Smart sampling: Why brands should pass on ‘black hole’ mass sampling
Make your samples work harder

People like free stuff. So when it comes to marketing your brand and products, sampling is a pretty easy way to get positive engagement.
For building loyalty and trust, the benefits are clear — sampling is associated with generosity, meaning customers can quickly develop an affiliation with a brand. Most obviously though, sampling gets your product into the hands of potential new customers, where they can see for themselves if the claims you make are true.
So what’s the problem?
The trouble isn’t getting product into hands, but getting the right product into the right hands. Many beauty subscription companies — like Birchbox, Glossybox and Look Fantastic — send a selection of random products to customers, not knowing or caring if they’re right. This irritates customers, who have paid for a product they can’t use, but it should annoy brands too.
These mass sampling avenues are wasting valuable samples — reducing carefully crafted beauty solutions to a one-size-fits-all product and disappointing the exact same customers they’re trying to impress. Suddenly that generous brand isn’t seen so favourably.
Traditional mass sampling has huge limitations with regard to product type too. It can’t effectively distribute tailored products — that is, products created specifically for certain hair or skin types and colours. A new foundation, for example, is very difficult to purchase without a good sample. It has many variables such as shade, finish, wear and even skin type, so getting the right formula into the right hands isn’t easy. Sampling is therefore incredibly valuable for these product types, but their complex nature means mass sampling isn’t an option.
How can smart sampling help?
Smart sampling rectifies all of these flaws, by identifying (or getting customers to identify themselves) as part of a target audience and sampling only to them. This reduces waste and saves money, by cutting out people who would likely never have engaged with your brand or product. It also increases the chance of the receiver liking and engaging positively with your product and brand, while providing scope to sample a greater variety of product types, previously difficult to sample.
So you’ve reduce wastage, saved money and, as a result, lowered CPA? That means more money available for investment on the right people. Smart sampling can also help cleverly invest in a solid after care campaign, designed to keep those newly acquired customers engaged.
Mass sampling by nature doesn’t know the customer, because it doesn’t care about getting it right. Smart sampling knows what they look like, their behaviour, spending patterns and, most importantly, if they liked the product sampled. These valuable customer insights can be used to retarget customers with the right marketing content, products and rewards. This kind of personalised marketing can really help brands develop more beneficial long-term relationships and improve overall LTV.
So how can we help?
Love Me Beauty’s smart sampling model helps to distribute your product into the right hands, in one of two ways:
a) By using detailed customer insights to build bespoke campaigns for your target audience
b) By giving customers the choice to sample your product from a selection — thereby identifying themselves as part of your potential target audience
As outlined above, this kind of smart sampling can be greatly beneficial for reducing waste — improving campaign CPA and ROI. With Love Me Beauty, there’s also scope to gain detailed customer insights for effective post-sampling after care campaigns, which can have a clear direct effect on LTV.
Love Me Beauty helps brands attain and retain customers, through highly targeted smart sampling. For more information, please contact oliver@lovemebeauty.com
