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Have you ever heard the resounding name, Benjamin T. Babbitt?
He’s supposedly the first ever to run a product sampling campaign, offering free soap to potential customers in the 1850s.
But that’s probably just the first documented case.
Product sampling was always around; it was there in medieval markets, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Egypt. It was even in the Garden of Eden. You know the whole story about Eve trying apples from the not-so-friendly snake and then recommending them to Adam.
That means:
Product sampling is as old as time, and it is a simple strategy.
Warning: Simple is (hardly ever) the same as easy.
So you must learn to do product sampling right—the Benjamin Babbitt way, not the Satan-tricks-Adam-and-Eve way.
We’re here to teach you exactly that.
We’ll start by discussing different types of product sampling, their effectiveness, and their benefits, plus some practical examples with actionable insights.
Keep reading below.
TL;DR
- Product sampling dates back centuries and is a simple yet effective marketing strategy.
- Product sampling involves giving away free goods, merchandise, or services to the public.
- Types of product sampling include direct, indirect, traditional, cashback, samples, limited-time samples, mail drops, and virtual samples.
- Product sampling is effective because it lets people try products before purchasing, building trust and increasing sales.
- It boosts brand awareness, generates user-generated content, attracts new customers, and increases retention.
- Product sampling also helps in testing new products, gathering data, and improving existing ones.
- Work with a product sampling agency for better results.
What Is Product Sampling?
Simply put, product sampling is a type of experiential marketing that gives away goods, merchandise, or services to the public for free.
Some examples of product sampling marketing strategies would be:
- Giving a taste of small servings of a new food product at sampling stations in a grocery store
- Handing out free beauty product samples at a department store
- Offering a travel-sized product with a full-size product
Note: Product sampling is different from product seeding.
Product seeding entails strategically sending a limited number of free products to specific influencers and reviewers, usually in exchange for user-generated content.
Product sampling, conversely, allows the public at large to try out your company’s products or services.
Types of Product Sampling
It’s important to understand the different types of product sampling tactics to choose the right one for:
- Your business goals
- Your target consumers
Marketing theoreticians (yes, they are not a myth) categorize product sampling:
By the nature of product sampling:
- Direct: Direct product sampling occurs face-to-face. The advantage here is that you can notice the audience’s reaction and have a more extended conversation with them.
- Indirect: Indirect sampling doesn’t happen face-to-face. The advantages, in this case, are saving time and resources.
By type:
- Traditional: The standard practice of offering potential shoppers freebies.
- Cashback: Offering coupons to acquire certain products/services or cashback after the purchase.
- Samples: Offering trial products/services to create desire.
- Limited-time samples: Like the category above, but within a limited time frame to create scarcity and FOMO.
- Mail drops: Samples or coupons you send directly to your customers’ mailboxes.
- Virtual samples: Allowing people the opportunity to try a product online, usually by using Artificial Reality (AR).
How Effective Is Product Sampling?
The reason behind practicing product sampling is that people can try your products before purchasing them.
And that’s extremely useful when your audience is, for one reason or another, skeptical about your brand/products.
Why would they be skeptical?
- They never tried the type of products you’re selling. For example, people who never went to the gym before would appreciate a free one-day pass to one to see if they like it.
- They never tried your products before. Let’s say you own a cake shop. Handing samples to people in the area or handing out coupons would help passers-by decide to return to your cake shop.
- They don’t want to make a bad choice. There are situations when you cannot return the products you have bought. Besides, using them with negative effects isn’t easy to correct. That’s the case with hair dyes– why many beauty product companies offer virtual makeovers on their websites.
But do statistics back the effectiveness of product sampling?
Let’s see the numbers. According to Arbitron Media’s Product Sampling Study:
- 64% of people who receive a product sample accept it; therefore, offering samples to customers has wide coverage compared to traditional ads. And that’s regardless of whether they’re familiar with the brand or not.
- 35% of the people who tried a sample will buy the product they’ve tried within the same shopping trip. Even better, 24% of them purchased that product even though they originally intended to purchase another one. The conversion rate is high, too.
- 58% of sample product buyers will stick with this new one in the future. That’s a massive customer retention rate.
On the other hand, Event Marketing Institute’s Event Track report suggests that:
- 81% of shoppers specifically walk up to a brand’s kiosk offering free product samples.
And older studies show that product sampling is linked to an:
- Increase in sales by 2000%.
Benefits of Product Sampling
The statistics above help us infer a slew of product sampling benefits:
1. Increase Brand Awareness
Increasing brand awareness is essential for every business, especially those facing extremely high competition.
Beauty product companies are one such example:
Sephora offers free samples of beauty products as part of their in-store and online shopping experience.
How can product sampling help?
This marketing tactic:
- Can kickstart the customer journey. Even the most cautious spenders are willing to try a free sample as we’ve seen from the stats above. And 35% of those who tried your sample offers will also purchase your product.
- Increases memorability and brand recognition. People who try a free sample but don’t convert immediately will still have a memorable experience because they interacted with someone from your company and got something for free.
2. Get User Generated Content
Product sampling generates reviews and other UGC to attract even more potential customers.
Why does that matter?
UGC or user-generated content helps you stand out from the crowd and get your customers’ attention.
It will also increase your sales; studies show that 90% of customers decide to purchase based in part on user-generated content.
Here’s how to leverage it:
If you target influencers as part of your product sampling program, you can generate UGC that will be tailored to and seen by your target audience.
A UGC platform such as inBeat can connect you with the right influencers for your brand and help you manage marketing activities effectively.
3. Attract New and Unexpected Customers
Usually, a marketing campaign is very focused on a specific demographic and audience.
Social media algorithms and AI have allowed for laser-focused ad campaigns that will only be put in front of the people most likely to buy from your company.
What about the people who aren’t likely to purchase your products?
A broad product sampling campaign can help you attract them too.
The statistics above prove that 64%-81% of shoppers are willing to try something that they get for free.
The result:
You discover a new demographic that connects with your brand and that you wouldn’t have otherwise considered.
4. Increase Retention
While product sampling is great for attracting prospective customers, it’s also an excellent tool for increasing retention.
Retention is vital because:
- Loyal repeat customers spend more money on your products than new customers.
- New customers have a lower chance of buying, and it costs much more to convert them.
- Loyal customers are the best advocates for a brand; they are the heart and soul of a business.
Product sampling can improve customer retention by:
- Offering an opportunity for engagement with loyal customers
- Nurturing the relationship between the customer and the brand
- Keeping the brand top-of-mind for repeat customers
- Demonstrating generosity on the part of the brand
- Increasing consumer confidence
- Making repeat customers feel like VIPs when they have an opportunity to try new products
Pro tip: You can further improve customer retention numbers with an omnichannel strategy and gamification.
For example, some freebies could be given to customers who share content on social media, while other samples can be offered to in-store customers only.
This makes the experience more customized and more fun while increasing product popularity.
5. Test Out New Products & Gather Data
Innovating and putting out new products and services is expensive, uncertain, and risky.
It’s also exciting and completely necessary to survive in the rapidly evolving modern business world.
That’s why you need data analysis to devise the best products and the communication surrounding them.
Remember: A product sampling campaign is a simple way to quickly gather a wide range of data.
A great way to find out if a new product is viable is by letting people test it out and then let you know what they think by answering very intentional and specific questions.
Leverage the opportunity to gather qualitative data and organize it into themes for easy analysis.
Pro tip: Don’t use product sampling just for new products.
You can sample a bestseller and find out precisely what people like about it and what they wish was different.
This information could lead to an improvement on the item or even the creation of a new product.
Great Examples of Product Sampling
Now that you’re here, you know how product sampling works and why it does.
But if you’re not yet sure what would work for your company, let’s review the examples below:
1. ICI Paris XL: Advertise Your Sampling Campaign
This Belgium-based beauty shop offers in-store product samples to convince more people to try their products.
This traditional sampling strategy works because it solves certain problems that these types of brands face:
- Beauty products in the same price range offer similar quality.
- These products solve similar needs.
- Customers loyal to a specific brand are less likely to try the competitors’ products.
- There are too many such companies and products to research and try unless you’re doing that for a living.
So, ICI Paris XL invites everyone into their stores to take home their samples:
And yes, they advertise their free samples on all channels, not just outside their stores.
Remember: Organizing a traditional product sampling campaign outside your physical premises doesn’t exclude advertising it on social media channels.
In fact, this allows you to:
- Increase awareness of this promotion
- Remind people who’ve tried your samples to return for the purchase
- Create scarcity and FOMO, especially if your campaign is limited
2. Costco: Make Product Sampling Your Unique Selling Proposition
If Costco is renowned for one thing, it’s its product sampling strategy that has been going on for years.
Why does this work so well for them?
Well, Costco is retailing low-value consumer goods.
These products are cheap, and the degree of loyalty from the consumer base is low.
So, offering free samples of great products (that are usually underrated) is their unique selling proposition.
Warning: Don’t offer low-quality samples.
Studies show that quality affects enjoyment, and your purpose is not to reduce your potential consumers’ happiness.
And Costco is so famous for this USP that it’s now entered popular culture. Here’s how you can tell:
- Zoomers post videos about it on TikTok, talking excitedly about new promotions they found like these were rare gems:
#Costcosamples and #Costcofind are genuine hashtags used by millions of people worldwide across social channels.
- Product sampling TikTok videos about Costco have millions of views and six-figure likes:
3. Grammarly: Always Have a Free Trial of Your Software Solutions
Just like other software solutions, Grammarly offers a free version for people to try.
The happy customers who see improvements after using the free Grammarly tool for a time will purchase the paid version.
But first, how does Grammarly tempt people with its free version?
Side note: This type of online sampling is much more difficult than the direct, face-to-face product sampling strategy.
Why?
Because people can ignore you when you’re not standing next to them in front of a store, holding out a chocolate doughnut.
So you need to offer the online equivalent of a midday chocolate doughnut.
Or the equivalent of a nightcap after a long hard day.
And as we’re quickly running out of F&D-related metaphors, we’ll get straight to the point:
- Grammarly understands its audience’s needs,
- Shows their free version can solve them, and:
- Highlights the added benefits of purchasing the paid plan.
Here’s an example:
This TikTok clip introduces Grammarly’s new citation feature that helps students write citations correctly in different styles:
- Notice the initial hook and the outlined problem (professors grade your citation-related mistakes)
- The solution is clearly presented, as the free version helps you correct your citations according to the required style.
- The bonus comes up in the form of Grammarly Premium, which offers real-time suggestions.
- There’s a clear CTA at the end.
Pro tip: That’s the same structure you want to follow when promoting your online product samples:
- Hook
- Audience’s current problem
- The solution offered by your free samples
- The advantage of getting the paid version
- The call-to-action
For the Love of Homeschooling Nature Study Club: Offer Product Samples to Influencers
The homeschooling club offers several homeschool resources. To increase awareness, the club sometimes sends product samples to content creators.
These influencers will then create user-generated content that:
- Presents the product to their followers
- Shows how they adapt this product to their needs
- Emphasize the problems that this product solves
In the Instagram video below, you’ll notice that:
- The club has picked the perfect content creator to promote the massive discount to their World Around Me Package: a mom who has chosen to live with her kids on a forest farm. And she also homeschools them.
- The package helps the mom homeschool her eldest by teaching him how to make a map of the forest they live in.
- The discount is massive, from $800 to $25. Basically, this discount acts like a coupon, so it fits into the cashback type of product sampling.
- There’s a time limit to this offer, creating scarcity.
Pro tip: To find the right influencers for your needs:
- Use the inBeat free search tool to source the right creators
- If you already have someone in mind:
- Check their engagement rate with our engagement rate calculator to make sure they have a tight relationship with their community
- Check if they’re legit using our free fake follower checker.
5. Ikea Studio: Use an AR App
The idea behind this indirect sampling strategy is simple: offer customers the chance to see what your products look like in their homes.
And learn from Ikea’s mistakes:
- Make sure that the app is integrated into your website. You don’t want people to go between your website and the app, inputting measurements and searching for products. You want these things to be done automatically.
- Add the shoppability feature. Once users customize the product selection to their needs, you want them to finalize the purchase as fast as possible. So, you need to add a visible, easy-to-reach shopping button.
6. Warby Parker: Allow Home Tries with Returns
Buying glasses is never easy, and you know that if you’ve ever gone to such a shop. Their mirrors make you look different than the one at home.
Besides, trying on frames for a few seconds doesn’t compare to wearing your glasses for a few hours.
Warby Parker understands that customer regret associated with purchasing glasses is specifically high.
That’s why they created the #WarbyHomeTryOn campaign.
The purpose:
People take an online quiz, choose five frames, and test them at home for a few days.
Afterward, they pick the winner.
Their 2015 campaign on Instagram:
The revived campaign in 2021:
Start Your Own Product Sampling Campaign
As you can see, product sampling has many benefits, but it also comes in many shapes and sizes.
Your product sampling strategy will vary depending on your current goals, the type of products/services you’re retailing, and your audience.
You can try to:
- Run one-off sampling campaigns in front of your store.
- Build your entire brand identity around free samples.
- Offer free and paid versions of your services.
- Create product seeding campaigns with various influencers.
- Use an augmented reality app to help customers try your products at home.
- Mail your products to your customers, allowing a limited-time use.
Regardless of the strategy you choose, inBeat is always here to help.
Try our free ad mockup generators to create the perfect social media content for your product sampling campaign.
Or, contact us for a free strategy talk to help you build the perfect campaign plan. Sign up for your free trial today!