The marketing mistake most retail and hospitality brands make before they even open
I have worked on retail and hospitality launches for most of my career, across Coles, Westfield, Michael Hill, The District Docklands and dozens of individual tenants in between. I have seen openings done exceptionally well and I have seen openings that never recovered from the first two weeks.
The difference is almost never budget. It is almost never the quality of the product or the space. It is almost always the same three mistakes, made before the doors even open.
Mistake one: treating the opening as the start of marketing
The most common version of this: a business owner signs a lease, focuses entirely on fit-out, approvals and operations for six months, then starts thinking about marketing two weeks before opening.
Two weeks is not enough time to build awareness. It is not enough time to earn any organic search visibility. It is not enough time to brief a creator properly, or to run a campaign with enough lead time to generate results.
The opening is not the start of marketing. The opening is a milestone in a marketing timeline that should begin the moment the lease is signed. Ideally earlier.
The opening is not the start of marketing. The opening is a milestone in a marketing timeline that should begin the moment the lease is signed.
What this looks like in practice: building your Google Business Profile and starting to collect reviews before opening. Getting your social presence active with behind-the-scenes content: the fit-out, the team, the story. Briefing the centre’s marketing team on your What’s On and directory requirements well in advance. Identifying the local creators or community accounts worth reaching out to. Having your opening week content planned and ready to go.
None of this requires a large budget. It requires a plan and enough lead time to execute it.
Mistake two: marketing to everyone
I understand why this happens. You have worked hard on a concept you believe in. You want as many people as possible to walk through the door. The instinct is to cast the net wide.
The problem is that wide messaging is expensive to deliver and unlikely to land. People do not respond to broad appeals. They respond to messages that feel like they were written for them.
For a retail or hospitality brand in a physical location, your audience is almost always more specific than you think. It is not ‘people in Melbourne’. It is people in a particular radius, with particular habits, who are already spending in adjacent categories, who are likely to visit this centre or precinct.
The more specific your understanding of that person, what they do, what they value, what they are looking for that they are not currently finding. The sharper your understanding, the better your marketing performs.
Mistake three: ignoring the centre relationship
Shopping centres and precincts have marketing teams, EDM lists, social channels, What’s On programs and in-centre opportunities that most tenants underutilise entirely.
The centre has built an audience that you have direct access to. They want their tenants to succeed. Vacancy is expensive and underperforming tenants drag foot traffic. A well-briefed centre marketing team is one of the most valuable and underused resources available to a new retailer.
What well looks like: submitting your directory listing copy and images on time and to the correct specifications. Providing What’s On content that is genuinely useful and timely. Communicating your key trading moments so the centre can include you in EDM campaigns. Understanding what content the centre’s social team is producing and making yourself easy to feature.
This does not require a dedicated marketing resource. It requires someone in your business who owns the relationship and knows what is expected.
What good launch marketing looks like
A well-executed retail or hospitality launch has a plan that covers the 8 to 12 weeks before opening, the opening period itself, and the first month of trade. It is specific about audience, clear about messaging, and aligned with the centre’s marketing calendar.
It does not need to be complicated. It needs to be planned.
Darling Bloom’s Launch Lab package was built specifically for this. It is a fixed-scope engagement that gives you a structured launch plan, centre-ready inputs and a professional opening approach, starting from $3,500 + GST.
For higher-visibility openings, Launch Momentum extends this with a campaign concept, creator strategy and visibility plan across paid and organic channels.
Both are designed to be practical, fast and specific to your situation.
If you are about to open
The best time to get the marketing right is before you are too busy to think about it. A discovery call takes 30 minutes and gives you a clear sense of what your launch plan should include and where to focus first.
If you’d rather start with a defined scope, the Strategy Sprint ($750 + GST) gives you a two-hour session with Coreena and a written plan within five business days.
Either way, starting the conversation early is always the right move.
Coreena Duncan is the founder of Darling Bloom and a senior brand and marketing strategist with over 20 years of experience across national retail networks, destination precincts, professional services and growth-stage consumer brands.