Point of purchase merchandising is a marketing strategy designed to quickly grab a customer’s attention and encourage them to buy a product on a whim. With such a short time to capture and persuade a consumer, there are certain important elements of point of purchase merchandising that should be employed to make your campaign as effective as possible.
Timing and Placement Vital for POP
Human beings are impulsive and point-of-purchase merchandising plays off that fact. Items marketed in this fashion are strategically placed at the front of a store near the register. Often, point of purchase merchandise offers an incentive to the customer, such as a discount or limited offer. Often, POP merchandise has only seconds to convince a consumer to buy in. Despite this, this kind of merchandising strategy sees phenomenal results.
According to a study conducted by the Citeman Network, more than 38 percent of supermarket shoppers purchased an item they had never bought before, the main reason being that the item was prominently displayed close to the checkout area.
Catching Consumer Attention Point of Purchase Ads
If the whole purpose of point of purchase displays is to quickly grab the customer’s attention, make your products or advertisements pop. Ever hear of Camp Nectar? Their “real fruit box” campaign aimed to show consumers how their juice was as healthy as real fruit. To accomplish this, they grew fruit in juice box-shaped containers and placed them in the produce departments of supermarkets in Brazil. That way, consumers shopping for fruit would see the Camp Nectar brand and associate their juice with the healthiness of fruit.
Hellmann also took a unique approach to point of purchase merchandising. In Brazil, Hellmann installed software at 100 checkout stands. When a consumer purchased a jar of Hellmann mayonnaise, the software produced a recipe on the receipt using the products the customer bought that day. Their marketing strategized was widely successful. In the first month alone, sales for Hellmann’s mayonnaise jumped 44%.
However, these two POP strategies represent the extremes some companies have gone for their merchandise. There are other unconventional means of pressing consumers to purchase your products.
Imagine your local supermarket: it’s a vast sea of merchandise placed at eye-level. The floors are often cheaply tiled, white and otherwise unexciting. Now imagine having your product or logo prominently displayed on a large, comfortable custom floor mat or rug at the checkout stand or down an aisle. That’s one way to catch people’s attention!
Signs hanging off shelves and from ceilings can serve this purpose as well by catching an eye roaming up and down the aisles. A simple tip regarding color: Make sure your display is bright and contrasts well with its environment to really make it pop!
Engaging customers with interactive POP merchandising can put you in the mind of consumers, too. Some supermarkets have installed televisions at checkout stands for customers trapped in long lines. On these TVs are short ads for products prominently displayed on nearby shelves.
Making Your Marketing POP!
Nearly any product can be marketed by point of purchase as long as it’s done in an effective fashion. Knowing your target consumer is huge. Considering you only have a matter of seconds to convince a customer to buy your product, it’s important to know who they are and how best to persuade them. Pick the most important aspect of your product and make that the most prominent feature of your display. Is it organic? Safe for children 3 and up? Find your selling point and put it in front of consumers! You won’t have time to give a full on sales pitch, so make sure the one thing you stress is enough to convince them to buy.
The key to point of purchase merchandising is to present your brand as a necessity in just a few seconds. Follow these tips to ensure that your products get maximum exposure where it counts. For anyone looking for a vendor, check out Creative Displays Now for POP displays
