When a business develops a new drink, snack, or a remarkable new toy sometimes it takes a little more than online marketing to get the word out. People tend to be stuck in their ways. They buy the items and flavors they always buy. Unless something comes along that shakes up their status-quo and introduces them to the delights of your new product.

This is the power of a sampling campaign. But no doubt, you knew that already. If you are planning a sampling campaign for your new product, or to bring back enthusiasm for an existing product, the best way to do it is by hiring a professional sampling agency. While your team could build a cardboard display and hawk your wares in grocery stores, parks, and restaurants, why go through the trouble when sampling pros can take care of everything for you.

Whether you've been planning to hire an agency or have been thinking about getting your marketing team out into the field, take a moment to consider these five great reasons why a sampling agency is the perfect choice for your upcoming campaign.

1) Our Team of Highly-Trained Sampling Professionals

The first reason you should consider a sampling campaign is this: There is a difference between people who market behind a computer screen and people who market in person. Our team has been highly trained in the art of sitting and standing by a table, getting people's attention, and making your future customers feel welcome at the sampling booth.

We have spent years gathering professional extroverts who train diligently through dozens of sampling campaigns. Sampling agency staff can be counted on to connect with the audience, expertly set up and tear down a display, and do whatever it takes to experientially represent your brand.

We will flatter, cajole, and entice potential customers with expert precision. We will spend hours in a grocery store wearing silly hats with an enthusiasm you can't fake that on a budget.

2) Efficient Creation of High-Quality Sampling Displays

When putting together a sampling campaign, the one thing you can't do without (other than people) is a great display table. Ideally, you want a display that is more than a folding table and a paper tablecloth. You want something that makes a splash, that catches the eye and makes an event fun. At the same time, your sampling display should be affordable, easy to break down, and easy to transport.

For first-time samplers, putting together this kind of display can take up a lot of your time and campaign budget. Designing the display, finding commercial printers who can make it for you, and setting up on location is not something that's easy to do perfectly the first time. And your cardboard display is usually the first casualty when mistakes are made. Fortunately, our teams have done this exact process hundreds of times. We know how to make displays, what to decorate them with, and our staff have drilled on efficient setup and teardown.

3) We Know All The Best Sampling Locations

The next step is to stage your sampling campaign in places that will get results. And these aren't always where you think they will be. A professional sampling agency knows where all the best sampling locations are in town. We know where the foot traffic is, and what kind of people gather in each location. 

But it's more than demographic research, it's a ground-level understanding of the cities and people you want your sampling campaign to impact. A sampling agency can help you find which places have crowds that are receptive to samples and venues where management permits sampling without jumping through hoops.

We can also help you find exclusive places that might be receptive to sampling your product, but not many others. Places where your exact clientele gather and where high-quality sampling campaigns mutually increase the reputation of the venue.

4) A Deep Knowledge of Sampling Psychology

There is one aspect of sampling that first-timers often miss. It's the difference between being passed by a hundred times by foot traffic and drawing a crowd of engaged audience members. It's not the display or the location, though these help. The secret to a great sampling campaign is customer psychology.

What makes people feel comfortable to approach the sampling table instead of awkward? Even better, what can make them feel like your product is a new game they want to play or a new way to feel cool? Sampling has much more psychology than most people can see on the surface. There are ways to make your campaign more inviting, and make the experience a warmer memory associated with your product.

An expertly designed sampling campaign can do this with everything from the display design to how our team attracts customers. We can make tasking your product feel like a party, remind customers of childhood, or make it the cool new thing. We can transform your brand into an experience that your target audience will want to be a part of.

5) No Fear About Putting On a Show

And, of course, to really sell a product at a live event, you have to make it a real performance. Putting on a show is the difference between nibbling a snack in the grocery store and participating in a special event. But this requires your campaign hosts to perform their task more like a live game show than traditional marketing.

Most of today's marketers work behind a computer screen, not in front of a live audience. The three biggest challenges to putting on a show are stage fright, self-consciousness, and exhaustion. No matter how small the audience, some people go through these sensations their first several times as a performer. Even if the goal is marketing and not fine arts.

Fortunately, our team has put on a lot of shows. You could say we're professional wearers of silly hats, singers of songs, and we're great at chatting with strangers. Our team can put on plays, do fun dances, or just wear shades and look cool if that's the best approach for your brand. And we'll put on a show all event long.

6) Letting Your Team Focus on What They're Good At

Our last great reason to hire a sampling agency is that everyone has a specialty. Your team specializes to designing a great product and promoting it through your usual channels. But sometimes, a launch requires something special. Unless your company releases new products all the time, you probably don't have an in-house team with a lot of sampling campaign experience. Instead, they are experts at content marketing, social media, and keeping the mailing lists happy.

There's no need to take your team away from the good work they're already doing. Let us take care of the occasional sampling campaign and we'll do it with all the enthusiasm and brand loyalty you could hope for from your in-house marketing team.

There are a lot of reasons to hiring a sampling agency, but today we've striven to offer you only the best. Even if you have the resources to plan your campaign a dozen different ways, Sonas Marketing has what it takes to make every sampling campaign an experiential connection between your product and your target audience. We know the best places, the best approach, and are practiced in the art of inviting an audience to try something new.