With the desire to earn a solid consumer base locally in the East Midlands and the potential of reaching national and international customers online, businesses are always looking for the next hit marketing approach. Google ads, having an active social media account, and starting a blog are all commonplace approaches now. However, one of the best and most proven marketing methods continues to be underused. That approach is the free sample.
How Free Samples Work for the Digital Business
Just about every business can leverage the power of the free sample to create a useful marketing campaign. For a business that only operates online, offering a way to experience it for free over a limited run can have the effect of a physical free sample. This can be seen in sectors that offer free access offers for new joiners. For example, iGaming platforms often promote using a free spins offer. Just for signing up to the casino platform, users get free spins to play on games such as the popular Big Bass Bonanza slot game or other well-known games.
A free sample campaign like this then leads into a boost for customers who do convert from free to paid. After using the free spins, new customers can deposit and often have another tier of free spins. It’s a tiered approach to helping the free sample convert people into paying customers,and one that proves that people don’t require purely physical goods to be convinced by this approach.
Very similarly, free trials do the trick. In fact, it was found that your run-of-the-mill 30-day free trial was the most effective marketing approach for converting paid customers. They’re 28x more effective than free products, and 30 days is over 270 per cent more likely to convert a paid customer than a 14-day one. Customer acquisition rates with a free trial eclipse 32 per cent and have a conversion rate of over 50 per cent. People like the familiar.
Offering Free Samples Still a Big Winner
The simple underlying mechanic at play whenever a free sample is offered is that people feel like they should reciprocate. Being given something for free gives you a positive perception of the brand and a willingness to act in kind by buying into the product being marketed. Of course, there’s even more at play than this. Free samples can make purchasing decisions much easier.
Whether it’s a free trial, a set of free plays, or a physical free sample, you’re informing the customer. They get to enjoy the thing without risking their money and can then decide if they want to pay more or not. Most of the time, unless it’s a poor-quality sample, the customer will now side with what they know and be nudged a little further by the reciprocity mechanic in play.
Of course, some customers exclusively look around to make the most of free samples to save money, and that’s perfectly fine. Even those customers are looking for a reliable product that they’ll enjoy. If they don’t become a regular customer, there’s a strong chance that they’ll recommend it to their peers. So, even indirectly, there’s a positive outcome to be gained from going down the free sample route.
So many businesses are missing out on extra customer conversions by not trying some kind of free entry for new customers. The formula can be tinkered with to suit the target audience or business type, but in the end, if the sample is good, more customers will be converted.
