Simon Malls Add Last Holiday Ingredient: SMS Deals

Simon Property Group has mobilized for Christmas in a big way. In addition to launching a branded smartphone app, linking many of its properties to Foursquare and becoming the first retail property partner for the Shopkick check-in app, the group has also used the holiday season to roll out the Simon Mobile Shopper Club, an SMS channel in more than 180 Simon malls in the U.S.

Mobile users with text-message capability—in effect, all of them—are encouraged by on-property signs to opt in to the Simon Mobile Shopper Club by texting SMSC to 71610. The message they receive in reply asks for their location and then gets them to sign up for alerts from a specific participating Simon Mall in their region.

Once they do that, they can receive alerts on special retailer sales at their local Simon Mall, mall operating hours, or special events such as a mall visit from Santa Claus. While on the property, they can receive text messages to interact over SMS or to play text-in games for a chance to win prizes.

“We want to give our shoppers many different ways of connecting with the Simon brand and the malls: through a smartphone app, through a mobile-optimized Web space, through partner applications and most recently SMS,” says Patrick Flanagan, vice president of digital strategy for Simon Property Group. “We want to have an answer for you all across that spectrum of mobile devices.”

Patrick says Simon felt it was crucial to add a text-message capability to its mobile strategy. “It’s great to have some higher-end mobile applications, great to have the middle of the road with the optimized mobile site, but what about the mass audience who really are our core shopper?”

“The experience of that answer is different; 160 characters of text isn’t as engaging as a rich media iPhone app. But it still allows the on-the-go shopper to understand what’s happening at their local mall, whether it’s deals, events, or program mall information. But they can still plan, research and execute their shopping visits as efficiently and with as much information as possible.”

At this time, most of the message traffic for the Simon Mobile Club is happening while customers are on the premises, Flanagan says. Opted-in users are pulling out their phones to take part in a daily giveaway and sweepstakes called “More Choices, More Chances to Win” by texting WIN to 71610 for a chance to win a $10,000 grand prize, instant-win rewards such as iPod Nanos or American Express gift cards, or the chance to meet recording artists like Selena Gomez, Nelly and the band Maroon 5.

The sweepstakes, which will continue through the month of December, is also open to entries on the Simon Mall Web site, through a Simon More Choices application in the Facebook network or via the individual Facebook pages of participating Simon Malls. Contestants can also enter the contest by clicking through mobile banner ads.

Flanagan says the campaigns Simon is running through its Mobile Shopper Club have the aim of increasing enjoyment of the mall experience but are always closely tied to the specific malls and retail brands that are part of a registered shopper’s local experience. “The local brand still is what’s most important,” he says. “Through all the communications on all channels, you’re still tying yourself to one or more local properties. That’s the relationship we think is most important.”

For example, Simon Malls doesn’t run a corporate Facebook page but instead offers 182 profile pages for individual properties.

As with its other recent mobile initiatives, Simon Group is watching basic metrics of engagement: basically how many users sign on to receive the SMS alerts and how many send messages on the return path to take part in the contests. While Flanagan admits it would be helpful to be able to know how many of those messages are sent while on the premises, mobile detection technology is not yet exact enough to make that possible.

As for those other initiatives, Flanagan says Simon has seen much success with the integration of many of its malls with Foursquare, the location-based social network. Users who have downloaded the Simon Malls smartphone app can check in on Foursquare at participating Simon properties and uncover both retail deals and simple tips for getting around the mall more easily.

Flanagan says that a late-November evaluation revealed that Simon Malls constituted three out of the top 20 most popular Foursquare “venues”, or check-in locations, in the company’s Indianapolis home town. “Airports and convention centers were the only ones that beat us for traffic,” he says.

While Simon is running local deals through its Foursquare channel, Flanagan says one of the most interesting effects comes simply from populating the channel with insider tips mall shoppers can use. “A shopping center [in the Indianapolis metro] has a parking garage that’s underutilized while the lots are always filled with cars,” he says. “So we put in a check-in tip suggesting that people use the garage more, get out of the wind and snow, and take a breezeway right into the fourth floor of the mall. Those are the kind of easy, fun things we can bring to life in Foursquare.”