Dr. Marc Mangold, Director, CRM, Digital and Media, Europe, VIA Outlets, and Ben Chesser, CEO Coniq, recently presented at ICSC’s European Conference about Customer Engagement.
How loyalty data drives growth
Marc Mangold, who oversees Fashion Club, one of Europe’s leading loyalty programs, explained how VIA Outlets capitalize on the data that the loyalty program provides to drive their ongoing high growth.
“We see, on average, a 35% uplift in the average transaction value of Fashion Club members vs non-members”. He explained, adding that the performance of VIA Outlets’ Marketing activity is driving “huge volumes of high-quality information which sits at the heart of our data-driven strategy.”
Both Marc Mangold and Ben Chesser impressed upon the audience that unlocking the power of crowds is something that offers huge potential to landlords and retailers alike. Ben Chesser explained that VIA Outlets have worked to create a market-leading customer database in terms of both scale and quality so that for every customer that shops brand A, Coniq can profile that customer and, on average, identify 9 shoppers within the VIA Outlets database that have very similar profiles but who don’t yet shop that brand.
Chesser suggests that this adds new dimensions to the role for landlords. He said “It shifts the marketing dynamic away from measuring and reporting ubiquitous statistics such as footfall to creating a highly targeted media business where the role of the landlord is to bring together the right brands and the right audiences.”
Marc Mangold informed delegates that “Data itself has become a currency because it allows VIA Outlets to playback to their retailers extremely valuable insight about their guests and a store’s performance versus its peers”.
He also illustrated how VIA Outlets can use data to inform every aspect of the Outlet, from Marketing to Leasing to Operations; “In the past and often still today, Marketing decisions can be based on assumptions and beliefs rather than on facts and data. At VIA Outlets, we are today in a position where we can track every single transaction. This provides us with an enormous quantity of insight into our guests, their shopping behavior, and motivation. This helps the Marketing, Retail, and Leasing teams to optimize their activities. We can be much more effective in selecting the right media channel, messaging, training for store staff, and of course the offer mix we want to have in a Centre.”
The pair then went on to reveal how Marketing is going to change for retail destinations; Marc Mangold started by saying that “Until now, the main skill of a retail marketer has been to identify key customer segments and create campaigns to try and engage them. In the very near future we will be using Artificial Intelligence to identify new audience groups, which we are calling ‘Crowds’.“
Ben Chesser continued by adding, “What is exciting is that the common behaviors of a crowd would not be spotted by traditional segmentation methods or human analysis, but AI can process vast amounts of data to identify patterns. We may not know why a crowd exists or why they behave similarly, but we can create truly relevant, personalised engagement that is exciting for consumers and retailers alike”.
About Coniq
Coniq is the Total Customer Engagement Company for growth minded shopping malls, outlets, and retail brands. Our platform, IQ, provides a faster, economical, and simpler way to generate revenue by understanding, anticipating, and engaging customers through unique and personalized experiences in real-time across multiple channels. The Coniq platform powers over £1 billion in sales annually for its customers, with more than 20 million consumers shopping from 1,800 brands in 24 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.coniq.com.
