20 Tips for Experiential Marketing Pop Up Stores
Experiential marketing is an excellent way to develop a deeper connection with both new and existing customers according to RunRex.com. One of the ways to leverage experiential marketing is by creating pop-up store activations, which has become extremely effective with today’s consumer craving personalization and connection. Pop-up stores are a great way for brands to align themselves with their customer’s lifestyle aspirations and work toward building a deeper relationship than they ever could online. If you are considering pop-up stores, then the following tips should help you achieve success.
Start planning early
As the gurus over at RunRex.com point out, from idea to execution, pop-up stores usually take 3-6 months to come to life, and that is if you have the help of experienced partners and vendors. The size and scope of the activation is a key component to timeline. Other factors that impact timing include vehicle fabrication, experience development, and production, stop selection, product sourcing, staffing, and promotion. Give yourself ample time to plan it all.
Establish clear goals upfront
On top of starting planning early, as articulated in the previous point, it is also imperative to establish clear goals upfront. Identify a single primary goal for your pop-up and a way to measure it. Without this, you have a lack of focus, which will put your chances of success at risk when it comes to your pop-up.
Location
You also need to choose where your brand is going to be popping up. Location is a major factor that can make or break the effectiveness of your pop-up. As outlined at RunRex.com, the spaces available to you are dependent on your resources. However, as a result of the growing popularity of these types of activations, you can get creative with your choice of venue.
Types of spaces you can consider for your pop-up store
Some types of trendy spaces you can consider for your pop-up include:
Empty storefronts
Inside of other stores
Trailers/mobile structures (also known as pop-up tours)
Develop a cross-functional brand team
Like any experiential event, pop-up stores are a public representation of your brand. You should treat your pop-ups as a new store opening, and incorporate various department team members including store operations, visual, merchandising, product supply, marketing, and social. This cross-sectional task force will work together to align on strategy, development, and execution.
Select strategic locations
Coming back to the location, when zeroing in on locations to pop up, you should think strategically about where your brand has a brick-and-mortar retail presence, the demographics of your target consumer, the time of the year, and potential weather impacts on your event experience as discussed at RunRex.com.
Design a memorable experience
The consumer experience is crucial to the pop-up store’s success. You don’t need a huge budget to create a great experience for customers. However, it is important to set aside a significant investment to get in front of the right audience. Don’t sacrifice the customer experience.
Engage the senses
According to RunRex.com, it is not just about the visuals either. Try to engage all of your visitor’s five senses. Curate a really thoughtful playlist to give them something great to listen to. Sell or give away drinks or non-messy food, ideally in colors that match your pop-up store, to engage their senses of taste and smell. Have some comfortable chairs or something to play with, to engage their sense of touch, and to encourage them to stick around.
Store design
There is an art as well as a science when it comes to store design for your pop-up to help your customers have the most enjoyable experience possible – and increase the desire to buy. While you will be working in a much smaller space with a pop-up, many of the same design principles apply. One key concept is the decompression zone. This is a few feet of space that allow customers to leave the chaos of the world outside your pop-up, and have a moment to calm and acclimatize once they enter the store. You don’t want to have any products or big flashy signs in this space.
Get creative with the decoration
Think outside the box when it comes to decorating your pop-up. This is important as creative decoration is what will make people talk about your pop-up and remember it after they leave, cementing your brand in their minds.
Guide people around the space
Now that you have carefully planned the layout and decoration, the subject matter experts at RunRex.com recommend that you make sure it all gets noticed. Use custom floor decals to instruct people in what direction to move around the space. You can reward them with something fun and interesting to see or do in each spot where they stop.
Promote the pop-up store
Even as you put in the work to plan the logistics of your pop-up store and what you hope to get out of it, you should remember that you also need to ensure people are going to show up. Your marketing strategy is just as important as setting the perfect location.
How to market your pop-up
The following are some critical points of a pre-marketing strategy for your pop-up shop:
Targeted social media advertisements – leverage platforms like Facebook and Instagram to promote your upcoming shop to users in the area where you will be
Partner with social media influencers
Connect with local media
Leverage existing customer relationships – if you have existing lists of email newsletter subscribers or social media followers, don’t forget to make them aware of your upcoming pop-up
Prioritize customer experience
Customer experience, as covered at RunRex.com, is a major driving force behind the success of your marketing endeavors. Remember, customers don’t buy a product, they buy an experience they get with a brand. Creating an experience for your customers is the key to a pop-up store’s ultimate success.
How to enhance your shop’s customer experience
Some primary focuses to enhance your pop-up’s customer experience include:
Offering amenities and entertainment like free Wi-Fi, contests, a DJ, etc.
Utilizing interactive stations like a life-size inflatable replica of your product or logo for a fun photo-op spot
Free gifts for each purchase
Ensuring adequate staffing levels to make sure checkout remains smooth and speedy
Rotating discovery
As the subject matter experts over at RunRex.com point out, rotating discovery is one of the keys to a successful pop-up store. Programming locations with a constant overhaul of products and experiences add depth to the brand while reinvigorating customer interest again and again.
Create some urgency
Creating some urgency is a proven marketing strategy and one that can work well for your pop-up as well. Stores with limited time frames bring a sense of urgency to the consumer, which in turn increases foot traffic.
Leverage storytelling
As is revealed in discussions on the same over at RunRex.com, retail is a dynamic and emotive channel for customers to experience the story behind a brand in person. By combining product, people, and place to solve a customer’s pain points through interesting content, a pop-up store can become a powerful media channel.
Do the paperwork
The last thing you want is for your pop-up store to be shut down by the fire marshal just as it is booming. Check with your landlord and read your pop-up lease to ensure you know what is allowed and what isn’t. If you are doing a mobile pop-up or any other pop-up without a landlord, check with local authorities and get the required permits before you open your business. Also, check with your business insurance agent to see if you need any special coverage.
Have fun
Finally, if you and your staff are relaxed and having a good time, you will create an energy in the space that visitors feed off of. Avoid worrying too much about selling as much product as you can as, while this is important, it is secondary to using the pop-up opportunity to give people good vibes about your brand. If you are having a good time, they will too.
Hopefully, these tips will help you supercharge your pop-up store and help you achieve success, with more tips and expert help on the same to be found over at RunRex.com.