Books and Articles by Dan Thompson

Creating a pop up business embraces a new, nimble way of working that’s perfect for the 21st century. Pop ups aren’t just a temporary use of space because there’s a recession; they’re a new way of using town and city centres, and they match the needs of a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Printed materials reach a different audience for your pop ups than social media campaigns. They’re also a good way to start conversations with staff in businesses that might become keen supporters or even partners in future projects. As well as marketing, you need to use print in your pop up. Open signs, hanging price labels, menus, point-of-sale displays and carrier bags are all printed items.

If you’re a pop up, you need to mobilise supporters and customers quickly, keep them talking and grow your reputation quickly while you’re open. Social media channels are perfect for that, and it’s no coincidence that the boom in pop ups has happened at the same time as a rapid growth in the number of people using social media services.

After your pop up's brand is ready and your designs are created, you can move on to printing. The type of print you use depends on the print run – that is, the number of items you need to have printed. Don’t go to print until you’re sure that you like the designs and be careful to proofread everything carefully.

When designing and kitting out your pop up shop, you need to create an interior that looks smart and professional, but is functional and helps you achieve the aims of your pop up. Don’t forget that whatever you do, it must help you get to the end point that you’re after, not divert you from it! Your pop up's signs Signs are important.

The agile philosophy is perfect for pop ups because the simple idea behind the agile philosophy is that it’s more important to get something up and running so that you can test and refine it with real people using it instead of planning it to the finest detail before launching it. If you plan for too long, you may be too late, you may be making something nobody actually wants or you may find that your competitors have got there first.

You must carefully monitor sales for your pop up business, particularly where multiple partners are involved in the pop up, such as a shop shared by artists and makers. Producing a clear sales sheet at the end of the pop up is essential, to set out your opening stock, any sales and what stock is left at the end.

Managing the risks and the health and safety requirements of a pop up largely comes down to common sense and being careful without being overly cautious. Risk assessment isn’t static and as you now have the keys to your shop, you can carry out a more detailed assessment. After this assessment, you need to make sure that everybody working in your pop up is briefed about the risks and how you’re managing them.

After you attract customers to your pop up businesss, you need to keep in touch with them. You can use social media to keep up the engagement with your customers. Consider whether you could email, message or tweet them in the week after your pop up, thanking them for visiting. This process may be time consuming, so consider sorting your friends and followers into lists.