In-store advertising often takes a great part of the marketing budget. Campaigns need to be both visually impressive and cost-effective in order to be successful and increase sales. That is why it is obvious that creating a proper campaign description is crucial for the success of the campaign.
Planning the process carefully and selecting the right advertising materials ensure that the campaign is installed appropriately in the right location. Removing the materials quickly after the campaign or when the promotion has come to its end, is equally important.
By following these 7 steps for successful campaign planning and implementation, you can optimize the costs and effectiveness of your next in-store advertising campaign:
1. Map and involve the campaign stakeholders
Start your in-store advertising campaign planning by mapping and involving all the necessary parties related to your campaign. These include parties like advertising agencies, material and logistics experts, Print Management Companies or even field representatives like merchandizers.
2. Develop the campaign description
A good campaign description serves as a fundamental base for the success of a printed in-store campaign. It especially defines the questions and requirements for the material needed for the campaign. After specifying the material attributes you can consult the in-store advertising specialist or wholesaler and printing house for the availability of different materials, their printability and formats.
Ideally, after creating the campaign description, you are able to utilize the chosen material for similar promotions also in the future. A carefully planned campaign description saves time and ensures the desired results.
3. Choose the right materials
Selecting the right advertising material to promote sales is often challenging. Yet, it is one of the most important decisions for the success of the campaign, especially in retail and grocery stores.
A versatile material can help to make sure that the campaign functions in different store plans throughout the retail chain and on different surfaces. Including a material expert early in the planning phase of the campaign helps not only to reduce costs but will also help you to think about the whole lifecycle of the material.
4. Design and pilot the campaign
A too rarely used, but very useful way to ensure the effectiveness of an in-store campaign is to pre-test it in one or a few of the stores before launching it to the rest of the locations. Piloting makes sure that the chosen material, printing, formats and amounts work as desired on the different surfaces in the store environment.
5. Print and distribute
Study the printing and storage guidelines of the material carefully and pre-test the chosen material in order to get the desired results. Eventually, when it is time to pack and ship all the campaign materials, it is important to follow the potential recommendations for handling the material.
If you have piloted your campaign, you have had a great chance to create photographic and/or video instructions on how to install the campaign materials in an actual store environment. Provide the instructions together with the campaign materials.
6. Install the campaign
All the hard work and cool designs will go to waste if the advertisement is placed in the wrong location or worse, is not visible at all! The closer you can have your message to the promoted product, the more effective your campaign will be.
Choosing the right materials can help you in the distribution of the campaign to all the different locations, and to ensure easy and correct installation of the POS materials.
7. Take care of the materials during and after the campaign
One challenge in in-store advertising is that if there are some changes or updates that need to be made to the materials during the campaign, completely new materials must be produced and delivered.
Another point regarding the materials during the campaign is potential vandalism. How fast and easy is it to replace missing or damaged materials? Do you have a small “reserve” of campaign materials?
Want to know more?
Download our eBook Planning an in-store advertising campaign - choosing the right campaign materials in order to get more information about each of these steps.
