The Objective of the Retail Pop-up
Pop-up retailing is a great thing – for retailers and for shoppers. But a retail pop-up without an objective – like a psycho squirrel with a machine gun – can be a very bad thing for everyone in the general area.
The biggest mistake retail brands make when creating a pop-up is not choosing the wrong location, or failing to be delightful or even being excruciatingly dull (though that doesn’t help.) The largest error when creating a retail pop-up is not having a clear, singular reason for doing it.
There are all sorts of bad reasons for a retail pop-up:
- The other guys are doing it.
- It looks like loads of fun.
- There are a couple of bucks left in the budget that must be used before the end of the fiscal.
- I know a guy who has a space…
- The CMO has decided that pop-ups are “in.”
There’s only one real reason to stage a retail pop-up: to deliver a Shopper Moment. And to make that Moment resonate – and to see some good ROI – you must have a clear, measureable objective.
Consider any one of these six retail pop-up objectives:
Build the brand. With a pop-up, you create an opportunity to redefine your narrative and fine-tune your brand story.
Introduce a product. Showcase a new offering and educate the shopper about its value.
Test something. The pop-up is fertile ground for information gathering. Use it to explore new geographies, discover new audiences, experiment with new formats, test concepts or investigate potential partnerships or sponsorships.
Sell something. It is completely valid for a retailer to want to stage a pop-up in order to move some merchandise. That’s ultimately why we’re all here.
Create major buzz. There’s nothing wrong with attention; just make sure to clarify and control the message. Then throw open the doors to traditional and social media. Give her something to talk about. (And Tweet and Pin and Share and Like and Snap.) She yearns for authentic reasons to care and share.
Cement shopper relationships. Remember the power of exclusivity. Treat your existing shoppers like gold; make them the envy of their friends. Create an invitation-only event and watch the brand love grow.
And that’s it.
These are the only objectives the marketer should consider when contemplating a retail pop-up. And it is important to choose only one.
Make that objective clear and measureable. Seek input and polish it up. Articulate it clearly. And get it accepted across the organization. Only then should you start planning the best pop-up ever.
Then the fun (really fun) part starts…
This information is from “Pop-up or Perish: A Retail Marketing Mandate,” a new webinar from MR Pop-up. In this free session, pop-up experts (along with this guy) share the whys, hows, whens, whos and what-the-heck-happeneds of modern retail pop-up. Learn more here.
