4 Ways Walmart Can Guarantee The Success Of Their Latest Venture - Forbes

Customers wearing facemasks sit in front of a Walmart store. — Creative COVID-era marketing at its best: Walmart is hosting family Drive-in Movie nights at stores ... [+] across the country next month. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images

COVID really is transforming the way companies do business.

For the latest example of that, just look at Walmart. The world’s second largest retailer just announced that starting in August, it will be hosting family Drive-in Movie Nights in the parking lots of select stores around the country.

They’re recognizing that this is a moment—and they’re doing the smart thing by turning that moment into momentum.

This is a departure for Walmart, which has generally focused its community involvement more on philanthropy and fundraising than events. But as with so many other brands, Walmart’s leadership is realizing that in the time of COVID, anything that lets you serve your customer in a relevant way—even if it’s something you’ve never before considered—is a good thing.

So now that Walmart is planning these Drive-in Movie Nights, what do they need to do to make them a huge success?

Here are four of the most impactful things I recommend they do.

1. Focus on the uniqueness of these events as not only a fun night out, but a brief escape from life during COVID.

In-person events, especially ones where social distancing is basically a non-issue, are extremely hard to come by these days.

A drive-in movie, of course, removes almost all need to think about keeping our distance from each other—everyone will be in a car, after all. Because of that, these nights have something really special to offer guests: a chance to actually get out of the house, safely, as a family, and escape for a brief time from the worry and anxiety of COVID.

Movies have always provided an escape for people during tough times. Child star Shirley Temple kept people’s spirits up during the Great Depression. The Golden Age of Hollywood was in full swing during World War II. And while the community experience of sitting with others in a full movie theater isn’t possible right now, drive-in movies can give us at least some of that back.

These are just a few of the points Walmart should focus on in their marketing. It’s not just a drive-in movie. It’s a chance to experience something together.

2. Offer food—but with a BYOD twist.

Offering food through food trucks or other vendors is a no-brainer at an event like this, but right now, no one wants to wait in a packed line surrounded by other people for 20 minutes.

The solution is to incorporate a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) tech solution.

With these solutions, customers are able to order food and pay using their mobile devices. Since it can be done from anywhere, it’s easy to see how the technology could be incorporated into a drive-in movie night, with anyone who wanted to order food doing so from their car—which not only increases safety but also means they don’t have to miss any of the movie!

OneDine is one of the top tech solutions for contactless order and pay, and what’s more, users don’t even have to download an app to use it. It’s all done through a web-based app, making it both faster and more convenient to get started with than a dedicated app.

One more thing I love about OneDine: since the gathering restrictions began, OneDine has been giving its technology to restaurants for free in order to help them pivot to a curbside takeout model as fast as possible. And the service will remain free to those restaurants through September 1, 2020.

Now that’s an example of serving your customers.

3. Capture email addresses.

While keeping the drive-in nights free of excessive self-promotion will be key, it doesn’t mean forgoing something like capturing attendees’ email addresses if possible.

Walmart is already doing this to some degree with a CTA on the drive-in webpage that asks visitors to sign up for Walmart’s newsletter to get updates.

Another possibility could be requiring people to pre-register for a parking spot to guarantee they’re able to watch the movie, or offering another incentive—a discount, perhaps, or chance to try their delivery service free for an extra month—for those who sign up online with their emails.

4. Encourage hyperlocal and user-generated content on social.

Social media usage is up during the pandemic, as people turn to their social networks for everything from news, to community, to activities for kids who’ve been home for months now.

That means that user-generated content holds even more power than it usually does (and that power is already significant).

The same is true of hyperlocal content. Local news has become increasingly important, as we all want to know what’s happening with the virus in our own communities. Local news readership is way up (even though the newspapers themselves are barely surviving).

Partnering with those local news sites to get information out to readers is an indispensable part of making these drive-in movie nights a success, and partnering with micro-influencers with a local focus could be, too. That, plus encouraging UGC through the use of hashtags or giveaways, could help ensure that those parking lots are packed when the movies finally start rolling in August.

Walmart’s decision to offer its customers something out of the ordinary, and venture into totally new territory, is something to applaud. It’s critical to think more creatively about how to reach your customers right now.

I’ve seen how effective this can be at my own marketing agency, where we’ve helped our clients double their event sign-ups through virtual offerings, and achieve 10X their reach across the board.

The reality of doing business during COVID demands nothing less than a total rethinking of how you’re reaching out to customers. Even if you’re a brand as seemingly unshakeable as Walmart.

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