Got a product? Give a sample. Make sampling easy and effective for any product in any industry with these six steps.
Flickr/M.V. Jantzen
Two guys giving out samples outside the Smoothie King.
At Gordon Grade Coffee Company's office in Midtown Manhattan, 2,000 individual servings of Dr. Drip's eco-friendly premium drip coffee are ready to be shared with the masses. The start-up plans to distribute its self-brewed coffee—its first product—to stressed students during finals week at New York University.
Dr. Drip's guerrilla exercise precedes the product's official May 23 release, and is Gordon Grade's first foray into sampling.
"There's always a reticence to give anything away for free," says co-founder Jesse Gordon. "You don't know whether or not the end result will justify the cost of putting the team together and getting the product into people's hands."
Sampling is hardly a new concept, but the process still strains many companies that attempt it. Food products and cosmetics have long been icons of sampling; samples fill our stomachs at our local groceries and our noses in the cosmetic section of department stores. Other industries, from toys to technology, traditionally less familiar with the procedure, can also show their stuff through samples.
The act of sampling is changing as well. While more traditional in-store customer and indirect distributor sampling still occurs, creativity has entered the mix, allowing companies to fresh outlets for their sampling. Companies are directly targeting bloggers, trend-setters, and celebrities. But even as the process evolves, the goals remain largely the same.
"I want to be as effective as possible," says Gordon about his own sampling concerns. "I want to know how to turn a sample into a business."
Dig Deeper: Try Giving It Away
How to Use Samples to Promote Your Product: Decide Why You're Sampling
For a toy, it's the feel. For a drink, it's the taste. For a fragrance, it's the smell. Whatever your product, you need to develop a clear idea of why sampling is a necessary part of your marketing or sales plan. Before you plot your sampling strategy, return to your mission and company's core values to remind yourself why your product is worth trying.
Five years ago, Hosung NY started miYim, a line of plush stuffed animals and accessories for infants and toddlers made from certified non-toxic, recycled cotton. At miYim, in-store samples of velvety toys are all about the "aww" value that comes from displaying examples, and letting customers touch and squeeze them.
"When people think of our product, they're thinking cotton canvas or jersey, but our toys are as soft that they are almost always surprised," says Serah Chae, president of Hosung NY. "Because of that surprise factor and the obvious cuddle factor, our business model requires very diligent sampling."
For newer companies, sampling gives customers a sense of understanding and experience with an unknown product before they commit to buy. Fitango, a start-up that develops "action plans" to motivate behavior for individuals and businesses. Its online marketplace, similar to Apple's App store, offers a variety of samples frameworks for free.
"We're young," says Parinda Muley, Fitango's vice president of business development. "It's in our best interest for customers to be as comfortable with us as we are with them. We're willing to take the hit if it means one more business is using our platform."
But even more frequently sampled products, notably cosmetics, strive for consumer comfort.
"Skin care products and makeup can be really expensive so you want to make sure you're making a well informed decision," says Stacey Webb, director of marketing at OleHenriksen, a natural skin care company based in Los Angeles. "Consumers are so savvy these days, they don't want to spend their money on anything they aren't sure about."
Dig Deeper: How To Keep Your Message Clear
How to Use Samples to Promote Your Product: Pick Your Product
Once you know the why, you next need to decide the what. For new companies with a single product, like Dr. Drip Coffee, this decision is simple. For more developed product lines, a few more choices arise.
One option is to vary your samples. OleHenriksen rotates between offering bestselling products, new products, and hidden gems—products the company believes could become best-sellers after they are discovered. With each category, the skin care line still strives for mass appeal.
"You can't always control who gets the sample," Webb says. "Make sure it's going to be something that generally a lot of people will try, like, and see results."
For companies such as Fitango, which has with a potentially large and diverse market, providing differing samples allows the company to reach more of its target audience with separate marketing for segments like education, business, and leisure. For others, like miYim, limiting the samples to the newest products proves more effective.
"For the new customers, it's absolutely critical," says Chae. "But even with people who already know us, they still want to see what we can do differently."
Whichever direction seems right for you, make sure it's right for your consumer as well.
Dig Deeper: How To Adapt Your Product for Different Markets
How to Use Samples to Promote Your Product: Find a Target Audience
Like any other sales tactic, targeting the right audience is critical for your sampling success.
POM Wonderful, the company behind pomegranate juices, teas, and bars, appeals to a wide spectrum of consumers. So, the company divides its market into several pillars to make its extensive sampling efforts more effective.
"We focus around entertainment, philanthropy, health and beauty, fashion, the arts, and epicurean," says Rob Six, POM's vice president of communications. "That's where we see the bulk of our consumer and we try to target our sampling strategy around events that cater to those pillars."
