Product sampling and the human senses

By November 6, 2017General

As humans, our senses are important. They obviously help us operate, but they each contribute to our emotional wellbeing.

So, in terms of marketing, if we can create a strategy that leverages someone’s senses, it could prove to be a very powerful plan. Enter product sampling.

Product sampling gives customers a taste, feel, hear, smell or look at a product up close. In actual fact, sampling is probably the only sales tactic that can engage all 5 senses at once.

And at the end of the day, the more senses you’re able to trigger, the bigger the hit your product will be.

Is your product visually attractive? Do you have good branding and a strong logo by your product sampling stall?

Can you product deliver a delicious taste that will get people drooling for more? If so, then show it off. Maybe execute your campaign at lunch time, when people are hungry and have food on their minds.

Does your product feel nice? And what about the packaging? Sometimes a great product can flop if it’s presented poorly.

Maybe your product doesn’t make much noise, but think about things that you (or your promotional staff) could say to aid proceedings.

What does your product smell like? Smells are incredibly influential, because they can transport us to magical places, from places in our past to places that make us smile.

From a business point of view, this sort of transparency is critical. Sometimes, product owners are too close to the product and are unable to communicate the value of it properly.

However, by allowing the customer near to a product, they’re able to experience all your product’s USPs first-hand. In a way, you’re not really needed; the sampling itself is your sales pitch. Either your product is good enough… or it’s not.

Of course, it works both ways. If things go wrong with your campaign and people don’t particularly like your product, you can gain invaluable feedback.

This will help you improve your offering (and save you from wasting time, money and effort). Either way, you could argue that your product sampling campaign has helped your business.

As marketers, it’s easy to guess at what your audience is thinking. Product sampling allows decision makers to become closer to consumers.

Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.