I answer a lot of questions on BizCrowd for brands wanting to grow their businesses. A lot of the questions are simply stated, but represent BIG endeavours for a brand.
This is one I'd like to share with you and I've rewritten my response for a larger audience.
"Do you know of anyone who organises or runs pop-up shops in the South West or would be interested in renting out a pop-up shop. We're are a gaming business in Devon and we are looking for a cost effective and unique way to sell our products on the high street."
Here is my insight from designing all types of retail stores and branding for 19 years.
For a pop-up shop, make it easy on yourself to be successful. Choose a location where people are already in the mood to shop. So if that is a mall, choose for an open space in a mall near a major entrance, or empty shop with good customer sight lines. Next to a toy shop is ideal for a gaming company. Pop-up shops in random public spaces rarely work.
This gaming company needs to put the user into their world of game(s)....it needs to be experiential. There are pop-up shop design studios that will work to any budget. Do some research and find them. The design needs reflect your brand, it will be re-usable and can be stored as a kit-of-parts. For a gaming pop-up shop, soft seats will important as they'll want people to sit for hours, making their shop look busy. Printed graphics for the wall are cost effective.
Have a DEAL for your customers. Make it clear and enticing. The deal should be pop-up centric so that you can track it. Social media will be important. Run a Twitter campaign of 'Tease, Reveal & Reward' with short reward periods. To keep vibrancy in the pop-up for this gaming company, I'd run a competition, or even connect it with a local charity to show brand depth and caring for the community around you.
A busy shop attracts customers and will illustrate how fun it is to play your games. So your PR person and your marketing team need to have a plan that meets your needs and will 'saturate' the marketplace with unmissable messaging on when, where and how to find your brand.
Get PR & marketing that focuses on gaming. I don't mean the £5K per month retainer types. 1-4 person teams that are hungry for your business is your goal with external resources. Have an overall budget in mind.
To have a pop-up shop you'll need to really show how your brand is attractive and different from other (gaming) brands. You can start by using our new brand positioning tool for FREE to see how you are positioned amongst your competition. This will be important to convey to your pop-up designers.
I remember a gaming pop-up for Little Big Planet in Covent Garden. They were making character puppets and I wanted one to take home with me. It was memorable. So what is your memorable gesture going to be?
I remember a gaming pop-up for Little Big Planet in Covent Garden. They were making character puppets and I wanted one to take home with me. It was memorable. So what is your memorable gesture going to be?
The most important thing to remember is that no one entity will deliver your pop-up store for you. You will have to have someone on your team that is in charge of bringing all this together if you want it to be successful. It is essential to bring together the right team for your brand, or have someone do that specifically for you.
You don't want do this half-way because a pop-up requires a strong brand, a design that reflects it, a marketing plan, media coverage and follow through of all the details. If your question is super, top level like the one above, then you definitely need some expertise and someone to organise your strategy, then make a plan to implement it for you.
I love questions like these because this is something our Brand Concierge service can do quite easily because of my retail design and branding background.
Contact us if you want to bounce your your big brand building idea off me. We focus on high-impact short projects that bring in customers and raise revenues. We are affordable too.
Lynn Kingelin
BrandStarMe LTD
buildyourbrand(at)brandstar(dot)me
