Free Sample Do’s and Dont’s

Do Experiment with Giving out Free Samples!

The free sample method is tried and true. Companies have been using it for a long time, and the research shows that people are more likely to buy your product if they have a chance to try it first.

The sensory connection of letting them try your products gives them something emotional. Samples engage your customers’ senses.

Don’t Just Give Them Something You Want Them to Have

Give or create something your consumers will want. This means the free sample should be more than something that has your name and information on it. It should be useful enough to your customers to keep them coming for more.

Do Think Creatively About What Sampling Means to Your Brand

“Free samples” doesn’t have to be taken in only the traditional sense, as little packets of x, y, or z that you can take home and use, or Costco’s food sample stalls.

You’re letting customers sample an experience of some kind. As long as it’s engaging their sense, it can be something they don’t take home.

For example, it can be a toy company letting customers cuddle their toys before buying.

Do Use Samples to Surprise Your Customers

Free samples are about more than new companies exposing potential new customers to their new brand. Free samples can also help established companies get the word out to people they haven’t reached yet.

Samples can also help established companies show what they can do differently, to keep their old customers coming back and recommending them to others.

Do Find a Target Audience

Marketing with too broad a brushstroke can be like trying to choose one plate for a large group of people at a restaurant.

Even if it is pleasing enough to everyone, it still comes across as impersonal and sometimes boring. There’s no spice, or no unique flavor because it comes from a one-size-fits-all mentality.

Even in marketing, one size does not fit all. Consider your target audience and find out how to reach them with your samples.

Don’t Forget About the Power of Social Media

Target bloggers, vloggers, tweeters, Instagrammers–– anyone with a following. One effective use of free samples is to give them out to people who will in return review your product.

These people will end up able to do a lot of the marketing for your company, through the reach of their own various platforms.

Do Plan Your Samples Carefully

Although free samples can be quite lucrative, you don’t necessarily have the money to create extra batches left and right of high-end products.

With the right financial planning, you can plan to get a few extra at production and eventually have enough to give out.

You can also save on the packaging of extras because they don’t need all of the same presentation as what you plan to sell.