The Psychology of Product Sampling: Boosting Sales and Loyalty

In stores, by mail, and at experiential marketing events, consumers love free samples of food, beverage, beauty, and many other products. Distributing samples is a proven tactic for boosting sales and introducing new customers to your brand, with numerous studies finding that as many as 65% of consumers who sampled a product ultimately purchased it, and 78% of consumers who bought products they tried first said getting to try the sample influenced their decision.

All of this seems intuitive — the consumers must simply have liked the products, right? While the product ultimately sells itself (or doesn’t), the opportunity to try first can tip the scale. Consumers who try before they buy are psychologically primed to eventually make a purchase. Here are some reasons why.

Sampling Creates a Positive Impression

Consumers think favorably of brands that run sampling campaigns. Just by making free samples available, “you show that you are confident about your product, and it immediately puts it higher in the minds of buyers who look for good qualities,” according to a study cited by peekage.com.

In the consumer’s mind, that confidence translates into a perception of higher quality. “Users who sampled a product before buying it perceived the brand as of higher quality than the brands that did not offer product sampling.”

An example: Meat alternative brand Meati ran a mobile focus group that offered free samples of its meat-free products to consumers, who then gave feedback on the experience. By setting up the sampling campaign as a blind taste test, Meati demonstrated high confidence that the taste and texture of its product would satisfy non-vegetarians; when the product beat out real chicken in the taste test, it showed participants that that confidence was justified.

Sampling Sparks a Sense of Obligation

When someone gives us a gift, we feel an obligation, however slight, to reciprocate. “People have a natural desire to treat others well, pay back their debt and return favors,” says a blog post on peekage.com.

“Reciprocity is a very, very strong instinct,” says a blog post on lightspeed.com. “If somebody does something for you, you really feel a rather surprisingly strong obligation to do something back for them.” Brands that both sample and sell products at pop-up shops, trade shows, and expos can benefit most immediately from reciprocity bias, because attendees who sample on-site will be more likely to “repay” the brand by making a purchase.

Sampling Is Risk-Free for the Consumer

Zero-risk bias is a cognitive bias that makes us value choices that have (or appear to have) zero risk. “Free samples let buyers try out your product with zero risk or commitment,” says peekage.com. “This feeling of zero risk is very much appreciated by the buyer, especially when it comes to new products.”

Zero-risk bias works for brands across multiple industries. An example: Haircare brand Amika’s recent sampling campaign let consumers in four U.S. cities test its new anti-frizz product. Giving away product samples meant that for the consumers who attended the brand’s activations — whether they were familiar with the brand or not — trying the new product carried zero risk, making those who liked the results more apt to buy the full-size product.

Sampling Puts Your Product at the Front of Consumers’ Minds

When we humans need to evaluate a product or a concept, we tend to assign importance to whatever we can recall — and what we’re most likely to recall is whatever is available to us. If we can remember it, our logic goes, it must be important. This is known as the “availability heuristic.”

“Free samples make your brand available, and therefore important and memorable for buyers,” says peekage.com. “And when buyers want to choose between different brands, they go with the one that they remember first.”

Sampling Builds a Relationship

Experiential marketing is all about giving potential customers a firsthand experience with your brand — and what’s more firsthand than a product sample?

Sampling is effective at building relationships because it plays on the anchoring effect. “The first piece of information a buyer receives from a product plays an important role in the process of decision making,” says peekage.com.

One real-world example: Food and beverage brand Knorr wanted to promote the new liquid format of its chicken bouillon by showing consumers one way to use it: in chicken tacos. The brand’s sampling campaign gave away 1,500 tacos, creating a delicious first impression and a strong incentive to buy for consumers who’d never tried the product.

Meati’s sampling campaign, which revolved around participation and feedback from participants, demonstrated interest in customers’ opinions. The campaign also created opportunities to interact directly with consumers, further anchoring the “bond” created by providing a free taste of the product.

“Product sampling makes buyers build a personal relationship with the product,” says peekage.com, “and the anchoring effect makes them value that relationship above all information later on.”

Promobile Marketing is a dynamic experiential marketing agency based in New York City. For over a decade, Promobile Marketing has collaborated with a range of brands—from budding startups to major CPG brands—on immersive marketing campaigns. Get in touch to discuss your next project.