Whether your products are books, confectioneries, cosmetics, or food items, physical point of sale promotions are a proven means of increasing sales and boosting brand awareness among your target market. In an increasingly competitive high street retail environment, the brands that secure the largest market share are not necessarily those that spend the most on TV, poster and radio adverts, but those who are able to reach their consumers directly at the moment of making a purchase decision.

With a 3-D POS promotion, the devil is in the detail. The following five tips will help you plan an engaging point of sale display to effectively promote your products and encourage more purchases.

1) Grab The Consumer’s Attention

First things first, your point of sale display has to grab the attention of your target audience, and for that it needs to be bold. Don’t feel you need to follow convention when it comes to your colours or design. So long as it is consistent with your brand, your display can be as bold, surprising and innovative as you and your retail partners want it to be. Unusually shaped designs can be used for any point of sale promotion, be it an FSDU, countertop display or dump bin.

Have a look at this L’Oreal display in the image below, for instance. Although not designed by us, this shows the kind of display that is possible when you’re willing to think outside the box. Each brand is different, so chat to us about innovative ways to make your product come alive.

As far as colours go, be as bright as possible, as there will be a lot of competition on the high street and you don’t want your promotion to fade into the background. Using contrasting colours is a good way of grabbing a customer’s attention. Above all, be fun and playful. Engage your customer’s imagination with your display.

2) Offer An Incentive

While people do regularly make snap purchase decisions, these are comparatively rare. Most people ummm and ahh extensively about buying a product, even when small amounts of money are concerned. Where there is a lot of choice between similar products (e.g. between chocolate biscuits in a supermarket), this sense of indecision is heightened, leading to reduced sales. Encourage your market to make an immediate purchase by including an incentive on your point of sale display. This could be as simple as a tear off coupon giving a percentage discount or access to a ‘buy one get one free’ style offer. Even if the consumer does not make an immediate purchase, they may keep the coupon and be more likely to purchase at a later date, or they may pass on the discount to a friend.

If you are running two or more point of sale marketing campaigns concurrently, you could use this opportunity to cross sell with other products in the same store. For example, your coupon could allow the consumer to save 20% on Flapjack X when they buy Smoothie Y. This strategy lies behind the success of the meal deals which are now so popular in supermarkets and high-street shops.

3) Use QR Codes

Point of sale promotions work best when incorporated into a multichannel marketing strategy. Take advantage of QR codes to link your POS displays to enriched content, which can be accessed through a user’s smartphone. What this content is will depend on your product. If your display advertises a set of bestselling books, for instance, your QR code could link to a video giving more in-depth reviews of each book. Or, for consumable products, the QR code could link to a smart phone voucher that can be used immediately or at a later date.

4) Create Desire

The great question of marketing and sales is to persuade your target customers why they should buy your product, rather than someone else’s. Create desire in your point of sale display by showing consumers the benefits of purchasing your product. For example with food items, this could include spelling out the nutritional or energy benefits of the product. Combine selling the benefits of your product with a call to action that links with one of the incentives we have discussed.

5) Demonstrate Results

Nothing sells a product better than a visual example of happy people enjoying that product. Many products will benefit from visual demonstrations of customers seeing the advantages of having made a purchase. This strategy has been used successfully by sun cream manufacturers for years, with images showing sun drenched beaches and smiling, non-sunburnt consumers!

It has wide application for other products too. For example, a point of sale promotion for energy drinks could show one or more people enjoying a run. The link between the visual image and your product may be direct or indirect – this will depend on the nature of your product – but it must be targeted at your ideal buyer type in order for it to be successful. This is something we can help with, so please get in touch with one of our designers today for more info.

The Point Of Sale Marketing Guide

The benefits of using point of sale displays as part of your marketing strategy are discussed in further detail in our Point Of Sale Marketing Guide. This free e-book is full of useful information about promoting your products, including innovative designs, how cardboard POS displays are made and how to ensure success on the shop floor. Click here to download your copy.