Give it Away

About 9 months ago, we did a "meat" remote broadcast at Kroger with one of my radio stations, WXKE.

It worked, Saturday around lunch time, shoppers followed their noses to where we were cooking steaks and handing out samples and coupons. Is there a way to give samples away in your business (count it as part of your marketing), that will translate into sales?

Read more from Brandweek:

Study: Sampling Works

Sept 29, 2008

-By Kenneth Hein

Want to get someone to buy your product? Then give them one for free. While this might sound counter-intuitive, a new survey from Arbitron found sampling works.

More than one-third (35%) of customers who tried a sample bought the product during the same shopping trip, per the poll of 1,857 respondents conducted earlier this year via the phone. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed reported they would buy a product again after trying it.

Sampling, which reaches 70 million consumers every quarter, “is both effective in making new customers aware of products, while also establishing a firmer identity with those consumers who have considered the product before,” said Carol Edwards, svp of sales at Arbitron’s out-of-home media department, in a statement.

The survey divvied up consumers into three segments: acquisitions (those new to the product), conversions (those willing to buy it after sampling it) and retentions (those who had previously purchased the product).

Eighty-five percent of retentions who sampled a product said they would purchase it again compared to 60% of conversions. Almost half (47%) said they would now look to purchase it.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents received a free sample in the past three months. Of that group, 64% said they accepted the sample.

Perhaps the most surprising finding: Nearly a quarter of those polled (24%) said they bought the product they sampled instead of the item they initially set out to purchase.

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