Product sampling allows companies to provide potential customers in their target audience with a free sample of their product, letting them “try before they buy.” This creates trust with the brand and builds brand awareness, increasing the likelihood a purchase will follow. Consumers respond favorably to samples; one 2021 survey found that 88% of shoppers liked them, with more than half willing to write a review of the product, and a third willing to post about it on social media.
How Product Samples Can Help Grow a Business
Product sampling is a great way to create memorable experiences that elevate your brand and help grow your business. Product sampling can help you attract new customers by:
Creating Experiences that Drive Customer Loyalty: Samples can help build an initial positive experience for the customer and the product. When potential customers like the product, they are much more likely to become repeat customers and recommend the product to their friends and family. Experiential marketing is a big part of the push to secure customers who will buy your products for life and encourage their friends to do the same.
Building Brand Awareness: Exposing potential customers to your product will help them recall your product while shopping. Brand awareness is typically the goal companies have in mind when staging experiential marketing or events, and product samples go hand-in-hand to influence brand awareness and build positive brand experiences.
Decreasing Trial Risk: On a shelf, it can be hard for a product to stand out from the many other options around it, and consumers are naturally risk-averse. By providing a product sample, a business can remove this risk while simultaneously demonstrating competitive superiority.
Activating Your Brand: Creating unique, engaging experiences around your product builds your brand by creating memorable customer interactions. A business can provide samples and request feedback to solidify a lasting impression and encourage consumer action. Coupled with events and other types of experiential marketing, product sampling activation can significantly enhance brand perception.
Leveraging Buyer Psychology: Because sampling provides a customer with a free product, this can create a reciprocal effect where they feel indebted to the brand, increasing the urge to purchase. Social pressures can heighten this effect when other customers are at the sampling station.
How are Product Samples Delivered to Consumers?
Direct and indirect sampling are the two main methods used for getting your product samples in front of your target audience.
In-Store Product Demos and Direct Sampling: The classic Costco food sample example proves how powerful this method can be. By offering a sample from an in-store booth, potential buyers are given direct exposure to new products they might not otherwise experience. According to a study conducted by Arbitron and Edison Media Research, 35% of customers who try a sample will buy the sampled product in the same shopping trip. Direct sampling also includes events-based (or experiential) marketing and guerilla marketing tactics, with either wet sampling (a consumer trialing the product live and giving reactions) or dry sampling (a consumer taking the product home). Direct sampling allows retailers to physically reach audiences face to face, and a good brand ambassador will leverage this interaction to create sales.
eCommerce Sampling and Indirect sampling: Indirect sampling has no direct physical interaction with the customer. Samples are attached to a popular product to advertise a new product that would also fit with the same audience. An example of Indirect product sampling can be found in magazines, which attach perfume samples, or partnering with a subscription box service to bundle your sample in with the other contents of the order. Also known as eCommerce sampling or digital sampling, this approach allows businesses to send samples of their products out to customers who have ordered on specifically targeted websites or services that the business chooses to partner with.
How are Product Samples Packaged?
Many times samples, especially food and beverage samples, are given directly to the consumer in disposable cups or plates, such as souffle cups, paper cups, and paper plates. However, samples can also be distributed in enclosed plastic packaging, glue tipped cards, or in kitted sample packs.
Flow Wrap Samples: This popular product sampling method uses a flow wrap machine to combine one or more samples, along with a promotional literature card or coupon, into a clear-wrapped polypropylene (BOPP) pouch. This method is cost-effective, convenient, and can grow brand awareness greatly.
Glue Tipped Samples: Glue tipping involves affixing flat products such as cards and sample packs to printed material using a small amount of glue. Glue tipping is the preferred method for companies looking to reduce their plastic footprint since it doesn’t require a plastic pouch or container. This process is a fantastic way to create large amounts of product samples quickly.
Kitting Sample Packs: Kitting is typically used for subscription boxes, assembled products, or built-to-order items. It can also be a great product sampling method. A company does this by combining multiple products into a sample pack “kit” and either delivering them to customers or assembling them into bags and handing them directly to consumers. This can be great for a business with multiple products that they would like to introduce to new customers.
