Whilst at the Airport on a recent trip to Amsterdam, I couldn’t help but get lost in the maze of perfume, pen shops and Pharmacists, not to mention being approached with the golden opportunity of winning a supercar, which is only fit for driving on a grand prix circuit as it is so low to the floor, not to mention the cost of insurance, fuel and, of course, you can’t exactly throw a sack of spuds into the back of Lamboghini!
Whilst trying to find my way out of the shops and make my way to my terminal, it set me to thinking how all of these over priced perfume shops were making it pay?
It seemed that the airport I was in, namely Manchester, had, like every other I have visited in many parts of the world, all had one thing in common, they were BUSY. I mean, these places have every single inch of retail space utilised.
I asked myself the question, what is to be learnt from this experience? Is it to open 10 over priced perfume and pen stalls on markets nationwide? No, certainly not, there is one reason that Airport retail space is, in my opinion, the only retail space in the world that is recession proof, lets face it when was the last time you saw a “closing down sale” or an empty shop in an airport? That reason is FOOTFALL, plain and simple. The retailers are pretty much guaranteed passengers or, more importantly, customers on a daily basis with money to spend and just as important, time on their hands.
OK, so how can we learn from our Airports success and create footfall for our markets and, more importantly, get them to hang around and spend money!?
There are lots of answers out there, although a great one is host an Event! I’m sure by now every market has someone running their social media marketing and advertising campaign, which is a fantastic free way to reach a direct target market and let them know what you have planned. In the early stages of planning an event you can even ask for ideas from your friends/followers on what THEY would like to see on their local market?
Once you have pulled together a few positive like minded people from your market to organise and host an event, it is surprising how this sort of thing can gain momentum and support very quickly. When your market managers see you making the effort they will be more willing to provide support and I dare say you might even be able to squeeze a few quid out of them too.
As I have said before, it is the longevity and viability of markets which is key, so please do make sure that any event compliments the existing traders and more importantly falls on a usual trading day, as the idea is the extra footfall of customers on the day see the market in all its glory and make a return trip the week after, attracts some new regulars and maybe even inspires some new traders!
Ideas for events can be anything to attract footfall, hold a crowd and you needn’t worry about a budget too much as there are lots of people you could attract to perform and use the event as free publicity for themselves and a chance to showcase their product/service. A couple of ideas are -
After all the list of opportunities for an event is endless, especially if you have empty stalls. There are so many ways to FILL them!
I can pretty much guarantee that your local newspaper/ radio station would love to promote the event for free if you make sure the most enthusiastic member of your team gets in touch with them with the agenda and as we know, a story gets more attention than an advert and costs nothing!
I rarely use or like clichés, but it is true to say “If you build it they will come” so start building and please do get in touch via my website as I am keen to hear news of everyone’s ideas and events.
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