Five tips to ensure your sampling campaign is a success.

The primary goal for experiential marketing for 81% of brands is brand awareness, which a sampling campaign generates before customers have even reached the stand. A free sample has been found to be the motivation for 81% of respondents visiting a brand activation, but the impact isn’t just limited to that individual. Trialing a new product generates conversation. Those who interact, share their experience with friends, family, and on social platforms, exponentially increasing the reach. A recent survey to measure the impact of sampling revealed 63% of consumers to purchase the product they sampled, 87% recommended the product to friends and family, and 50% followed the brand on social media. A window into consumer minds, sampling allows brands to gain feedback directly from their audience- a valuable strategy to improve and grow, and significantly insightful when launching a new product. 

The benefits of executing a sampling campaign are clear, but an activation reaching its full potential relies on good products and strategic planning. There are five key components to consider when planning a sampling campaign that can be the difference between a significant boost for your brand, or a total waste of time and investment.

Selecting the right location for your campaign is critical to ensure you are reaching your target audience, in the right mind-set, at the right time. With thousands of spaces across the globe for experiential marketing, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. This is where we come in. The lo:live platform allows you to search across our wide portfolio of activation spaces and filter by key criteria to find your perfect space in minutes. To add, we have curated an array of collections into a range of categories- by sector, season, key events, regions, and much much more, so you can visit our best locations in one click. Visit our Quick-fire sampling collection to discover our shortlist of prime, cost effective, high footfall spaces, or contact the team on hello@locationlive.co.uk, where our location experts can support you in finding and booking the perfect space.

The ambassadors you select to represent your brand has a huge impact on how well your activation is received. It is key for them to be well briefed so they are clued up on the brand and products, approachable, and proactive. Drawing passers by in to take a sample, and being able to share accurate information about what they are sampling will increase reach and leave consumers with a positive association with your brand. If they don’t fulfill this criteria, it can be detrimental to the activation. Choosing representation that is relevant to your brand and target audience is also important to consider. If they are likely to purchase the product themselves, their promotion of the product is more likely to resonate and be trusted by the consumer.

When planning a sampling activation, it can be tricky to know how much stock you will need for each day. Knowing the expected footfall and discussing storage with your location provider is well worth the time. Not enough stock and you can waste valuable hours and money on the space. Too much stock and, depending on the product, this can be wasted, as well as the unnecessary shipping and storing.

It’s no secret that being able to accurately measure the total impact of an experiential marketing campaign can be near-enough impossible. But when it comes to sampling, measuring the quantity of samples consumed and any feedback given is invaluable in understanding your target audience, how to improve your product, where and how to market, and much much more. In terms of performance comparison, particularly considering locations, there is little point in measuring KPI’s if you haven’t set clear targets. This may not be getting as many products into consumers hands as possible, but a number of specific hands or specific feedback on a product feature. So to ensure your sampling activation is as valuable as it can be, make sure you know what you are looking to achieve.

Planning the timing of your sampling campaign isn’t always straightforward. Needless to say, if your product is seasonal, your campaign will be most successful if planned to perfectly target that time of year. This could be ensuring that Christmas gifts are promoted during the build up, or FMCG for summer at the time when they’ll be consumed. But the timing of a sampling campaign can be more complex when it comes to all-year round products with no obvious steer. So do your research- when is your target market typically looking to purchase your type of goods? If you are a luxury brand, when are consumers more likely to indulge and be receptive to your promotion? If you have direct competitors, when are they focussing their marketing activity? If you have multiple products, does it make sense to promote one before the other?