Sampling: giving your customers a taste of your product

Sampling is a marketing tool which is based on freebies (samples) of your product given at no cost to potential consumers. This tool accomplishes a number of functions: attracts new buyers, works on the audience loyalty, ensures feedback from customers etc. It is one tool you should learn how to use.

As a rule, when people talk about Sampling in marketing, they mean a giveaway of free samples in streets, at shopping malls, supermarkets, educational institutions, business centres, railroad stations, airports and any other places where you can meet the target audience for the product. For sure, we are talking about B2B sampling and this method of marketing has been well-proven since olden times.

The sampling as a marketing method is based on consumer psychology: if potential customers have already tasted a product, first: they have already felt useful qualities of the product, realized its advantages and possible benefits for themselves; secondly: it would be mentally harder to refuse a purchase. And that was the success story of Wrigley gum.

Wrigley gum figured out the efficacy of sampling, long ago in 1915. They realized their new product, chewing gum, needed a serious boost of demand, so they sent through the mail, 4 pieces each to the 1.5 million homes then listed in America’s phone books. The success of the Wrigley gum sampling campaign is there to see today. Can you even think of another gum brand now? I think the method worked pretty well.

Marketers usually place stake on the increase of the product sales, that's why sampling campaigns are often held in places where purchase decision is made: supermarkets and shopping malls.

Let's consider a few options for B2B sampling use:

• The closest to B2B option: distribution of consumables for different companies: stationery materials for offices, cosmetics and personal-care products for beauty salons, medical consumables for dental clinics and medical centres, etc.
• If you sell cars or other vehicles (cargo, construction, agricultural, etc.), you can provide a sample of your vehicles to different companies for a short term: one or several months.
• If together with the sale of some highly technical products you are selling technical support for these products, you could offer free technical support for a certain period.
• If you render some services for business, for example, consult or audit services, you could offer free render of services on a small scale as a sampling campaign.
• One of the simplest options to use sampling in B2B is following: if you sell some software, web-services or IT solutions, you can offer one month or two weeks access at no cost to your customers. For example, the firms which sell media and social media monitoring services tend to do so.

Suppose you've decided to use sampling in your marketing strategy, how can you offer your products and services to B2B clients? In B2B you can resolve this issue in a simple way: a campaign is carried out in any place of mass gathering. In B2B there are various capabilities for sampling promotion. First of all, you can directly contact corporate employees of your potential customers. It can be done in different ways:

• At trade shows and conferences;
• Through sales representatives;
• E-mail newsletters;
• Telemarketing.

If your marketing strategy is hinged on the use of the sampling tool, it makes sense to post the information about it on all advertising media you use. For example, you can extend your advertisement message with the similar words: "We provide equipment for testing" or "3-month technical support at no cost", etc. Thus, you can tell about the sampling through outdoor ad, media ad, contextual and banner ad and also using other promotion devices.

Sampling is a general-purpose tool that can be used as well in the B2B segment. It should be noted that sampling is traditionally popular with customers: an opportunity to taste or experience something free of charge still remains rather tempting for all audience, including companies and enterprises.

By Ksenia Kuznetsova, Assistant Client Service Director, Content Marketing Strategist, RMAA Group.

Edited by ‘Dele Dele-Olukoju, Marketing Communication strategist and publisher of the online Marketing Communication Digest. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria. @deleolukoju +234 807 481 2389.