This blog is about the vital importance of incorporating clear messaging into POP retail displays.
Without clear messaging, brands will never achieve the level of sell-through needed to make their product successful in a retail environment. In most cases, it is not too difficult to get a retailer to give a new brand a multi-store test. What’s difficult is getting the product to sell and meeting retailer expectations once the brand has secured retail placement.
If a product doesn’t sell well in the first retail stores in which it is tested, the retailer will be inclined to mark down the product to the point that it does sell. Unless the product manufacturer decides to buy back the product, it virtually guarantees that opportunities with other retailers will be squashed or severely compromised. Without a big advertising budget to create awareness of the product, it’s essential that the brand has an effective in-store display and that the messaging is crystal clear.
In crafting the messaging to include as part of your POP retail display, there are 5 key things to keep in mind:
1) Keep it Simple- In most retail environments, you have no more than 3-5 seconds to grab a shopper’s attention. Save your more complex messaging for your website or for your product literature. Make your messaging short and to the point. Create something simple that will grab a shopper’s attention. Think about it as if you were writing a headline.
2) Emphasize Product Differentiation- Your messaging should convey the essence of what makes your product better or different than your competitors’ products. Why should a customer buy your product vs. the myriad of other choices she may have? Boil it down to the most compelling key differentiator, and don’t get bogged down with point-by-point feature and benefit comparisons with competitive products.
3) Use Imagery That Stands Out- As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Invest in good photography. Make your graphics pop. Choose imagery that will make your display and product stand out in a crowd. Use imagery that communicates what your product is and what it can do for the customer. Using the right imagery is even more important if your target market is Millennials. Millennials don’t read, but they do look at pictures.
4) Focus on the Key Take-Away- It’s easy to be so close to and so in love with your product that you want to tell everyone about all of the great things your product can do. Even if your product has 5 core benefits, try to find the hook or the one or two most valuable aspects of your product and build your messaging around that. Most people can’t remember more than two or three things anyway, so focus on what you want the consumer to take away or remember about your product.
5) Create an Emotional Connection- In a recent blog entitled, we discussed research which suggests that people tend to make purchasing decisions based on emotion rather than rationality or logic. So messaging that focuses on constructing a strong logical argument for buying your product will almost never be as effective as messaging that is based on a story or messaging that is specifically intended to create an emotional connection with the customer. As mentioned in point #3 above, imagery is one of the best ways to create an emotional connection with a customer. Stay away from facts and figures that might seem compelling to you but are unlikely to be remembered by the customer and won’t create the emotional connection to trigger a purchase event.
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