Here are 10 things to consider while building out your free trial marketing strategy:. The theory is built on the premise that new products or services will only succeed if it does the job better, does it for cheaper, or both.

Here are the five growth strategies from the JTBD matrix :. In either case, your marketing team and sales team should use closed-loop analytics to compare data. To ensure that your marketing messaging, free trial onboarding , and product experience are as personalized as possible, you should divide your audience into multiple segments.

In general, complex solutions or a niche product with a smaller total-addressable market would benefit from longer trial periods because the core features take longer to understand, and there are fewer potential customers available. Of course, product demos are a good way around this.

You could create demos that highlight key features from the get-go to help free users figure out what to focus on. The free trial conversion rate tends to be higher when you require credit card information, but the initial number of free trial signups might drop.

Beyond credit card details, you should also be smart about what information you ask for on your free trial signup pages. Building out the right feature list for free trials is one area that most SaaS companies struggle in.

There are two basic approaches that you can take:. Slack takes a hybrid approach by giving access to most of its features but limiting the number of seats. Ogilvy Chicago, the ad agency behind the campaign, claimed that Glade home fragrances had an 83 percent boost in sales on Walmart.

com thanks to this innovative product sampling idea. Beauty Insider, the wildly popular reward program from Sephora , includes product sampling as an integral part and major benefit of its strategy.

The cosmetics company is well-known for providing free product samples with each online order. There are a few reasons why this is a great tactic.

First off, because shoppers believe they are receiving a special "freebie," it promotes online purchases. Additionally, loyal customers enjoy the feeling of receiving rewards for their patronage and being appreciated by the brand.

Finally, because the sales happen online and customers can select their own samples, Sephora is able to monitor whether or not those customers go on to purchase the product in their subsequent online shopping session.

If you're wondering how product sampling has worked for Sephora, know that there are 17 million participants in the Sephora reward program in North America alone, and they account for 80 percent of the company's revenue.

In , Cheerios saw a chance to take advantage of Amazon's e-commerce algorithms to potentially market its product to over million Amazon Prime members in the US. Cheerios used product sampling as part of its strategy to capitalize on Amazon Prime Day 16 - 17 June and position Honey Nut Cheerios as Alexa's cereal of choice for Amazon customers.

The advantages were two-fold for Cheerios. In addition to promoting the brand to new customers with a free sample, this transaction automatically created a Cheerios shopping history for millions of Amazon Prime shoppers.

This gave the product a huge boost in Amazon's recommendation algorithm and moved Honey Nut Cheerios to number one in the cereal category and even the number one grocery item on Prime Day. One of the biggest and best-known brewing companies in the world, Anheuser-Busch produces a wide range of popular alcoholic drinks, including Michelob, Bud Light, and Budweiser.

In , when the company launched its hard seltzer brand, Bud Light Seltzer, its existing in-store sampling programs had been discontinued due to the COVID pandemic.

As an alternative, they collaborated with a digital product sampling platform and developed a digital sampling campaign to encourage first purchases, track repeat purchases, create user-generated content, and even spread word of mouth.

In less than two months, the campaign resulted in an 82 percent positive shopper sentiment, with first-time buyers accounting for 89 percent of purchases.

Additionally, each consumer rating of 7 or higher was used to create and publish high-quality content on Product 1 and Aisle 9 , averaging 7. Product sampling could be different for each project, but there are six basic steps to take if you want to run your campaign successfully.

Ask yourself what you hope to achieve through the campaign. Is it brand or product promotion, more sales, or consumer feedback? The answers can help you design the best strategy to get you there. Free sample marketing gives products or services away to prospective customers.

It is especially effective in the health, beauty, food, and drink industries. While inc. com concedes that these industries are the ones that cash in due to giving away freebies, inc says that giveaways work for any retailer.

Giving out free samples to the target market is a way to quickly gain many customers because you effectively get your product or service to the people most likely to want what you are selling. And, of course, the psychology of giveaways includes the obligation consumers feel when given something.

Prospects may tell others about what they got for free. Sometimes they share or show the product to others who also buy and spread it. Getting free stuff makes people feel valued and happy with you.

As a result, many repeat customers are created. Sure, you will have people who take the sample from you and move on. But, more often than not, you will gain many customers for each item of value you give away.

A sudden influx of cash into any new business is always good. People these days use brick-and-mortar stores to browse. Then they make their purchases online. In-store giveaways often make people feel obligated to the person who gave them the freebie, encouraging in-store purchases. But, of course, some customers will be more convinced to buy that thing online, as intended.

Whatever your scenario is, many benefits can come from sample marketing.

A sudden influx of cash into any new business is always good. People these days use brick-and-mortar stores to browse. Then they make their purchases online. In-store giveaways often make people feel obligated to the person who gave them the freebie, encouraging in-store purchases.

But, of course, some customers will be more convinced to buy that thing online, as intended. Whatever your scenario is, many benefits can come from sample marketing.

According to copywritematters. com and breezepeople. com, product giveaways:. Along with all those benefits, one must consider the cost of the giveaway.

There is always an investment of either time or money. Some samples cost the marketer every time they reach out, while other giveaways allow the businesses to get away with just an initial investment. It depends on the nature of what is being sold. For instance, online writers may make time investments, giving up a day or two to create a free literary masterpiece for every editor they hope to write for in the future.

In addition, much upfront cash is spent whenever paid employees distribute food and drink handouts. For instance, once online marketers have their free giveaway e-book and the other components of their email campaign written, their businesses gain customers daily and profit on autopilot.

In one Bringham Young University study, researchers measured the sales and other benefits that various grocery stores and coffee shop chains experienced from giving free samples to consumers. There are some key points that you need to remember to make your giveaways effective.

First, you need to give an adequate amount of the product away to be helpful to the consumer. How and where you promote your product or service through giveaways depends on your product or service.

You want to give your samples to people likelier than others to purchase what you have to sell. You see people in grocery stores or flea markets giving out bites of food to shoppers.

You may receive cosmetics or similar items in tiny trial-size packaging in goodie bags you receive at an event if you are a woman. Some examples are mailed directly to prospective buyers.

Some business-to-business B2B online writers and other marketers will give a free service sample or data away when attempting to start a business relationship. Samples are sometimes loaned to prospective customers. Carpet and countertop samples are examples where remodelers want to visualize the product before buying and installing it.

These samples are too valuable to give away, but they enable high-ticket purchases to follow and make the customer happy with his purchase. For example, many online merchants such as Bluefly and Zappos offer free shipping and free return shipping to encourage consumers to shop online.

Some companies have found that response rates for online sales promotions are better than response rates for traditional sales promotions. Another very popular sales promotion for consumers is a premium. A premium is a product or offer a consumer receives when they buy another product.

Premiums may be offered free or for a small shipping and handling charge with proof of purchase sales receipt or part of package. Remember wanting your favorite cereal because there was a toy in the box?

The toy is an example of a premium. Some premiums are designed to motivate consumers to a buy product multiple times. Contests and sweepstakes are also popular consumer sales promotions. Contests are games of skill offered by a company, that offer consumers the chance to win a prize.

Sweepstakes are games of chance people enter for the opportunity to win money or prizes. Sweepstakes are often structured as some variation on a random drawing. The companies and organizations that conduct these activities hope consumers will not only enter their games, but also buy more of their products and ideally share their information for future marketing purposes.

You can read a transcript of the video here. Loyalty programs are sales promotions designed to get repeat business. Loyalty programs include things such as frequent flier programs, hotel programs, and shopping cards for grocery stores, drugstores, and restaurants. Sometimes point systems are used in conjunction with loyalty programs.

After you accumulate so many miles or points, an organization might provide you with a special incentive such as a free flight, free hotel room, or free sandwich. Many loyalty programs, especially hotel and airline programs, have partners to give consumers more ways to accumulate and use miles and points.

Rebates are popular with both consumers and the manufacturers that provide them. When you get a rebate, you are refunded part or all of the purchase price of a product after completing a form and sending it to the manufacturer with your proof of purchase.

The trick is completing the paperwork on time. This is why rebates are also popular with manufacturers. Rebates sound great to consumers until they forget to mail them in.

Trade Promotion Techniques Companies may offer a wide variety of trade promotions to wholesalers, retailers, their own sales teams, and other stakeholder groups with a vested interest in selling or reselling products or services.

Among the most common are trade shows, sales contests, trade allowances, training, product demonstrations, free merchandise and push money. One of the most common types of sales promotions, particularly in in B2B markets, are trade shows.

A trade show is an event in which firms in a particular industry display and demonstrate their offerings to the organizations and people they hope will buy them. Trade shows may be organized to focus on particular product categories, industries, geography, buyer roles, and other criteria.

Typically an organization has many different options for trade show participation. Sales contests , which are often held by manufacturers and B2B companies, provide incentives for salespeople to increase their sales.

Often, the contests focus on selling higher-profit or slow-moving products. The sales representative with the most sales of the product wins a prize such as a free vacation, company recognition, money, or some other performance bonus.

An advertising allowance benefits both the manufacturer and the retailer. Typically, the retailer can get a lower rate than manufacturers on advertising in local outlets, which saves the manufacturer money.

The retailer benefits by getting an allowance from the manufacturer. Demonstrations of new video-game systems and computers are extremely popular and successful in generating sales. Free merchandise , such as a tool, television, or other product produced by the manufacturer, can also be used to induce retailers to sell products to consumers.

For example, a television manufacturer might offer the manager of a retail electronics store a television to push its products. If a certain number of televisions is sold, the manager gets the television. Have you ever been to an electronics store or a furniture store and felt like the salesperson was pushing one particular television or one particular mattress?

Perhaps the salesperson was getting push money— a cash incentive from the manufacturer to push a particular item.

Manufacturers may encounter several reasons to offer push money to increase product sales: perhaps there is a large amount of inventory, it is being replaced by a new model, or the product is not selling well.

The table, below, summarizes the different types of sales promotions designed for both consumers and businesses. Although different types of sales promotions work best for different organizations, rebates are very profitable for companies because, as you have learned, many consumers forget to send in their rebate forms.

In a weak economy, consumers tend to use more coupons, but they also buy more store brands. Coupons available online or at the point of purchase are being used more often by consumers.

Trade shows can be very successful, although the companies that participate in them need to follow-up on the leads generated at the shows. In addition to their primary purpose of boosting sales in the near term, companies can use consumer sales promotions to help them understand price sensitivity.

Sales promotions can also be a valuable—and sometimes sneaky—way to acquire contact information for current and prospective customers. Many of these offers require consumers to provide their names and other information in order to participate.

Electronically-scanned coupons can be linked to other purchasing data, to inform organizations about buying habits. All this information can be used for future marketing research, campaigns and outreach.

Consumer sales promotions can generate loyalty and enthusiasm for a brand, product, or service. Frequent flyer programs, for example, motivate travelers to fly on a preferred airline even if the ticket prices are somewhat higher.

Sales promotions are a good way of energizing and inspiring customer action.