When deciding on whether to create a sampling campaign or not, many businesses wonder whether the end result will be worth the effort. By that, will it earn enough from the strategy to justify giving away something for free?
Sometimes, marketers mistakenly think that product sampling is a case of quantity over quality. However, in truth, there’s no way of knowing for sure. There isn’t a marketing strategy on Earth that will deliver guaranteed results.
Having said that, a sampling campaign can prove to be very lucrative, especially if it has been planned well. Conversions to sales can be as high as 90%. And in the worst-case scenarios, it still delivers huge brand awareness.
As amazing as product sampling is, as a marketing strategy, you should know that a sampling campaign has a number of challenges.
It can be an expensive exercise. Obviously there’s the initial outlay for the products that you’re giving away. In addition to that, if you’re delivering your samplings, there’s also the shipping to consider.
And what if your product sampling campaign is an initiative that’s designed to work around an event?
From supermarket samples to product demos in a shopping mall, events can cost a decent amount of money to stage and that sort of planning requires a whole different skillset. There’s a lot at stake, because as the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression.
If you’re on a tight budget, it might be an idea to see if you could create a digital sampling campaign. Yes, you may have to think about postage when sending your products out, but it’s easy to automate and execute effective lead generation.
Don’t forget that a digital product sampling campaign doesn’t require the expense of hiring promotional staff either.
Furthermore, you won’t miss out on all the feedback and data. You can collect transactional information from customers and even create surveys to get the opinions that you crave.
You can still generate that customer loyalty without over exposing yourself in terms of work and money. There’s no reason why even the smallest campaign can’t yield an impressive ROI and change your business for the better.
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.