Point of sale marketing is a fantastic way to connect with your customers in unique, interactive ways throughout your store. There’s plenty to consider, from the materials and colours you use, right down to the exact placement of the display to ensure it makes an impact and boosts your sales.
In this guide, we’ll unpack all of these factors, walk you through the basics and benefits, and help you understand why expert point of sale design is a non-negotiable for success.
Maybe they can’t find what they’re looking for. Or your website takes 10 minutes to load and they’ve gotten bored. Or you might even be targeting the wrong audience with your content.
This is a common dilemma for businesses – high traffic with low sales or leads. It means you’re not converting visitors into customers, resulting in lost revenue and hindering that all-important business growth.
In this article, we’ll guide you through the steps to turn your high traffic into a high-converting website, from deeply understanding your audience and optimising their user experience to implementing actionable strategies and accurately measuring your conversion rate.
Looking for something in particular? Jump to one of the following sections:
What is point of sale marketing?
Also known as point of purchase displays, point of sale (POS) marketing is a clever in-store retail marketing strategy to highlight products, offers, seasonal promotions, and other store initiatives. Well-designed and captivating point of sale displays are often strategically placed in high-traffic areas and at transaction points, such as till counters, to maximise their impact.
If you’ve ever stood in a queue at your favourite shop and picked up an item you originally had no intention of purchasing, or been drawn to the end-of-aisle specials at your supermarket, you’ve been face-to-face with POS marketing. And it probably worked!
The primary goal of this marketing tactic is to increase sales opportunities and customer engagement throughout the retail environment.
Especially for those point of sale display stands at checkout counters, this is often the last chance a retailer may have to influence a customer’s buying decision. This is why it’s so crucial to have an effective, stand-out design.
Effective POS display materials
A successful point of sale marketing campaign is made up of strong physical assets and materials. Each of these assets should be visually compelling and aligned with your promotions and company branding, but we’ll get more into that later!
To create a cohesive and high-performing POS marketing campaign, here are some display materials you might want to consider:
Branded display stands
These stands are best placed in high-traffic areas or around the point of sale, like the till and queuing areas.
- Free-standing display units (FSDU)
- Counter display units (CDU)
Signage
These graphic signs are great to use throughout the store to reiterate campaign messages and branding.
- Shelf displays – talkers, wobblers & shelf edge strips
- Window displays
- Posters & banners
- Floor stickers
- Digital displays
- Pavement signs & A-frames
Bulk merchandising
These displays are perfect for promoting large volumes of products, either for seasonal promotions, inventory management or end-of-line discounts.
- Dump bins with signholders
- Slatwall displays
Choosing the material you use for your marketing campaign will be the one that best suits your target customers and store requirements. It could even be a mix of these assets. The real key comes in ensuring they’re strategically well-designed to influence shoppers.
The benefits of POS marketing
There are many great advantages to this simple yet effective marketing tactic, with both businesses and customers alike reaping the rewards. Let’s dive into the top five benefits:
1. Influence buying decisions and impulse purchases to boost sales
Perhaps the biggest benefit to POS marketing is that it can have a huge impact on a customer’s impulse purchases and help to sway their buying decisions. According to POPAI (Point of Purchase Advertising International), 62% of shoppers are drawn to make an impulse, unplanned purchase when they spot an attractive retail display.
Say a customer had an idea for their shopping list to only buy one book in a bookshop. But then a sign caught their eye, highlighting that books were on a “buy one, get one half-price” deal. Highlighting an engaging offer and making sure that it is well signposted with a clear message could make the difference in an extra purchase that a customer did not originally intend.
The customer is satisfied with the deal, and your business makes an extra sale. It’s a win-win situation!
2. Improve customer engagement
POS displays are an effective way to transform the customer journey and make it much more interactive and engaging. When strategically placed around high-traffic areas throughout the natural navigation of your store’s layout, you can ensure customers will see and be interested in the display.
Especially when utilising product displays such as slatwalls and product shelves to create aesthetically appealing touchpoints, customers will feel eager to engage and interact with the products. This form of POS marketing creates an interactive customer journey which will help with purchase decisions by experiencing the products before committing to buying them.
Displays placed at the point of sale, around checkout counters and queuing areas, are also a great idea for turning this wait-time into a point of interaction and additional sale. This enhances the customer experience, showing your commitment to providing greater value throughout the shopping journey.
3. Increased upselling opportunities
Around checkout and queuing areas is often the final opportunity to create purchase opportunities, with almost three-quarters of in-store purchasing decisions being made at these points of sale.
Marketing products around those areas, especially at employee-handled checkout counters, is an extremely effective and natural way to upsell or cross-sell small or complementary products. Place product displays around queuing areas to give customers the chance to pick up small, affordable items while they wait.
These small, related, inexpensive items are easy ways to boost your sales, brand awareness and average spend-per-visit at the end of the shopping journey.
The point of sale area is also a great chance to secure future business. Use displays to actively promote your loyalty schemes and gift cards. This works well when you train employees to invite customers to join these programmes during the transaction, selling a benefit and offer to them.
4. Raise brand awareness
A stylish and functional POS display is a highly visible, tangible asset for your brand. Especially when used correctly in high-traffic, high-visibility areas, these displays can be seen by many in a busy retail environment, so it’s important they’re working hard to convey your message.
Using consistent, engaging and professional design choices ensures that your company’s branding – your branded colours, messages, tone of voice, logo, core message – is reinforced to the customer throughout the store. Using consistent colours can increase brand recognition by up to 80%.
Pair this with engaging offers and promotions, and you will build lasting, positive brand awareness that will keep customers coming back for more. It’s all about turning a shopping trip into a satisfying and impactful customer experience.
5. Efficient inventory management
POS marketing and well-designed product displays are excellent tools for managing stock and selling products quickly. Well-designed bulk product displays are particularly effective for seasonal items or promotions. They create an engaging experience, drawing attention to products that need to be sold before the season ends, such as Christmas and Halloween time.
POS displays are also great for highlighting end-of-line products or overstocked items to free up valuable shelf space and promoting excitement around these items. You can create a sense of urgency with marketing messages like “when it’s gone, it’s gone” to encourage quick customer purchases and excitement about exclusivity. ‘FOMO’ at its finest!
Boost your shelf appeal with point of sale design!
Work with Bubble’s expert POS designers to create a display that demands attention.
Strategically maximise the impact of your display
An effective, high-impact POS display is strategically done. By researching and observing the areas of your store with the highest foot-traffic, noting what messages and offers make customers stop in their tracks and take notice, you can create POS marketing campaigns that truly make an impact.
When done effectively, your point of sale displays and signs can be your silent salespeople, converting those moments of engagement and visibility into spontaneous purchases and increased sales.
There are many factors to consider when creating a meaningful POS display. Let’s explore them.
What makes a good point of sale display?
At its core, a good POS display is eye-catching and well-executed. After you’ve chosen the right material to suit your campaign – whether that’s a point of sale display stand, hanging sign, window display, or countertop sign – it’s time to get working on a great design for it.
When creating these in-store displays, it’s important to consider these five points:
1. Eye-catching design
A well-designed display goes far beyond just looking nice. It should be visually striking and impactful enough to stop shoppers in their tracks.
For an attention-grabbing POS design, use vibrant colours, high quality product images and graphics to communicate an instant message someone will be able to understand at a glance.
2. Create seasonal marketing touch points
Customers love the idea and excitement of exclusivity around limited time deals, especially for festive holiday periods. Seasonal promotions are a great time to experiment with thematic POS designs and product displays.
For example, at Halloween, try using colours like orange, green and purple. If it suits your brand and customers, you can even pop on some fun graphics like cobwebs and pumpkins! Getting creative while directly suiting the products or promotions will help to boost engagement.
Group your seasonal products together with exclusive offers and discounts, and an eye-catching design to match. Your customers will love this way of getting ready for the season.
3. Branding consistency
Everything from the colour palette on a window display to the typography on a floor sticker must work together to strengthen your brand awareness. Across all physical assets, keep your designs in line with your company’s branding, including consistent colour schemes, fonts, image styles and logos.
4. Clear messaging
A great complement to an impactful design is meaningful messaging. When they work hand-in-hand, they will deliver an engaging campaign that captivates customers and tells them exactly what they need to know.
The message you use on your POS display is the main tool that will communicate to customers what you’re selling or promoting, and how it will benefit them. To do this effectively, make sure it’s clear and direct so shoppers won’t have to second-guess what you’re trying to tell them.
To make an immediate impact and engage shoppers, make sure the message is easily digestible. It’s best for the message to be short and compelling to instantly communicate the value of the offer. The message should also be well-written and in the correct tone to appeal directly to the target customer of your marketing campaign.
5. Strategic placement
This is one of the most crucial aspects of an effective POS display. Even the most visually stunning and well-written signs will fail if it’s not seen by the right people.
Strategic placement of your point of sale marketing displays means maximising visibility by making the most of high-impact areas throughout your retail space. Pay attention to areas that are a natural part of the customer journey throughout your store, like at the entrance, main aisles, and transaction points.
For example, displays in the queuing area are a key opportunity to grab customers’ attention while they’re waiting with a last-minute purchase offer that’s tricky to refuse.
Add dump bin signs, countertop displays and gondola end signs to high-traffic areas to make the most of that extra footfall. Window displays are also a great idea to optimise your space and make an instant impact as soon as customers walk through the door.
Expert point of sale design is non-negotiable
Working with expert designers can really make a difference to the overall result. They’ll work with your business to set out your goals, understand your branding and determine the best way to implement this into your final design.
An effective POS marketing design demands a perfect blend of creativity and functionality. That’s why we provide a full-service offering that manages the entire project lifecycle.
Our dedicated, in-house team has the knowledge and skill to turn those touch points into sales. We get that point of sale is an investment, and with decades of experience creating effective displays, we know the best design tactics to help you get a return.
Ready to transform your point of sale marketing?
POS marketing is a great way to boost your sales and craft a compelling customer journey. The true difference between a simple sign and a successful selling tool lies in exceptional design. By designing those captivating, eye-catching displays and implementing them meaningfully and strategically, you can significantly increase your average spend-per-visit and drive that all-important customer engagement.
Get in touch with our design team today to share your ideas and reap the rewards of an impactful, expertly crafted POS display.
Share
Boost your shelf appeal with point of sale design!
Work with Bubble’s expert POS designers to create a display that demands attention.
