Pop Up Retail Strategy with Melissa Gonzalez | Business Insights

[00:00:00]the entrepreneurs Library episode 110 welcome to the entrepreneurs Library the only book Centric podcast that reviews all the top selling business books and shares author perspective firsthand this is your resource to finding the next great book that will enable you to grow personally and professionally welcome your host Wade Danielson welcome back to the entrepreneurs Library thank you for joining us today we have Melissa Gonzalez on to talk about popup Paradigm and if you would like to actually have an opportunity to win her book uh this book is all about how Brands build human Connections in a digital age if You' like an opportunity to win this book uh go to the ELP podcast.com click on become a VIP at the top right and you'll have an opportunity to actually win this book and each book from each further uh you know episode in the future that we actually put out so without further Ado let's bring on Melissa welcome Melissa and thank you for joining us on the entrepreneurs Library thank you for having me absolutely before we dive into your book will you take just a moment to introduce yourself and tell us just a little bit about you personally uh sure uh my name is Melissa Gonzalez I am the founder of the Lioness group we are pop-up Architects before that I worked on Wall Street on a trading desk um I am a proud mom to an adorable Jack Russell terrier and um just love experiencing new things excellent well thank you for sharing that first off now let's jump right into your book popup Paradigm which was just made available actually as we're recording this today but for those of you that are listening uh in the future December 2014 and Melissa we're going to move quickly but we're here to cover the top question that our listener reader would like to get answered and the first one is what was the inspiration behind writing popup Paradigm uh sure so you know we've been specializing in this since 2009 and really seen a shift as to how brands are utilizing popup retail and really seeing it as uh more and more becoming part of their budgets as they're coming around to the new year and so as we've been part of that Evolution working with emerging designers mass media uh ma Mass Market Brands um seeing it being a shift from not just fashion to even software companies doing it but wanted an opportunity to share with Brands you know here are some top reasons people are doing it here are case studies of brands that have done it well and to inspire ideas for Brands to utilize it because more and more you know brands have gone online to do e-commerce but it's also gotten more competitive and there's still um a desire from consumers to have more of a human connection and Brands can really achieve that through popup shops if they approach them correctly so you alluded this already just a little bit but I want to ask you anyway so what makes your book different from others regarding the same or similar topic uh sure there are a couple books I think you know there's there's definitely those how two books I didn't write this as a how-to I wrote it more as here's an evolution that we've seen in retail here are seven of the top reasons that we've worked with Brands who doing popups and some great case studies for you to to learn from and get inspiration from some and then also like let's everybody you know has this cache now I should do a popup if I have a brand but let's step back also and say is it the right time for you to brand and here are some questions you can ask yourself and then we approach how to go about it and then dip orose a teeny bit and what does the future look like so um I think it's different in that it's really F of case studies from our years of of of expertise and um you know there's howto books out there um but this is a different approach how do you suggest the reader engage with your book is this one they can jump in and out of as they need different information or is this really designed to be read from front to back um I do think it's a pretty quick read um I made it so that you know it kind of kind of spurred ideas but kept you still you know you could still follow more information so I think you could read it in just a couple of sittings but um because we broke up each chapter for different reasons I think you can dip in based on what you feel like you want to achieve with your popup you know step one's always thinking about your goal so if you know what your goal is then you can dive into each one of those chapters and see what others have done okay Melissa so we are my favorite part and I think a lot of people's favorite part of the interview and that's where I'm going to ask you to to really take the next 5 to 10 minutes and and take a deep dive into the actual content into the chapters and so we know what the this book's all about will you will you take a few minutes and do that sure um so yeah it's in four parts and part one is really talking about the evolution of retail where retail's been and where we're seeing it now so everything from when you know I was young and and there was no amazon.com and you know going to uh scour stor to find Bargains wasn't considered sexy like it you know gilt.com made it and you would never purchase anything through a phone we didn't even have cell phones so really talking about the evolution of retail and how Technologies impacted that and then it shifts into how you bridge that Gap with a popup um where popup is really an opportunity where you can connect the on and offline worlds um then in the second part of the book we go into what a pop-up offers your brand so if you are going to utilize popups here's some different reasons why um as you assess your goals you know we always say to everybody first really here's our top few questions we'd ask so obviously what's your you know what's your brand promise um who's your key customer um what is your goal your main goal of the popup and then what's your budget so you know we'll look at that in the beginning of the book and then go into different goals you could think of so everything from launching a new brand really honing in on customer engagement so maybe you already have a brand that exists like Marc Jacobs did but really want to focus on one particular product line like the daisy fragrance and want to build engagement around that um perhaps you have a brand or a product that requires more in-depth customer education so you'll want to provide an atmosphere where customers can come in and engage with your project in a your product in a deeper level um sometimes you need to learn about your customer so you can create a popup where it's allowing them to really interact and through you know what they're sharing on social channels or different answers that you might be getting by having creative questionnaires in the space you can learn about your customer understand what price points move what colors they're gravitating to what materials um and then it really gives you an opportunity to immerse your customer so we talk about that as well you know it's really allowing them to walk into the lifestyle of the brand Beyond an image that they might see on a homage Rotator on an e-commerce site and then last we we talk about is this is a great opportunity to test Partnerships um you see that with a lot of the major brands when H&M does a collaboration with the major designer um technology companies combined with uh major fashion designers like a Rebecca mink goof or Tory Burch and so you can utilize popups to test out how that partnership is translating to your customer um and then we go into part three which is like let's think about pop-ups A to Z so now you might have figured out your goals and you know what your Hulk and your approach is going to be but how are you going to ensure that you're prepared to properly meas your Roi for a popup and Roi isn't just the sales you're having we tell people you know you don't want to just think of what am I going to sell in my one to one month one week to one month popup but how is this going to benefit my business for the next six months so what did you learn about sales what did you learn about price point sensitivity what did you learn about social channels were was your audience did you think your audience was mostly on Facebook and they're actually on Instagram or Twitter and that was driving traffic did you identify new influencers um that you didn't know exist um what kind of words are people using around your popup and that can give you ideas for marketing going forward so really want to make sure that you have that mindset in place um and then I give a little Q&A for you to ask yourself uh am I ready to do a popup and here's a few key questions you should be able to answer and say yes to and if you're not then maybe it's not a right time if it is a yes then here's the next things you should think about um and then we go into some you know basics of how you can create Buzz for your popup everything from guerilla marketing to social media tactics to traditional media um and then lastly in part four we conclude with what's still to come so you know as we talked about in part one the evolution of retail is really been impacted by the progression of technology and everybody having you know being F on phones and digital Natives and so how do we see technology continue to evolve allowing retail to continue to evolve and we did we just talk a little bit about things that are exciting us everything from augmented reality to Beacon technology mannequins with sensors um state-of-the-art photo booths and print on demand so how far away are we from some some of those things you just mentioned at the end uh a lot of them are are already happening they're happening in some early stages I mean and a lot of it doesn't lend itself necessarily to merging Brands yet but um you're seeing some of the ma major retailers doing it augmented reality I think has become we've seen that uh pretty commonly here in New York City um and there you know we've seen it at pop-up stores we've SE it at permanent Stores um we're starting to see Brands like makeup companies and you know um Unico using their magic mirror so I think augmented reality is definitely continuing to expand throughout retail stores um Beacon technology I think is although out there still in its infancy and that you know Brands still have to really learn how to communicate with customers so that they're not creeped out by it and they think that this is a rewarding experience and they want to opt into to it um shoppable walls is happening you know Ebay's really helped Empower that with Brands like Kate Spade and um I think that's still in the earlier stages but it it helps also solve that problem of you know inventory and you're starting to see a lot of retailer shift from not having fully stock stores and having more of that showroom model so when you have these shoppable walls and windows it helps with that um and print on demand is definitely really early um but you're seeing it um with with companies like MakerBot and Amazon did their first 3D printing store in the summer so they're you know usually first movers and that's figuring itself out but they're all in their beginning stages and they're all continuing to evolve so this next question is is one of my favorites as well and that's if the reader could only take away one concept principle or action item out of everything that you shared just then when you were sharing your book what would you want that to be oh one action item oh outs I read the book um no I mean my thing is I it's the same action item I tell anybody that calls their office we get phone calls and emails and I want to do a popup how much does it cost and I say well let's step back and your first action I is really sit down and say why do you want to do this what is your goal and so before you approach this at whether you're a new brand or major re Mass Market brand the first action step is figure out what your goal the popup is without knowing what your goal is and it's it's it's almost impossible to craft um a successful activation strategy do you have a favorite quote from book or maybe one that's resonated with those that have already read it that I have it yeah I have it and I put it in my introduction and it's inspires me because I think it it um is very applicable to popup stores and it's from Ron Johnson who is the former Chief Architect of the Apple retail stores and he said and what's made the Apple Store so productive um successful is go after mind share not market share and what he meant by that is they knew everybody was wasn't going to convert that came into the Apple store but they were going to be intrigued and they were going to dive deeper into the product offering and the the company's brand promise overall and they were going to build a relationship with apple because in that space they went after M share and I think if if Brands take that approach they can be very successful long term with their customers so Melissa this next question is for that that book lover that's out there right now that's reading this and looking for their next great Paradigm shifting book and so besides your own book what would you recommend based on a book that's really impacted your life and can you recommend that to our audience is it okay if it's not like a business book oh absolutely okay so I um Robin Robin Roberts um's book um everybody's got something I think is um is an amazing book to read and and her just her whole story of her journey and how she continues to persevere and she's come over to potentially deadly ill um uh diseases and is just an inspiration I think if you read her book it gives some great perspective and uh recently heard her speak um at the glamour women of the Year Awards and you know she said when I think about the future I have anxiety when I think about the past I I can get sad but when I live in the moment it's when I'm the most at peace and her book kind of translates that and I think it's a really inspirational read excellent well Melissa before we depart can you recommend the best way for our listener to get not only more information on you and the company that you work with but also popup Paradigm uh sure yeah they can go to lus group.com um so you see portfolio of projects that we've worked on our blog is got tips and um we talk about events that we're working on um and I'm very active on Twitter so you can always tweet at me at mels Styles two s's um and I'll get back to you thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your book with us thanks thanks for having me thanks again for listening in today if you'd like more information on Melissa or her book popup Paradigm just visit the show notes at the ELP podcast.com looking for your next book idea head over to the ELP podcast.com where wage shares his amazing resource the top 10 business books recommended by over 500 entrepreneurs with you for free that's the eelp podcast.com till the next time keep keep it on the E