Go big or go home: Marketing Nebraska Crossing Outlets

NEX45.com redirects now to the main website... with a slider that promotes the club.

Nebraska Crossings Outlets is privately owned with an innovative strategy of capturing, engaging and converting customers

The NEX Club captures emails on the site, but the list is primarily built via its 500,000 email list and store promotions.

Simple email capture works best for NEX45

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Company:  Nebraska Crossings Outlets

Market: Omaha, Nebraska

Core team: (or NEX Team, as they call themselves); Jamie Kinnaird, Manager of Contests and Promotions, Lowell Miller, Manager of Market Sales Initiatives, The Omaha World Herald, Omaha.com; Jenni Mitten, Marketing Director, Nebraska Crossing Outlets; Brian Smith, Technology and Digital Strategy, OTB Destination

Challenge: In late 2013, the city of Omaha, Nebraska, was getting a new mall. In fact, it was getting the brand new 400,000 sq ft. Nebraska Crossing Outlets with 70 retailers, many of which are new to market, including more than 60 outlet and factory stores — Coach, Borsheims Boutique, Kate Spade New York, Nike, Gap, Rack Room Shoes and Kitchen Collection among them. Location has it's advantages and the nearest outlet mall is 200 miles away - a four hour drive. That left a huge market of 2 million+ people as potential customers. 

While malls often create email lists used for birthday coupons and other events, the Nebraska Crossing Outlet's team focused on creating a club that used the latest technology to engage and communicate with customers, so they could received offers via text and email, or even via iBeacons, as soon as they entered the mall.

Strategy: Technology was always a key part of the ownership’s strategy. The team created an overall plan which included a "smart mall," a kind of technology hub, in which visitors could receive more digital offers and be encouraged to stay longer. 

"The technology and discounts remind a shopper of other items to shop for," Mitten said. “I think it boosts sales. People stay connected, stay longer and visit stores they didn’t know about."

Major components included:

• SalesForce.com as the digital platform for data

• NEX Club that provides access to exclusive offers and events

• Accumulation of massive email customer data before opening, using a $1,000 a week give away prior to the 2013 opening and during the holiday season 

• Grand Opening launch with a 45 day Give Away using a gamification approach

• A continuing schedule of twice monthly contests and promotions supported by the Digital Marketing Platform, social media and traditional media buys

 • Learning more about customers than just their email to provide a more personalized experience

• Free Wifi

• The NEX Outlets mobile app and an iBeacon network which enables the mall to connect with customers via their smartphones and push them specific offers and discounts as they shop.

• Ongoing active social engagement

Brian Smith joined the Development team in August to help focus on deploying the Digital Platform. He joined the developer, OTB Destination, from Salesforce.com.

"The common perception is that SalesForce is just a CRM system," Smith says. "We use it as a foundation of our digital platform... to perform all our marketing" including email and social engagement, Smith said. 

Here's a step-by-step walk through of the marketing strategy:

1. Prior to opening; Goal: Build a 100,000 email list

Key strategies to build the email prior to launch included a $1000 a week shopping spree give away, partnership with StyleSeek, and Facebook promotions around the Grand Opening.

To start the give away, they turned to one of their media partners, Jamie Kinnaird, at the Omaha World Herald. 

"For locals in 2013, it was a big event," Kinnaird said. "The opening was November 15, just in time for holiday shopping...but (Nebraska Crossing Outlets) really wanted to create their own customer list of opt-in emails and and phone numbers for their membership club."

Kinnaird proposed a simple contest: A $1000 give away, every Friday for 10 weeks, to be used in any store after the opening.  

The contest, which ran from Oct. 4 to Dec. 14th, was hosted on Omaha.com, in addition to "massive" promotions in print, digital, email and Facebook.

"Both the media company and the client pulled out all the stops to promote the contest," she said. 

The contest software, supplied by Second Street Media, included Social Boost, which allows users to get an extra entry every time their shared link is used. 

The newsroom also covered the construction and the grand opening, including a map of the outlet. However, they also integrated promotions into these articles, and during the contest period included a link to the contest and to the facebook page for the campaign.

Finally, the contest was promoted on the 100,000 opt-in email list created at Omaha World Herald and Omaha.com, and in traditional print.

About 33% of the 80,000 pre-launch emails were delivered by this contest. 

2. Grand Opening with 100,000 attendees helps launch Nex45

The Grand Opening used more media buys across print, TV and radio. But rather than just promote the launch, it also launched NEX45, a 45 day promotion that sported 1260 prizes and huge daily giveaways.

To enter the contest customers were directed via social media, mainstream advertising and in-center Kiosks to log on to NEX45.com, where they played a game created via partnership with StyleSeek to find their "style DNA" and receive recommendations.

StyleSeek, is a game in which visitors choose from a selection of images, to identify their Sytle DNA. 

StyleSeek partnered with Nebraska Crossings Outlets to create a unique game for the mall, using brands located at the mall that were already in the StyleSeek system, plus some that were not. 

"Part of the point of playing the style game and building a style DNA for our NEX Club members was to enable Nebraska Crossings Outlets to connect with shoppers in a much more personalized manner," Smith said.

Now that the promotion (below) is over, NEX45 redirects to the Nebraska Crossings website. However, the NEX Team plans to do it every year. 

Here's the original promotion for the 1260 giveaways over 45 days:

Prizes included memberships to the Omaha Zoo, a partnership they continue to develop (they plan a Zooperbowl with animals on site) and other Facebook sharing strategies. Also given away were 90 Apple tablets, 90 $500 Gift Cards, at one of the boutiques, and 900 $200 NEX Outlets GiftCards.

Support from ownership made the contest a huge success and demonstrated the value of investing in overall long-term success of the development. They also received some residuals from some stores that pay a percentage of revenues. Some stores declined to participate - and the mall heard about it on Facebook. So full participation from merchants is key if it is promoted as "any store in the outlet."

3. Additional Ongoing promotions 

While the launch promotions garnered a massive database, ongoing bi-weekly  promotions still take place. They have included:

• An Apple TV giveaway two weeks before Christmas. Customers were asked to bring their receipts into the outlet's office to verify spending levels. Everyone received some kind of prize, but the top spenders received Apple TV's. Spending levels entered ranged from $400 at the lowest to $10,000 at the highest.

• "I've got Seven - Scavenger Hunt" is a give away that requires customers to bring in seven receipts to win prizes based on spending levels. Prizes included  coupon books and t-shirts for spending less then $400; a $200 gift card for spending $500 and up, plus other options such as Cole Hahn gift certificates for other levels.

• A car giveaway was promoted to the NEX Club base, with print, tv and billboards, further growing the list in December.

4. Free Wi-Fi is offered everywhere in the mall. Currently it is simply allowed with no log-in via CenturyLink, the communications partner for Nebraska Crossings Outlets. However, plans in the future may include free Wifi with data capture.  

5. The NEX Outlets mobile app is part of the long-term strategy to communicate with customers onsite, pushing nearby discounts and announcements within the mall via iBeacon. The app includes a car finder option for users to locate their cars after shopping. Hundreds of iBeacon devices have been installed around the mall at entrances, kiosks, and even in the stores to communicate with customers on premise. Anyone who has downloaded the NEX Outlets mobile app can receive push notifications - and the store receives data on where customers are going within the outlet. 

"It recognizes when someone is in the store and if you walk past something or are leaving the outlet, it can push out a coupon so you may stay a little longer," Smith said.

Results: 

Results from the overall marketing strategy are stunning:

• More than 80,000 emails were gathered in the three months prior to opening

• 100,000 people attended the grand opening weekend

• Four million visitors arrived in the first four months

• 500,000 emails were registered in the first four months

• Studies show that 233,000 visitors have connected a device using the free Wifi, about 5% of total visitors. 

• With 500,000 of a possible 3 to 4 million people in market already registered to email, the team's future plans focus on building more data about individual customers.

Lessons learned: 

While not all malls and outlets have the demographics and quality retailers of Nebraska Crossing, there are some lessons here that marketers can learn and use:

1. Ownership was key to success. The ownership of Nebraska Crossing Outlets are an independent group of developers, rather than a REIT with different objectives on a macro level. So malls and outlets with greater savvy and direction from the top have the best opportunity. Know the owners and dynamics in your city. 

"The ownership is independent and looks at each and every relationship in a special way. Our ownership understands how important it is to build loyal customers and to market the center. From the beginning the ownership team has been focused on building something extraordinary – from the architecture to the merchandise to the technology. It’s a special group." Smith said. 

2. Infrastructure starts with a sufficient platform - and Salesforce.com fits the bill; in this case it was able to consolidate the data and fulfill all the other services. For media who already use SalesForce.com, there may be an opportunity to resell and manage these big data programs locally, if the mall is not. 

3. The number of revenue-share tenants may be a factor even with malls whose ownership is less driven by long term value. 

4. Outlet and Mall promotions should be frequent. This group does have external and internal contests twice a month. Too many malls think of a big contest or giveaway as an annual event only around the holidays. 

5. Once the infrastructure is in place, programs are accumulative and become easier, since the mall can market to its own customer base. This is the biggest selling point for helping malls begin the process. This can include contesting, apps, bluetooth hotspots, app hotspots and text clubs. 

“We’ve had positive feedback from people who have opted in and started using it,” Smith said. The number of “opt-in” customers grows every week, he said.

Many thanks to Jamie Kinnaird at the Omaha Herald, Second Street Media, and the NEX team at Nebraska Crossing Outlets for sharing this outstanding example of marketing a large mall or outlet with our members.

Jamie Kinnaird- Mgr Contests & Promotions, Omaha World Herald                           

Lowell Miller- Mgr Market Sales Initiatives, Omaha World Herald

Jenni Mitten- Marketing Director, Nebraska Crossing Outlets 

Brian Smith-Technology and Digital Strategy, OTB Destination

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