Tempting The Online Shopper Out Of The House With Pop-ups And High Street Retail
Gone are the days when families sang along to advertisement jingles as a bonding practice after dinner. Now, most of the family time is spent on phones, lost in the connectivity of the internet world. So, how can you connect with your target audience and inspire them to leave their phones (or use them) to hear your advertisement or brand message?
In July, Replay Lincoln Park, Chicago, organized an aquatic pop-up store with a theme inspired by SpongeBob SquarePants.
The Bikini Bottom gang in the store received more than 20,000 visits from interested customers. Each of these individuals bought food and drinks or paid to play in the arcade games set up in the store.
Considering the company only spent $25,000 on the pop-up setup and decorations, the revenue they collected from the store was nothing short of a massive success. In another example, Taco Bell, California—a company known for its marketing genius—made at least $11,830 within two minutes by selling reservations to 70 lucky guests for their V Palm Springs pop-up event. Source.
But why do these pop-ups work?
They allow customers to get off their phones and tablets and experience a first-hand physical connection with companies and what they offer. Meaning pop-up stores are not just practical for brick-and-mortar stores; they also allow online shops to meet and connect with customers.
The best part about creating cool pop-up events is that both the customers and the retail store benefit. Replay, for instance, allowed its customers to remember what it was like being kids and playing in arcades within a community setup.
In turn, they enhanced their brand awareness and increased sales revenue from their usual marketing strategies. Modern retail stores in different industries are doing this to gain customer attention, and you can too. Here’s how:
Surprise Your Customers
Are pop-up shops worth it? Yes, they are, especially if you learn to innovate your customer experiences by giving something unexpected. A pop-up experience is a temporary event for your business and your customers.
Therefore, nothing should stop you from trying to surprise your attendees with something they would typically not find in your retail store. Take the Google donut pop-up event, for instance. The company’s primary goal was to promote and launch its new Home Mini smart speaker.
Traditionally, customers know that these events have free giveaways from a lucky few. The surprise from Google was that the lucky few never knew precisely what they would get in that Gogglebox because they had two options: either get the mini speaker or simply donuts from the pop-up donut shop.
The surprise did not merely grow excitement among Google customers; it also managed to increase brand awareness and marketing for their new product. And all Google had to do was surprise its customers with donuts.
Innovative experiences also offer the same effect. Nike is an example of a company that took this seriously by allowing customers to custom-design their shoes, play basketball on an indoor court, and have a Q&A session with the late Kobe Bryant.
The entire Nike venue ran out of parking spaces because who doesn’t want custom Nikes? Another company that did this well was IKEA, which used augmented reality at a pop-up exhibition.
Attendees would design their dream rooms on touchscreens and then see them come to life as a projected space in front of them. This is not only creative, but it also allows your users to connect to what you are sharing. And if you are lucky, it can inspire the type of engagement among your users that lets you trend.
Provide A Limited Experience
FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is still a relatively viable concept in the world of marketing. People love to own and boast about owning unique and limited products. They equally like to visit places that most people cannot reach.
As such, this is an excellent strategy to meet the future of your retail business. You can offer a limited timeframe for the pop-up event. For instance, apart from hosting pop-up events for a whole month, start to create buzz for an exclusive one-day event for limited-edition products.
You can then sell reservations as V Palm Springs did or allow the first 100 customers into the venue. Adidas created a one-day-only pop-up shop in New York City to try out alternative currency as a sustainability measure.
As currency, Adidas would collect used shoes and clothes and charge per weight of these items in exchange for one-of-a-kind, unique, upcycled, or vintage Adidas pieces.
Test Before Committing
Sure, creative ways to attract customers, like opening stores within stores, might work, but maybe not as efficiently for newer products and locations. This is where pop-up events shine because they ensure the new products or store locations you want to commit to having a market.
For starters, a pop-up event will safeguard the investment you would otherwise spend on opening a new retail store in an entirely new market. Research has shown that a pop-up store costs less than $5,000 on average.
Also, depending on the reaction you get from your customers, you can gauge whether your new market will embrace your products or not. Sézane, a French fashion brand, does this exceptionally by showcasing stylish ready-to-wear apparel and accessories to test new US markets.
If a new product doesn’t garner much interest in a new market, a pop-up event gives your business the perfect one-on-one feedback platform on areas to improve. And if it works, you can rest easy knowing that your new store will have a positive ROI.
Embrace Change
In our current market dynamic, only one thing is sure: customer expectations keep changing. Therefore, you cannot continuously tie yourself and your retail store to old ways of branding and marketing your company. Instead, learn to reinvent yourself and the strategies you choose.
A pop-up event gives you precisely that. For every pop-up event you create, try something new, but trendy. Know yourself and your target market properly, and then boldly express yourself to them through your offers. Become a pleasure by sharing what is creative about your retail business.
Where We Come In
Technology is the key to gaining flexibility and agility when developing your pop-up event strategy. This is what Erply is built for. We are a POS software solution designed to help you navigate issues like inventory and supply chain management to help you better plan for your pop-up events.
Our cloud-based software solution also allows you to open a store anywhere, whether online or physically, without data loss. We have a robust API system that will enable you to connect all your supply chain touchpoints, making it easier to navigate between stores.
And our analytics feature allows you to use your pop-up data to determine the success of your events. If you want to know more about how we can help, get a free demo here.