Whenever you read about business marketing and development, it seems as though everything rests on your website, social campaign and email marketing strategy. But you must remember that the screen is only part of your business model.
Yes, your website is important but you also need to make sure that you are recognizable on the street too. A website is easy to look at and then forget, but if you can catch someone passing by and introduce them to your products while charming them with your fabulous personality, you could be in with a chance of gaining a new customer.
So, where should you put your main efforts?
There are 3 main options: going to expos, taking a trailer on the road and doing a one-off pop-up stall in one of your target areas. Each option has a few benefits to consider and, aside from the financial and timing implications, no reason that you can’t do all 3 over time.
Let’s look at some details.
Expos
Going to an expo is the perfect way to find yourself in a large room with a lot of interested parties but it also means that you will be directly comparable to your competitors too. This means that you need to stand out amongst the crowd and offer something that draws people in to talk to you.
The first thing to consider is how you want to present your business. Show booth ideas can be anything from wild and wacky to sleek and professional so you can really represent your brand in the best possible way. If you aren’t sure where to start, going to a similar expo to gather some ideas is a sneaky but brilliant way to check out the competition and find your niche.
Much like a supermarket, you also need to think about the experience you want people to have when they come to your stand. You have the opportunity to curate their experience too using all kinds of methods from free giveaways to putting video screens up around your stand. But the most important thing is that every person you speak to has a great impression of your business and wants to find out more.
Trailers
Taking a trailer around your area is a good way to road test your products and business appeal. Plus, as you go around, you will be building brand awareness, whether you are on the road, traveling between places or you are parked up and ready to start chatting people up.
Taking your business on the road is all about boosting your visibility in a few key local areas. It is also a chance to see how your business plays a little further outside your usual catchment area. This is really important for growing local businesses searching for new premises to set up a second location or branch as you can get a feel for the place and how the residents might react.
On the other hand, taking your business on the road is a good chance to see whether a product will work well or if there is some further refining to do. Combining brand awareness with market research might not appeal to everyone but every time you talk to a potential customer, you must listen to their desires and struggles with your brand so that you can develop and grow.
When you are making up your trailer, you need to think carefully about the impression you want to make and how you want customers to interact with you. For a restaurant, setting up a food truck would be a really easy option. But you might also consider how other mobile businesses can make use of the space in the back of a truck to get some truly awesome results.
Pop-Ups
If the idea of taking your business around with a truck doesn’t really appeal, a pop-up shop could be a great option. A pop-up shop is a temporary store that could last anything from a day to a week and is the perfect opportunity to generate a bit of interest in your brand and bring people in. Much like the expo and trailer, you need to think carefully about the experience you want people to have, not just about generating immediate custom.
Some of the most creative pop-up shops show that a great design can make a huge difference to how people perceive a brand. The idea here is to be memorable so that customers are more likely to go away and look at your business online or search for their own local store.
However, you could also use your pop-up store to generate a bit of a buzz and encourage people to come in and try your product. Setting up a store to introduce your products at a discount, especially if you tied the discount in with a social strategy, is a great way to balance the books as well as build brand awareness.
While you might assume that filling up the space is the best route, actually, you need to think more about how to draw people’s attention to different things. Lighting your pop-up store well is absolutely essential for the right experience and using spotlights to highlight particular products is a brilliant way to add drama.
The more you expose your business to people “in real life” the more chances you have to find your audience and generate some interest in your business. While an expo can bring you into direct contact with people who are already interested in what your business has to offer – a kind of refined audience – taking your business on the road and setting up a pop-up shop is a great way to find new people who may be interested in your business and widen your audience.
As with anything, you should still try to marry your online marketing efforts with your off-line activity. This means that you should announce when and where you will be and you could even offer incentives to persuade people to come and visit you.
Good luck!
