Complete Guide to using product sampling effectively for your WooCommerce site marketing strategy

Complete guide to using product sampling for your WooCommerce site marketing strategy

Product sampling marketing is a major strategy which businesses use to boost conversion rates and brand awareness at face-to-face events. But did you know that you can do it in your WooCommerce store too?

Are you looking for an effective way to acquire new customers in your WooCommerce online store? In that case, you may want to consider offering your store visitors free samples of your product. Product sampling marketing gets products in a prospective buyer's hands at no cost to them.

When shopping, most people prefer to buy familiar products to minimize the risk of making a bad purchase decision. If you're a completely new brand, getting the buyer to try out your product can be very difficult. This is particularly true if there's a lot of competition in your industry.

To help buyers overcome this fear, marketers use the product sampling marketing technique to give them a feel of their product. This strategy has proven highly successful over the years. According to a Product Sampling Study report, 35% of the people who tried out a product bought the product that same day.

woocommerce product sampling marketing example

Product sampling is not only good for new businesses looking to increase sales and brand awareness. Established brands can also use it to get people who have heard about their products to commit to a purchase.

In this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about using product sampling marketing in WooCommerce. We'll bring it to life using some e-commerce product sampling marketing examples. You'll discover how to bring it to your store using the WooCommerce Product Sample plugin. At the end, you'll have everything you need to create a free sample marketing strategy to take your sales to the next level.

Can product sampling form part of your online e-commerce strategy?

Traditionally, marketers are more familiar with offline product sampling, especially at face-to-face events and activities. In this case, businesses employ store sampling experts and brand ambassadors who ensure that passers-by or invited guests get a great feel of their product. It could be as simple as offering a scoop of a dairy product. Or as intriguing as inviting a window shopper to test-drive a luxury car.

As a WooCommerce store owner, you'd be delighted to learn that you can use these same successful product sampling marketing techniques too. Online product sampling is an experiential marketing strategy that is becoming increasingly popular. In fact, it has the potential to generate more results than offline product sampling due to the increased market size.

woocommerce product sampling marketing single product page

Unlike offline sampling, setting up an online sampling procedure doesn't require significant capital commitment. Once the sampling experience has been added to WooCommerce, you won't need to deal with staffing issues or negotiate with physical shopping centers or supermarkets. This is highly cost-effective and results in a higher return-on-investment (ROI).

E-commerce product sampling also has a better tracking system that you can use to measure your products. An effective product sampling strategy backed by top-notch site analytics provides you with important insights to improve your business. Similarly, you can advertise your sampling campaign on multiple platforms like social media, influencer markets, and Google AdWords.

Why is product sampling marketing so effective?

When marketing a new product, getting desired results often requires more than conventional marketing techniques. One of the most effective ways to beat the competition is to allow consumers to try your products. The psychology behind this technique leverages typical consumer behavior to create a win-win situation for you and the buyer.

Here are some of the reasons why product sampling marketing is so effective:

  • Product sampling gets potential customers to experience your product and eliminate risk aversion. Buyers would be happy to use a product they aren't familiar with at a lower cost or no cost at all.
  • It gets your target audience thinking about your product.
  • It can be a great way to build customer loyalty. Many consumers perceive a free WooCommerce product or discounted sample as a kind gesture. You can use this to leave a good first impression on the customer.
  • It's an effective way to beat the competition. Most online retailers aren't using this technique yet. You can use product sampling to establish your brand presence quickly.

No doubt, there are lots of conversion and brand awareness opportunities in online product sampling marketing.

But how can you bring these benefits to your WooCommerce store?

Introducing WooCommerce Product Sample

Are you looking for the best way to get your products into the customer's hands and boost acquisition? WooCommerce Product Sample is the best WordPress product sampling marketing plugin on the market. It adds product sampling marketing to your store, making buyers much more likely to purchase the full product.

Using this plugin, you can either offer completely free products or let the customer get samples at a discounted price. You can also choose to charge a delivery fee or ship the sample for free.

Here are some of the key features that make WooCommerce Product Sample so powerful:

  • Free and paid samples for all or some of your productsOffer your customers samples of your products at either a discounted or zero cost. You can enable these samples for individual products, product variations, product categories, or all products sitewide.
  • Full control over your product sampling campaignDetermine the price of the WooCommerce free samples, their shipping and tax classes, and also manage unique stock for samples only. You can also decide where to place the 'Order Sample' button on your shop, product, and category pages.
  • Set a maximum order quantity for samplesSet a sample order quantity threshold to prevent customers from emptying your inventory. This helps your business to maintain profitability.
  • Send follow-up emails to remind your customers to buyAfter getting a feel of your product, customers become more open to making a real purchase. This plugin is the only WooCommerce product sample plugin sends automated emails reminding your customers to get the full product.

Before we show you how to use WooCommerce Product Sample, let's share a few product sampling examples.

Product sampling marketing examples

To get an idea of how businesses use product sampling marketing techniques online, we'll briefly share 3 use cases we've seen in the past:

  • Boosting awareness during new product launchesAccording to PowerReviews research, 72% of the customers of online grocery stores are more likely to buy a product that has reviews. One of the easiest ways to generate these reviews for a new product line is to offer free samples. This technique also works efficiently for products in other categories too.
  • Generating fresh reviews from new and existing customers Reviews aren't useful for new products only. Google and other search engines love fresh content. You can always boost your product pages' SEO ranking by using product sampling to drive an organic flow of content consistently. The report referenced above also reveals that sampling programs have the highest review completion rate in any industry—86%.
  • Moving a seasonal product's inventorySelling products that will only be available for a limited period can be challenging. You can combine product sampling with your other marketing techniques to move a particular product's inventory faster.

As you can see, each of these product sampling marketing examples works excellently in nearly any e-commerce niche. It's ideal for consumer products like fashion and apparel, entertainment, personal care, homeware, electronics, and other industries too.

If I allow free sampling online, will I lose out on postage?

You do not have to lose out on postage when you allow free sampling online.

When offering free sampling in your WooCommerce store, the Product Sample plugin allows you to decide who pays for shipping. You set the price for product samples separately from the shipping cost. You can set a shipping cost for the products by assigning them to a shipping class.

assign shipping class to woocommerce product samples

In terms of product pricing, you can choose to either offer the product for free or charge a discounted fee. Similarly, you can charge the customer for postage only or offer them free shipping.

woocommerce product sample flat rate shipping

Charging for delivery allows you to maintain your capital advantage over offline product sampling where customers get the product in person.

In general, it's important to adopt a model that works best for the type of product you're selling and your business's profitability.

How to enable product sampling marketing in WooCommerce

You can enable product sampling marketing on your WooCommerce site by following these 4 simple steps.

Step 1: Install and activate WooCommerce Product Sample

To launch your first product sampling marketing campaign, you can get your copy of the WooCommerce Product Sample plugin here.

Once you've completed your registration, you'll receive a license key and download link in your email. Next;

  1. Log into your WordPress backend and go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
  2. Here, click Choose File and select the ZIP file you downloaded earlier. Then click Install Now followed by Activate Plugin.
  3. Upon activation, you also need to enter the license key and click Activate.

Hooray! WooCommerce Product Sample is now active and ready for use.

Step 2: Configure the plugin global settings

Now, it's time to set up a product sampling marketing campaign. You can do this by navigating to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Product sample.

woocomerce product sample sampling marketing plugin settings

On this page, you'll be able to tweak all the global options available using the plugin.

If you want to offer free samples for all your store products by default, check 'Enable samples for all products'. If you uncheck this box, samples will only be available for the products and product categories you configure individually.

On the same page, configure other elements like the sample price, button text, maximum sample quantity, shipping class, and a sample label. This label will be displayed before the name of the product when it's in the cart.

By default, the sample order button text is 'Order sample: {price}'. {price} is a placeholder for any value you enter in the 'Sample price' field above.

woocommerce sample product button text

You can edit both the text and price fields as you wish. To offer completely free samples, add your text without the price placeholder.

Step 3: Adjust sample settings for individual products or categories

In certain cases, you may want to override the global settings for a particular product, product variation, or category. To do this, navigate to product or category settings.

For example, you can go to Products and select the product you want to edit.

woocommerce product sample plugin override global settings

Next, scroll down to the 'Product data' section and open the 'Product samples' dropdown. Then select 'Configure the settings for this product individually'.

woocommerce product sampling marketing configure individual product settings

Now, you'll be able to enter a unique sample price. Otherwise, you can also disable samples for the product.

You can follow a similar procedure to override the global settings for a product variation or category.

Step 4: Customize the follow-up emails

The last step you want to take is to set up follow-up emails to remind your customers to buy the full product after testing out the sample.

To do this, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Emails.

woocommerce product sampling marketing follow up emails

Click Manage next to 'Product sample follow-up'. Edit the necessary fields and click Save changes.

customize woocommerce product sample follow up emails

The 'Email delay' allows you to sent the number of days after which WooCommerce will send the reminder email automatically.

Where to get the plugin

Product sampling marketing is a powerful marketing strategy which WooCommerce store owners can use to efficiently drive sales, brand awareness, and customer acquisition. The technique is so effective because it helps customers overcome the initial fear of trying an unfamiliar product.

In this article, we've shown you how to use WooCommerce Product Sample effectively in WooCommerce. We've looked at some product sampling marketing examples and learned how to create a free sample marketing strategy.

Not it's time to install the plugin and put it into practice.

This amazing plugin allows you to:

  • Offer free or paid samples for all or some of your products
  • Gain full control over your product sampling campaign
  • Send follow-up emails to remind customers to buy the full product

Ready to launch your first product sampling marketing campaign in WooCommerce? You can start by getting your copy of WooCommerce Product Sample.

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