Door drop sampling still delivers return
The Secret Marketer’s discovery that “for the consumer on the other end, getting a free sample beats paid-for ‘experiential marketing’ hands down” (MW last week) is an encouraging development.
Door drop product sampling has for over 50 years delivered, but in recent years the quality of the door drop delivery and the targeting processes involved in identifying where target market consumers live in their greatest numbers has improved to an extent that the medium should be on more FMCG marketers’ agendas.
It is acknowledged that consumers love samples, and what better way of testing a new or improved product than in the comfort of your own home? Add in a coupon to stimulate subsequent product purchase and you have a successful campaign.
Door drop marketing now offers users a way of distributing samples and coupons in units of hundreds of households primarily the exact target market they are seeking, rather than the traditional postal sector units of thousands, leading to unnecessary waste and a primary reason why so many have drifted away from the medium.
But the more enlightened are returning – and profiting from the industry’s massive steps forward in recent years.
Advances in packaging technology make it pretty much possible to sample anything; marketers just need to know where to look, and when they do the results will look after themselves.
Graham Dodd
Managing director
The Letterbox Consultancy
