Which is a greater problem: Mall rentals or Low Footfall

The Great India Retail saga!

The current economic downturn has affected the stupendous (high double digit) growth rate Retail industry was enjoying. Retail business in India is still maintaining its growth given the prevailing unfavorable market conditions. There is a lot of investment riding on retail industry and to develop newer facilities for retail business. The options are aplenty these days, range catering to various (specific) retail needs.

asdf

Challenges posed to the realty developers are paramount. Developers like DLF, Unitech, Ansal etc. are facing multi-dimensional problems; grave pressure to meet the timelines on their new projects, threatened by international giants (walmart, carrefour) entering the retails space, while simultaneously stressed to ensure footfalls at their Malls and Mega shopping facilities that are already open.

Mall rental vs Low footfall

Retail spaces are expensive because there are definite costs involved to maintain and upkeep such fabulous, worldclass facilities. The bigger problem I think is that the malls fail to attract visitors. The retailers are not able to find the value for money staying invested in a luxury or up-market shopping mall. It is in mutual interest of both the mall operators & retailers as well as a core responsibility of the mall operators to stimulate footfalls.

How to stimulate footfall?

(Traditionally) Among the many things that attract desired attention are;

Source of entertainment - Food courts, Cineplex, Pubs etc

Organise events with celebrity attractions

Shopping festival / carnivals

Special attractions for kids etc. etc

Fresh ideas!

How about DLF starts (FREE) shuttle service in the city connecting its malls and the city hotels. DLF could engage city tour operators to do the job for them. For example in the city of Delhi; the shuttle service would connect the DLF GIP Saket & DLF Place & Emporio Vasant Kunj with 11 odd (5 star) international luxury hotels (in CP alone). This would encourage tourist & leisure travelers (both domestic & international) and would ensure a lot of cross pollination across board the tourism sector. Moreover this would also reduce the traffic on city road.

It is a tried & successful strategy observed in markets overseas, then what are we waiting for.

Contemporary (HOTEL) Marketing thru Videos!

Videos are playing an ever increasing role in the online marketing process. Marketers have realised that videos help increase brand recognition, create buzz and help promote and sell the products or services more effectively.

Hospitality businesses in India must finely compliment the online marketing effort by the traditional approach of direct contact with target audience.

asdf

How To Go About Video Marketing

Popular concept in video marketing is the creation of "viral" videos. Videos that are so entertaining, bizarre, or funny that people will refer their friends. If done correctly, the video will spread like wildfire across the internet, reaching hundreds of thousands of people, without costing you a cent in advertising or hosting costs.

• Create video content to enrich your site
• Create a sales letter/pitch to promote your video
• Build more personal relationship with subscribers
• Keep in contact with your clients for feedback

Where You Can Submit Your Video

YouTube – http://www.YouTube.com

Google Video - http://video.google.com/

Yahoo Video - http://video.yahoo.com/

FlickLife - http://www.veoh.com/

Blip - http://blip.tv/

Crackle - http://crackle.com/

Flurl - http://www.flurl.com/

BoFunk - http://www.bofunk.com/

Vimeo - http://vimeo.com/

Flixya - http://www.flixya.com/

What To Consider While Posting Your Video

You must use some tricks; pick the right keywords, and create some backlinks to the posted videos. Give it a catchy title and teaser to get people interested. One can also social bookmark them, submit their RSSs to some RSS search engines.

Strategy To Go About Promoting The Video

1. Bookmark and RSS feeds are perhaps the more important marketing tools which actually give videos their unlimited potential. There are a lot of internet sites that now host and share bookmarks. You can add links to these sites to your article pages. There are two ways of doing this. You can go to each of the leading bookmarking sites and download their code and links onto your site. The ones that you should include are:

Digg - www.digg.com

Technorati – www.technorati.com

Del.icio.us – www.del.icio.us

Reddit – www.reddit.com

The alternative is to put a link to AddThis.com for direct access to over 30 bookmarking sites.

2. Using Social Networking sites to Promote you video. A big part of this phenomenon is the activity of finding, sharing and recommending products, services, events and experiences to like-minded people.

Twitter - http://twitter.com

Facebook – www.facebook.com

LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com

MySpace – www.myspace.com

Orkut – www.orkut.com

If you can get people to talk about and recommend your products & services to their peers, it is more powerful than any marketing you can buy.

asdfd.

3. Partner with Travel portals and MetaSearch engines to promote your video.

• Travelocity
• Cleartrip Make My Trip
• Desiya
• Yatra
• Expedia
• www.IxiGo.com

4. Tie up to with websites offering content like current affairs (NEWS) & other popular lifestyle / fashion content. Run banner campaigns / ads to attract traffic for your video on your own website.

• NDTV
• TimesNow
• Rediff
• MSN

5. Promote the videos at Malls on their electronic billboards. (huge plasma screens)

6. Run the video at Multiplexes

7. Tie up with Airlines to promote your videos on their inflight entertainment system.

Conclusion:

The true essence of the campaign lies in being able to track and measure the reach & effectiveness. By using simple tools available like Google Analytics you must track the progress of the campaign.

Marketing Basics

There are only three marketing strategies needed to grow a business.

asdf

Marketing Strategy #1. Increase the number of customers

Increasing the total number of customers is the first step most business owners and managers take to grow their business. Losses can occur when inexperienced sales personnel are put in charge of designing and implementing a marketing program - investing corporate resources to find more customers. Executed correctly, basic marketing strategies cost efficiently produce new prospects who are ready, willing and able to buy products or services. The main purpose of a marketing strategy is to give sales personnel prospects to convert into paying customers. Rewarding existing customers for referring new ones is one easy step business owners can take to increase their total number of customers.

asdf

Marketing Strategy #2. Increase the average transaction amount

Owners and managers spend most of their time operating their business and searching for new customers. They often overlook the customers they see regularly. These repeat customers are usually taken for granted and left to conduct entire transactions without ever being asked if they would like to buy more product or service. Complacency, expecting customers to buy a minimum amount of product or service without ever being asked to buy more, can be the undoing of a business. This attitude can eventually cause customers to spend less money. Customers who are'nt continuously offered compelling reasons to keep buying more of the same products and services from one business will look for new reasons to buy from another. Cross selling and upselling, systematically offering customers more value via additional products or services at the point of sale, are two simple steps business owners can take to increase their average transaction amount.

asdf

Marketing Strategy #3. Increase the frequency of repurchase

In an established business, an average customer purchasing pattern develops and (like the average transaction amount) is usually taken for granted and rarely improved upon. A customer’s repeat business is earned by the business who gives the customer what they want. Without having basic marketing strategies or processes for consistently offering customers more of what they want, repeat business is earned less frequently. Frequently communicating news and offers to past and present customers via telephone or mail generally increases their frequency of repurchase and is one more step owners can take to grow their business.

Conclusion

Every marketing strategy should be measured by its ability to directly impact and improve upon each of these three factors. Increasing only one factor will produce linear business growth. Increasing all three factors will produce geometric business growth.

Bleeding Travel Agents

Airline companies in India, facing a combined $2 billion (Rs8,580 crore) loss this fiscal because of high fuel costs and fierce competition, are resorting to steps including cutting down on flights, and have already cut the commission to travel agents from 9% to 5% earlier.

State-owned National Aviation Co. of India Ltd or Nacil, Jet Airways India Ltd and Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. in an effort to cut costs, have decided to scrap the 5% commission on basic fare from 1 October, (which is before taxes and surcharges) that they pay to travel agents. That will dry up the widest revenue stream for agents—about 90% of their business is from airline bookings, mostly for corporate clients.

About 85% of airline bookings in India are done through travel agents, including online agencies such as MakeMyTrip India Pvt. Ltd and Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd. Rest is booked directly by passengers. To compensate revenue losses, some travel agents are planning to impose a service charge on the bookings they make. But that will make their services more costly as bookings through airline websites, where there is no service charge, will be cheaper. Travel agents plan to charge Rs100 per passenger for domestic travel and Rs500 for international tickets from October 08.

asdf

Changing Dynamics of GDS business

August 2006: Redefining relationships with U.S. based travel management companies, Sabre Travel Network had introduced an optional fee-based program that gives its global distribution subscribers access to full airfare content and immunity from airline service charges. Sources said Sabre's move is the bellwether of new dynamics between GDSs and corporate travel agencies and likely would lead to additional expenses for corporate travel buyers.

Although Sabre would not disclose the new agency payment terms, Sabre CEO Sam Gilliland said they would be "opaque," as they have been with the airlines. As per Sabre Travel Network senior vice president of North America Chris Kroeger, travel management companies in effect will pay Sabre to leverage full content, but still receive incentives, albeit shrinking ones, from the GDS. "Sabre connected agencies that elect not to participate will not have assurance of access to full content," Kroeger said. "It does not put an end to incentives," Kroeger said. "We've been very open as we've talked about this balanced approach that there is a role for incentives." Gilliland has said incentives are coming down and Kroeger concurred.

asdf 

We will have to wait and watch the strategic developments in India in the near future...