Elevate your branding and help your products stand out with quality product samples. This under-utilized form of business packaging offers a number of benefits as you design a new product, enter a new market, or grow your market share. Learn the definition of and explore the key benefits of sample packaging today. Come see how Maple Mountain Co-Packers can improve your packaging and design.
Product Sampling
Product sampling builds trust and brand perception in the minds of consumers. It also primes their expectations, ensuring your customers know your product offerings. Product sample packaging is a popular sales strategy that can be used for these and other products:
- Liquids
- Oils
- Gels
- Powders
- Food products
- Beauty products
- Other consumer goods
Approximately 88% of shoppers want free samples. Contract packaging services can help you create small bottles, sachets, roll stock, and other materials to offer samples to your customers. Consider connecting with a contract packaging service to reduce the cost of manufacturing packaging. You don’t need to create a new run of small packages in your facility to offer your products in sample-size packaging.
What Is Product Sampling?
A product sample provides a sneak peek or a small amount of your product to customers. This can be used to share your most popular item with new customers or introduce a new offering to your loyal following.
There are many types of samples, including two basic strategies for getting the most out of your samples:
- Free samples: Deliver free product samples straight to customers with no payment requirement. While customers don’t have to buy more products or pay for their samples, many will anyway.
- Sample as a sale: Offer a product sampling with the purchase of another full-sized product. This is a great option if you’re using your small containers to introduce a product with a new flavor, scent, or formula.
Both strategies rely on some key principles of marketing psychology. It’s important to understand how handing out or shipping a free sample can change consumer perceptions of your company. Here are the principles and how they help leverage sampling strategies to grow your business:
- Sentiment: Boost those feel-good emotions about your product and your brand by offering freebies and other types of samples to your customers.
- Risk aversion: Consumers may not be willing to invest in a new product. Free product samples reduce or remove that risk and open doors to help you reach a broader audience.
- Reciprocity: Give without asking for anything in return. Chances are that consumers will return the favor by buying your products or promoting your brand to their friends and family.
You can use sampling as a testing strategy. Before rolling out a new product you’ve developed, offer it in sample sizes to reduce your investment and risk. Use the feedback this generates to review the product and determine whether it’s time to scale up production or go back to the drawing board.
The Benefits of Product Sampling
There are many different types of samples and strategies to use. At their core, product samples are used to help customers try out new items with less risk. If you give out free samples, customers are even more likely to reciprocate by buying an item, tipping a worker, or spreading the word about your company.
On the fence about giving away products? Here are some benefits you can enjoy when you share samples with loyal followers or first-time customers:
- A professionally designed white label sample package improves brand recognition and awareness.
- Offering free samples may boost your sales by as much as 2,000%.
- When seen as a marketing expense, sampling can actually be a very cost-effective way of growing your business.
- Sampling gives consumers enough information to make informed decisions and provides helpful feedback.
What is the target market for your product? If you’re developing a new item for sale, you may only have an educated guess. Sampling takes that guess and helps you refine it with real-world data. Track the consumers who take your sample and ask for informal or formal responses. Surveys and social media responses can not only help you decide whether a product is ready for the shelves but also which market niche is most likely to purchase it.
The Importance of Product Packaging & Design
Make the most of your product samples by connecting with professional packaging designers. Offering a sample of your product in a generic bottle or bag won’t create the brand awareness and sentiment you need to expand your audience. Our packaging designers can help you create business packaging that stands out, enhance your brand reputation, and maintain your image by working with a professional contract manufacturing partner.
A contract manufacturing partner takes much of the time and stress out of choosing product packaging. Work with a white label contractor and build on their years of expertise in packaging selection and manufacturing. All you need to do is schedule a consultation, select the optimal container type, and send over your logo and branding information.
Standing Out to Customers
There’s nothing like a custom-made, eye-catching package to help your product offer a memorable experience. Work with experienced packaging designers to tailor your business packaging to stand out among the crowd.
Standing out can be achieved through package structure, logo, and color. The package structure needs to be functional. You probably won’t make a great impression if the container makes the sample difficult to use, prone to spillage, or likely to break.
Be sure your sample has all the necessary information on it. You need to fit ingredients, directions, branding, and other information on a small bottle, sachet, or other packaging material.
Creating & Maintaining Your Brand
Product samples need iconic labels that mirror your standard products. Giving away small samples won’t help promote your brand if customers can’t easily connect the two products.
Consider using a product sample to create your brand. Kickoff a new company by offering free samples to get helpful feedback, positive interactions with customers, and brand recognition.
For an established business, samples can help you show off your generous side. They can also reach markets that may not know about your products.
Feedback is a critical part of maintaining your brand. You may want to invest in promoting a particular value in your company, but you need consumers to see this value and connect it with your products. Samples help you reach a wide audience and ask questions, informally or through a formal survey, to find out how to improve your branding.
The Right Container for Your Product
At Maple Mountain Co-Packers, we take your product samples seriously. Explore our product sample packaging to see how you can launch a new marketing strategy and grow your business. Learn more about the packaging process and the benefits of offering samples by reaching out to our talented team, contact us today.