Having free samples as part of a marketing strategy is a must for all small businesses irrespective of size or industry. The reason is simple – free samples allow them to reach new customers and introduce new products at lower cost. In an earlier post we showed how small businesses can go about running a successful free sample program.
The ultimate goal of giving out free sample is to convert those customers into paying ones leading to improved sales and profit. That’s why it is important not to work out a plan to achieve this goal as you roll out the free sample program. Here are some tips to make the program successful.
Include coupon / promotion
The easiest way to entice people to buy your product after they have received free sample is to give them a coupon with discount. Coupons can help you with those customers who are still sitting on the fence to go ahead and buy your product because they can get a discount. We have seen this approach work again and again in all kinds of situations. The discount can be in the form of paper coupon or a promotion code they can redeem online.
Encourage them to refer to friends and families
What can be better than converting customers trying free samples into paying customer? How about converting their friends and families as well? You can do this by asking them to forward the coupon to their friends and families. If they liked your product chances are they will want to let their friends and families know about it as well. Your goal should be to make it easy for them to do it either with a “forward to friend” button or Facebook “like” button on the web site or email. You can also give them multiple coupons to give out to others.
Let them have instant gratification
Make sure you have products available for purchase right next to the place where you are handing out free samples. The worst mistake you can do is to ask them to come back later for purchase after they have tried your sample and liked it. People want instant gratification and making the product available for purchase is the best way to help them!
Invite to social media site
This is similar to giving them coupon with the free sample; except it goes one step further. Inviting customers to your social media sites such as Facebook , Twitter, etc. will ensure that they will remain your customer for a long time. Once they have registered with your site you can build long-lasting relationship with them and keep them selling.
Measure it
Finally, and most importantly, make sure you measure payback on your free sample program. How many new customers are you getting? How much is the increase in sales as a result of the program? It is easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal amongst all the excitement about the program. You need to understand what metrics are important for your business and keep track of them.
What do you think? What approaches have you used to convert samples into sales?
