Is Food Sampling Important For B2C Brands?

Yes. That’s all, blog done.

Ok, maybe not done – we still need to explain why.

Any brand that is selling directly to customers, either through its own dedicated stores or via retailers, needs to consider food sampling an essential part of their marketing strategy. It’s more than just ‘giving away food’, it’s about creating an experience of your brand that will bring in new consumers and turn them into raving fans of your products. There are a huge number of benefits food and drink brands can see from implementing food sampling campaigns, but here are our top 4.

Bring In The 5 Senses

The senses are important in every element of marketing, but never more so than with food and drink products. Research done over the years has shown us how much simple sensory cues can impact a customer’s perception of a brand – from the scritch-scratch sound of a Sharpie pen to the bubbling gurgle of Coca-Cola being poured. It all goes back to that classical Pavlovian conditioning.

By bringing all 5 senses into your marketing, you can create powerful responses to nonconscious stimuli. They are subtle influences, which is exactly why they are so powerful. But the big question has always been how to incorporate taste and smell into traditional marketing – something that famously cannot be transmitted through screens or paper.

Food sampling provides brands with the perfect answer to this. It creates an experience for customers that brings together all 5 of the senses, with the sight of the product, the sound of it being prepared or cooked, and being able to touch, smell and taste it for themselves. There is no other form of marketing quite like it. And because we often have such strong emotions linked to our senses, using them all at once in a marketing effort significantly increases your chances of new sales and brand recognition, as well as drawing new people into a store. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Overcoming Change Fear

The fear of change is often one of the biggest barriers to winning over new customers. This often isn’t a true ‘fear’, but more a reluctance to try something new and out of their comfort zone. New things are a risk, and many customers will take a lot of convincing to make that switch, even for one purchase. 

It’s understandable really – your brain hates change. It’s hardwired that way. A hangover from your primitive caveman brain, which stopped you from eating new berries in case they were poisonous. Now that isn’t much of an issue, but our brains have clung on to that ancient survival instinct. So if you want customers to change to something new, they need to see, feel and experience the new thing, rather than just reading about it.

That’s where food sampling can really shine. In fact, research conducted by the British Food Journal found that:

‘Free sampling is incredibly effective in inducing trial. For consumers who are planning to buy the product in the promoted category, free sampling can encourage switching from the planned to the promoted brand. For consumers who do not have such previous plans, free sampling can ‘draw’ them into the category and encourage purchase.’

In other words, by being offered a ‘risk-free, no buy-in’ way to experience a new product, consumers are more willing to entertain switching from their preferred brand. Take that risk out of the equation, and change fear vanishes with it. 

Food sampling is the perfect way to help customers overcome change fear and try new things. By literally taking the brand off the shelves and into the hands of shoppers, it enables shoppers to try new products, while allowing brands and retailers to prove their products against established brands. 

Increasing Spend

One of the biggest reasons many brands experiment with food sampling is to increase their sales, and retailers to increase the overall spending within their stores. The good news is, that’s one of the big benefits! Over and over again, research has proven that in-store food sampling can deliver sales uplifts of over 250%.

Research done by Marsh Supermarkets showed that:

• 68% of consumers said that the free sampling persuaded them to make a purchase.
• 85% said they preferred in-store sampling events.
• 83% said the sampling improved their shopping experience.
• 75% said the sampling helped them locate a particular product in the store

This aligns very well with our own research findings. Keen to test our experience and observations, Fizz Experience conducted an exit survey of shoppers at a retail client during a 4-day period of in-store sampling. We spoke to over 2,000 shoppers, and we found that:

• 60% of people took part in the food sampling 
• 88% of people would not have purchased the product without sampling it first
• 58% of people would tell their friends and family about the new products they discovered through the sampling
• 87% said that in-store sampling improved their shopping experience
• 95% said it encouraged them to try new products

If there’s one thing that food sampling is good at – it’s increasing your sales!

Gather Feedback

Food sampling isn’t just about increasing the volume of sales for your products. There are other ways you can measure success using this method, and one is being able to gather real and genuine feedback. In our experience doing product demos, brands become inundated with honest customer feedback that they wouldn’t be able to access any other way, which can be really helpful towards future product development. This kind of direct interaction seldom happens in any other way, and food sampling allows you to:

• Speak one-on-one with your customers
• Ask customers what they like and dislike about your products
• Ask customers how your products could be improved
• Make customers feel like they have a say in product development
• Get feedback on new products before they’ve been launched

This kind of information is like gold dust – and where else are you going to be able to gather all of that?

Food sampling also helps brands understand their target market in a completely new way, providing a detailed and realistic picture that can be used in future marketing campaigns. For retailers, this kind of activity can provide valuable new intel on their listed items, what is popular and what their customers would like to see more of. Deciding on what products to list is a retailer’s constant dilemma, but by allowing products to be ‘road tested’ through sampling they can gauge what’s popular based on sales and customer feedback. If successful, it’s a positive indicator it will work as a listed item, and there is less of a risk in committing to stocking it.

On top of that, food sampling is an important brand awareness exercise. Even if a customer doesn’t buy the product right the and there, you have still put your product in their hands and your brand in their mind, forging a much stronger connection based on sense memory and emotion. This means that when they are in a better position to buy, it’s your product they are going to gravitate towards. So, food sampling should be considered both a short and long-term strategy for both brands and retailers. If you have any questions about food sampling, or want to give it a try for yourself, just get in touch with the team today.