Sampling is a great way to give the opportunity to potential buyers to try out your products, and to convince them to buy it. Indeed, one of the reason why people tend not to switch from one product to another, or avoid new products is because they fear to be decieved or that the product is not worth what they will pay. By sampling, you limit the potential deception, and you can boost your sales!
Now you must use wisely this tool:
- Sampling to anyone may not be that efficient: If you hand out free products to anyone, you will give probably 80% of your samples to people not in your target, which is not what you are planning.
- Sampling should not also be considered as giving out your products, especially if you do it quite often. It will lower the face value of your products.
But I like some of the ideas of the article:
- Get samples of different flavors in a tea box, to push customers to try out new flavors
- Allow to get samples regularly with other purchases of the customers, which will boost your cross category sales
- Get samples as the "exra value" of your products, which will increase customers' satisfaction.
Also, some good tips not to neglet:
- If you use this technique, you should for sure not be greedy with the sampling, which could actually be as deceiving as not giving samples.
- The medium (either a person, or a website) you use to access the samples should also be of quality. It should not be a bargain and to send 3 files to get a small sample of skin cream...
- You should also focus on the education you may give to the customers around your product. The person needs to get as much information as possible about the products to make sure it will adopt the product and consume it from now on.
