I had a telcon with a customer today, who is doing the New School.
Here’s her situation.
The gal, call her Lulu, markets a chocolate appetite suppressant.
It’s helped her lose 26 pounds already; she has 100 pounds to go.
To sell her product:
1. Lulu wears a button that says: “Do you like chocolate?”
She’s given out many free samples, but no one has called her back yet. She’s of course discouraged.
Her samples cost her $1/ea.
2. Lulu wants to run an ad: “Do you like chocolate? Free sample”
What do you think will happen?
What would you suggest she do to get better results? Please post your advice for Lulu in the Comments below.
How about:
Wanted: 12 Chocoholics who seriously want to lose weight.
Contact me at — — —-
I have been involved with Gano Excel in advertising the Ganoderma
coffee and chocolate and giving a
free sample by online request.
I had over 5,000 requests and after
mailing the samples to as many as I could afford the response was almost nil and some even wanted more samples. The cost per sample was anywhere between 30 and 60 cents but the postage required was
anywhere from 63 cents to over a
dollar. You needed padded envelopes to mail them out.
I do not advise using free samples.
If the company would furnish the
samples then you could get it to
the prospect with some action to
be required to receive samples.
Perhaps having them mail a dollar
to help cover the postage cost for
the sample would work.
Most things that are free have a
hook with it. You need to find a
honest and legal hook.
Lulu,
I have found that when you “give a free sample” from an ad that you can become broke quick! Remember Kim’s suggestion, use your story like “I am looking for someone who loves chocolate and wants to lose weight like I did. ” Call 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX. (Customer Ad) Add, this for
Recruiting…and “who loves chocolate, wants to lose weight and help others like I do.”
Margie
Are these overweight people to whom she is handing out the samples? Just wearing a button or running an ad that emphasizes chocolate won’t guarantee success.
Is she interviewing people about their weight concerns, i.e., people like her?
Skinny people like chocolate just as much as overweight people. She needs to segment her marketing approach.
Only approach overweight people and ask them “do you like chocolate?” If they say yes, then ask “How would you like to enjoy chocolate and lose weight?”
If she gets the affirmative, then launch into her story, i.e., “My name is Lulu and I’ve lost 26 pounds eating this chocolate product. Do you think a product like this will help you?”
Find the people who are like her. Also see Mary Jane Medlock stories.
All good comments – advertise free samples and you get folks who want free stuff. Value your product, and most importantly, yourself.
I must, however, defer to what Mary Jane emphasized on Friday & Saturday – stick with the words we learned in If My Product’s So Great – I see some promises in some of these suggestions.
This is a timely comment for me as I have just started with a marketing plan using samples.
What do you want to accomplish with the samples? I realised that every one of my lip color customers who tried the foundation bought it. So if I can get women to try it – will they buy it?
IF your weight loss story resonates with people then how do you move them towards buying.
I am planning to “sell” the samples with the $ going towards the purchase price if you buy.
You could do the same thing. ONLY people whose name you are calling will be interested. And if they hestitate to buy, then lead them to it gently.
Spend a $1 to see if you like it….
Lori
A few thoughts:
1. If you’re doing samples, hand them out or have people pick them up. Mailing samples is one of the quickest ways to go broke.
2. I would not advertise that I am offering free samples. Use a KK type ad – “I’m looking for overweight people who want to lose weight and love chocolate as much as I do” or “I’m looking for overweight people who want to lose weight and don’t want to give up chocolate, just like me”. Have them call and then tell them about the product. If it’s for them, and they want to buy, great! If you honestly think a sample might help, then offer one. But don’t offer samples willy-nilly to anyone and everyone.
3. If you do offer to mail a sample to someone, you can consider asking them to send $1 to cover the cost of mailing the sample. That way you can see if they’re a likely prospect to buy or if they’re just trying to get you to send something for free.
Bottom line – DON’T advertise the free samples in your ad. Offer them only if you think it will forward the action, i.e. help them try the product with a view to buying it if they like it.
Recognise that even if you talk with someone who seems like he/she is a great prospect for your product, the person still may not buy.
If you send samples, they still may not try the sample. So if you send a sample and the person doesn’t try it, you’ve wasted the money you spent on it and on sending it to the person who will never use it.
Save the samples for people who are directly in front of you and for people who have already bought a product from you. These people are more likely to try the sample (and buy the new thing) because they already know, like and trust you – they’ve bought something from you before.
Above all, value yourself and your samples and the money they cost you.
I’ve learned all these things the hard way – hope this helps “Lulu”.
Lulu appears to be giving out samples and expecting people to call her back.
Won’t happen.
She needs to ask for their contact information. “Let me get your phone number so I can call you up and see how you like it” or something like that.
If she doesn’t follow up with people, she shouldn’t expect much in the way of results.
I like questions…
“Who else wants to lose 26lbs eating chocolate?”
“How a 30 something yr old stay at home Mom who’s been wieght challenged all her life and hates to diet lost 26 pounds eating chocolate” … Sound like you?
Pre-qualify your sample folks HARD before you go buying them a $1 snack.
Perhaps a one page “My Story” type handout is in order? … begin to build the nedded familiarity.
And make ’em jump through SOME sort of hoop for Pete’s sake.
My .02 😉
Andrea
AD – I market a product for people who have tried for years to lose weight, but couldn’t give up their chocolate, just like me. Call XXX-XXX-XXXX
_____________________
I agree with the other comments. You can not just hand out free samples. The giving of the free sample has to be the first step in a relationship building process. In my company, we give out free samples of a product. BUT…No samples go out unless I feel the person is serious about the offer. If someone says “Oh yeah, I saw it was free so I signed up.” I use Kim’s “say no first” attitude and say something like, “there is a limited number of samples at this time and I need to reserve them for people who seriously want to try the product”.
Just because you are giving out free samples, you do not have to give one to everyone. Be picky. This is product you have paid for, you get to choose who gets the samples.
Roxanne
Lulu has it backwards. Chasing after customers is expensive.
Set up a small kiosk inside of a mall around the upcoming holiday season, in a high traffic area – just down from the Cinnabon. The customers will come to you. Put the product out for sale. Only give out very tiny samples (for taste only).
Play the discount game. Price was $$ but now is going for only $ (which is original price – the typical lie that all retailers use).
Something I’ve noticed recently that I hadn’t
before is my upline’s enthusiasm for us, the
downline, to give product away. They can
justify the giveaways within the compensation
plan making it look really great on paper. They
tell us, “This is the new sliced bread, it’s going
to kick this company into momentum.”
This is the second product within the last year
we’ve been urged to give away. Of course, “It’s
only if you don’t want to miss the boat.”
In the last company I was in, my upline told us
to buy thousands of leads and give them to our
babies to get them moving. I fell for that one
too. I later found out that he owned the lead
company.
I guess my marketing naivety is showing here but
oh well. I want to believe that my upline has my
best interest at heart but I have this nagging feeling
that all this give-away-BS is to UP the upline’s
bottom line.
We are the upline’s customers after all.
Why dont you qualify your prospects with a questionnaire before handing them out? Maybe ask: how much they want to lose? how long have you been trying? what have you tried? do they know any one else who wants to lose weight? Be sure to gather their name e-mail,phone number before hand and offer something like a coupon for their first order. That way you know that theyre good prospects and you can follow up with them.
“Can special chocolates help you lose weight? Ask me, and I’ll show you how.”
One free sample won’t demonstrate the product. Qualify your leads and then offer to give them enough free samples to actually observe the positive effects. It means you might end up giving $10 worth of samples to one person, but if that turns into actual customers, it’s better than giving $1 to 10 people each and not getting a customer out of it.
Free samples is a great way to build recognition about your products but this is what I do. My company is a skincare-cosmetic company and we don’t have sample packets that are good 1-2 days. Our samples are 1/2 oz jars so for example: we have a wrinkle cream 1.0 oz for $45, Distributors can buy a 1/2 oz sample jar for $4. I promote the full-retail price jar and then say for a limited time, you can try a 1/2 oz jar for $9.95. $4.00 for the sample, $2.00 for shipping (this includes .18 for the shipping box because I buy in bulk for a lower cost per unit), and that leaves me $3.95 profit. So it doesn’t matter if they upgrade and buy the full-size product or not, I still made a profit and no money came out of my pocket. What you can do is package a number of sample together to increase the perceived value and then give them to options (either pay for the full size product or pay for a 5-10 day trial for a lower price). Also make sure that with all trial offers, you attach a powerful call to action flyer to get them to purchase the product, I use $5-$15 coupons which calculates to 15% off but when you put it in dollars it seems to work better. I also get all contact information and add them to my newsletter and product sales autoresponder. And when I had out my mini wrinkle cream flyer–I only give it to women who I can visible see has wrinkles (it makes your leads more targeted). Sorry for the long post, hope this helps.