really wanted.
Vladimir Perezhogin, Real Estate and Development Director, TEN Group, says: “When designing the apps for the shopping centre, we were first solving the needs of our target audience on the immediate access to the information. The main task we saw was to create an app with the highest affinity index.” For the Group, it was a pilot partner project with the lowest financial expenses, which ended up in launching four apps developed by the same supplier, which now maintains them.