Pop-up shops for digital-first brands create a clear definition of success and measurement

Many retailers are hopping aboard the pop-up wagon. Pop-up shops offer the chance for your customers to get up close and personal with your products in a truly immersive setting. In addition to producing sales, you can also increase brand awareness and receive valuable feedback directly from your customers.

Consumers love the lure of exclusivity, and brands love the unmatched opportunity for experimentation of abstract concepts. Last month, Wayfair announced that it would open two temporary stores in empty shopping mall spaces over the holiday season. The temporary stores will test how offline customers interact with the brand, fine-tune its merchandising strategy and push traffic back to Wayfair’s online store. Some in-store sales will be an added benefit. Bob Sherwin, head of North American marketing at Wayfair said, “Physical pop-ups are a natural evolution of our test-and-learn culture.”

What is a pop-up event?

They are temporally retail spaces that give brands the opportunity to sell their products in an environment completely designed and controlled by them. Since they are temporary, they offer a relatively low-cost and low-commitment way for companies to take creative risks, generate buzz, and introduce their brands to new audiences.

With any marketing strategy, it’s important to measure its success in terms of ROI. Here’s how to achieve that for a pop-up approach:

Quantitatively: Brands can track foot traffic, dwell times, sales conversions, average cart size and compare it to online, increase in online engagement and impact on traffic to their website.
Qualitatively: Brands can witness/ learn customer sentiment, purchase motivation; how they respond to size, color and fit; how window design impacts foot traffic.

Advantages of a pop-up to the retailer:

Each brand will have different goals and outcomes that they’ll expect to accomplish through doing a pop-up. Here are some benefits to help you consider doing one:

-Builds brand awareness, brand hype, and exposure

-Test market products or services with key consumers

-Secures customer loyalty

-Creates “Get it while it lasts” urgency

-Educates new customers

-Test a new revenue stream

-Engage customers offline

-Go to where your customers are

-Provide an opportunity for experiential retail

-Learn target customer behavior patterns

-Adds credibility, especially for e-commerce retailers

Different types of pop-ups:

If you’re looking for shorter timeframes like a week or by the day, store within a store is a great option. These spaces typically come as a move-in ready space with some minor decorating and set up. You’ll benefit from the regulars that visit the store and the existing store benefits from the fresh new foot traffic you’re bringing them. It’s a win-win situation and works well for a cross-functional situation. Also, it delivers extra rent revenue for the existing store.

What to consider: Are you a good fit for the clientele and the brands that are already in the store? The owners will want to make sure it doesn’t disrupt their operation.

You’ll find these located in footfall areas such as shopping centers or local markets. These are exactly what you would expect when the retailer sets up a shop in the middle of the mall where customers are walking by. It is a great way to keep new customers walking in front of your products. These spaces have seen a huge amount of interest because it requires little setup and investment. This is ideal for e-commerce retailers going offline for the first time.

What to consider: What other retailers are going to be in your general vicinity? Do you compliment each other or compete? Does the size of the booth limit my stock?

These spaces have great flexibility with rental lengths, often times are move-in ready, and are even great for cocktail hours for your customers. Because they are constantly rotating brands/events in and out, they like to book up as far in advance as they can. You’ll also likely benefit from experienced space owners that have experienced pop-ups as well.

What to consider: Can you get primetime dates? Renters book important dates in advance so it’s very important to get a head start on these types of spaces.

Besides the big anchor stores at the entrances, these are considered in-line spaces. They are the next step up from the kiosk and still come with the built-in foot traffic. In-lines spaces are usually really cost effective as well. Another benefit is that mall owners and shopping centers already know temporary retail sp they’ll understand your needs and will help you become successful.

What to consider: Where are you going to be located in the mall and what stores will be next to? Make sure you are pleased with your location and the foot traffic that flows by.

Street level storefronts represent some of the most coveted and exclusive retail spaces in the world. This is because brands make large profits in these spaces. Consumers love to have an in-store experience and the results prove it. If you have the budget and you’re looking to get some new customers, this is the best option for you!

What to consider: You might not be able to book too far in advance. Many landlords are looking for long-term tenants.

Location-based marketing creates many opportunities to reach consumers based on the specific geographic area they are physically present in. Geofencing is a type of location-based marketing that establishes a virtual fence around a pre-defined geographical area to attract mobile users. Today, geofencing is used in social media, human resources, telematics, cybersecurity, and marketing.

How does geofencing work?

Geofencing uses a combination of technologies to track customers’ locations:

-GPS

-Bluetooth

– Beacons

Once the virtual boundary is dawn around a physical location and a user enters that set location, a triggered response is distributed. Dependent upon the device and technology, marketers can prompt mobile push notifications, send targeted ads on social media, initiate text messages (SMS) and deliver location-based marketing data. Ever notice the food recommendations you receive once you enter a certain location? That is geofencing.

The Intertwined benefits of geofencing for marketing

Increase local sales

If one of your marketing goals is to drive foot traffic to your store and increase local sales, geofencing is your answer. In fact, it was reported by salesforce that fifty-three percent of shoppers visited a specific retailer after receiving a location-based alert. Therefore, it is an extremely effective way to target users while they are at the set target location. In addition, this is a valuable tool for driving customer loyalty by targeting individuals who have previously visited your business with promotional and loyalty offers.

Tracking Conversions and measuring ROI

Local sales can be difficult to measure. However, with geofencing, there are a number of metrics you can measure, including sales, how long they were in the store, and how often they visit. Reports also indicate the performance of the campaign for each geofence, so you can see which one garnered the highest CTR or the lowest CPA, for example. All this insight can be valuable information that adds depth to your analytics.

Customer Personalization 

Another benefit of geofencing is the data you obtain in order to personalize customer offers. It gives you demographics about the local population, including what kind of offers interest them and got them in your store. If you look at the purchase history provided and realize customers’ wants and needs, you can alter your promotions accordingly.

Increase brand awareness with concentrated spends

Better engagement leads to more effective marketing spend. With geofencing, you can reach the audiences most likely to take action, which means less budget spend on less relevant consumers.

The holiday shopping season is upon us and with the right strategy in place, it can bring in as much as 30% of a retailer’s total sales in just one season. One of the biggest misconceptions about holiday marketing is that you need to get your ads up and running just in time for Black Friday. In reality, a recent study showed over 40% of US consumers plan to begin their holiday shopping before November, and a solid 31% plan to start before September or earlier.

Start early

Campaigns that start in October see a 7% increase in impressions, a 12% decrease in average cost-per-click (CPC) and a 20% decrease in average cost-per-impression (CPM) compared to other holiday months. These stats prove that by starting early, you’ll be able to reach both new and existing customers with strategic holiday messaging at a lower cost, which will positively impact your total ROI. It is also important to remember that the earlier you run your holiday campaigns, the better because of the less competition you’ll likely see. As the holiday season ramps up, so will the competition. However, you’ll be ahead of the game and can focus your budget on bringing your new high-intent users down the funnel to convert.

Keep them running

While October is the best time to start running your campaigns, this doesn’t mean that you should skip out on other holiday months. In fact, engagement is highest in November and December. Last season, advertisers saw a 9% increase in click-through-rate (CTR) in November and a 15% increase in CTR in December. This means during the two months, your brand needs more meaningful, engaging content and a clear understanding of your customer’s journeys.

The rise of mobile marketing

As content consumption habits shift further online and into mobile, so do shopping habits, and it’s crucial to build omnichannel engagement programs that meet consumers where they spend their time. Based on a recent study, this year consumers are planning to spend a majority of their holiday budgets online and via mobile devices this year. For the five-week holiday period from Nov. 21st- Dac. 26th in 2017, mobile shopping accounted for 41% of purchases. In fact, on Thanksgiving, mobile shopping accounted for more purchases than those that came from a standard desktop computer. Beyond that, cross-device campaigns feature some of the best performance when compared to regular desktop or social media campaigns. Plus the average CPC is 63% cheaper on mobile than it is on a desktop for the average holiday campaign.

Tapping into social media for success

One of the best ways to take advantage of a mobile audience is to make sure that you’re running your ads across social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. In fact, AdRoll customers saw a 400% increase in CTR on Instagram when compared to their display campaigns, and a 54% increase in CTR on Facebook.

Personalize the holiday shopping experience

Make sure you are planning your social media strategy around a user-centric approach. Try to think like your customers, figure out the platforms they use, and produce content they want to see and engage with. It’s not a secret that video marketing is a major trend to exploit. Providing something of value is often the key to success, and 77% of consumers are more likely to watch an online video ad if they would receive a discount off a holiday purchase.

Vary your promotions/sales

If you want to keep consumers interested, you’ve got to add variety to holiday promotions. Start by deciding how many different types of sales or promotional events you want to offer during the holiday shopping season. Here are a few ideas that you can use for different types of promotional offers during the holiday shopping season:

• Provide early access to those on your email list.
• Offer “VIP” shopping opportunities to your most loyal customers.
• Create a sale for different product or category of products each week.
• Ramp up your sales percentages as it gets closer to the holidays.

What are you doing today in order to increase your visitor to sale conversion?

E-commerce business is changing faster than ever before, along with customers taking more time to think about their purchases. Shopping cart abandonment is an online retailers’ biggest challenge due to potential lost revenue, but luckily marketers can help solve this problem with cart abandonment emails. According to SalesCycle, approximately 75.6% of online shopping carts were abandoned in 2018. Cart abandonment is when online shoppers on your e-commerce site add items to their shopping cart, and then leave your site before converting (completing the purchase). The thing is, ¾ of people who abandon their carts usually plan to come back, so if you’re not reminding shoppers with abandoned cart emails, you’re missing a huge opportunity to recover lost sales.

How to Create Abandoned Cart Emails that Convert

Timing

The time distribution of your abandoned cart email is crucial if you want prospects to complete their purchases. The sooner you send it, the easier people will remember who you are and why they added the items into their cart. If you wait too long, you lose that shopping urge that caused the shopper to add the item to their cart in the first place. So make sure to distribute your email within 24 hours of them exiting your checkout so the prospect’s near purchase is still fresh in their mind.

Use Converting Subject Line

Subject lines have the potential to grab the attention of the customer and increase open and click rates. It’s the first thing prospects will see, so if your subject line isn’t well thought out, all your hard work won’t be read. The most effective subject lines are those that are straight to the point and evoke emotion like excitement, humor, fear of missing out, etc. So have fun and be creative with winning back customers. Another important factor in grabbing attention is to make it feel personal. You can play around with subject lines to see which have the highest open rates by using A/B testing in your campaign. Here are a few great subject line suggestions:

• “Hey Joe, you forgot something.”
• “Baby come back!” (the song)
• “Don’t let your favorite items sell out”  

Include Abandoned Product

In your email’s content, make sure to include the exact product along with the product image, size, color, pattern, etc in the hero of the email. This is a great way to remind them of what they are missing out. Using visual marketing to show interested shoppers which items they’ve abandoned makes the email more personal and immediately grabs their attention again.

Eye-catching CTA button

Bold and easy-to-see CTAs can direct the attention of the shopper towards the desired action you want them to pursue. In this particular situation, the action is to finish buying the product, so make it easy for them to complete the action a button text like:  “Continue Shopping” or “Snatch it!”

Present an Incentive

Who doesn’t love discounts or free shipping? One of the most common reasons users abandon their shopping carts is because of extra costs like shipping, tax, and fees. With that in mind, try offering an incentive in your abandoned cart emails that are only exclusive to them. This could be the final push they need to complete their purchase.

Effective emails that convert can also include scarcity that informs readers of the items they placed in the shopping cart have a high risk of selling out if they continue to wait. When deciding on your incentive, it’s recommended to test two incentives in your emails to find out what your audience responds to best.

Offer Customer Support

Another common reason for abandoned shopping carts is because of a failed/poor website or checkout flow experience. This includes long/complicated checkout process, website errors, slow delivery, not enough payment methods, or couldn’t see total order cost up-front. So, with each cart abandonment email, give the opportunity to provide customer assistance or guidance.

Include Customer Reviews and Testimonials

If visitors are in doubt when completing their purchase, a credible and honest review might influence a conversion. Go through your testimonials and place them at the bottom of your email.

At Spectruss, our powerful abandoned cart automation workflows implement these tips and more to remind your customers what they’ve left behind and encourage them to complete their purchase. With this abandoned cart messaging system, our retail clients reconnect with customers who navigate away from their shopping carts, recapture sales, and generate more revenue.