Try Before You Buy: How Content Promotion Is Like Sampling at the Grocery

For a lot of people, the best part of going to Whole Foods Market is the samples. Visit a store at the most sample-optimized time and you can practically get an entire four course meal for free.What does this have to do with content promotion? Everything.

When promoting content, marketers already give their audience a little sample of what to expect. However, is that enough to ensure that people feel satisfied with their sample and are ready hit that form submit button to commit to the new relationship?

Learn the new way of thinking about content promotion by looking at how marketers are currently sampling their content, ways to improve those techniques and how to balance enticing your audience without giving away all the value.

On The Menu

You may have never viewed your current content promotion efforts as similar to offering samples; but that’s exactly what you’re doing. Before a conversion can happen, customers take a bite here and a nibble there that hints at what your content will “taste” like.

Here are a few of the types of samples that marketers currently offer their audience:

• Landing pages are the most common types of samples. When a person is determining if submitting the form is worth their time, they rely on the copy and major value propositions.
• Email promotions are another common form of content sampling; again, they provide short copy that tells the audience what to expect before they click.
• Native advertising, such as banner ads or graphical calls-to-actions, offer customers the smallest sample and need to be enticing enough to drive traffic to the landing page.
• Social media can include both textual and visual samplings of content to persuade your audience to convert.

Making Samples Special

If every time you went to Whole Foods they only offered the same samples, you would probably stop getting excited about your next grocery visit. Offering the same samples over and over again can get boring, redundant and predictable.

Granted, you can normally count on a few staples (fresh guacamole, juicy pineapple and hand-squeezed lemonade–the traditional crowd favorites) to provide consistency. However, the excitement comes from trying the unknown!

This should also apply to your content promotion. Landing pages and email may be traditional, but they’re also effective. Here are a few ways to spice up a standard email (just like upgrading from regular lemonade to hand-squeezed strawberry lemonade) and keep your promotion exciting:

• Highlight a full page: Let your audience sink their teeth into a big bite of that eBook. Let them see your content in action – show, don’t tell them your value.
• Value-packed paragraph: We’re all creatures of curiosity. Pick the most interesting paragraph(s) and reveal a portion of the copy to encourage customers to read more.
• Testimonial: Pick a select group of your audience and offer your asset before it’s released to the rest of world and ask for their thoughts on it. Then, with their permission, use their comments as part of the promotional campaign.
• Feature an infographic: Showcase an intriguing infographic on your email or landing page that piques the reader’s curiosity and encourages them to learn more.

The Post-Sample Conversion

The difficulty of sampling is finding the right balance of how much to let them try before they buy. If I know I can eat a whole meal of samples, what’s the point of purchasing something? They key, then, is to make the sample so good that they have to have more.

As marketers, we need to be the experts at understanding when and how to implement various sampling techniques appropriately.

• Cost: Most people are very protective of how much personal information they share with companies. The more information you ask and the more effort your offer requires, the larger the sample you may need to provide.
• Value: What value is your resource offering? Consider the value proposition, quality of solution and length. A one-pager doesn’t have quite as much to offer as a 50-page eBook.
• Innovativeness: Maybe your content is something not common in your industry or you’re trying to promote a cutting-edge solution. It may require a larger sample to convince the audience that this new idea is valid and worth the time investment.
• Unknown: Trying to stand out in an industry inundated with content may require using uncommon language, strange headlines and a lot of creativity. If your offer isn’t common, more visuals and explanations are needed to reduce that uncertainty.

It’s clear there is an overlap between how grocery stores promote their goods and how marketers promote their content. Landing pages, emails and native advertising are great tools; however, the same mix of channels and messaging can bore your audience.

Mix it up by implementing some of these ideas to enhance your customers’ experience. While experimenting with new sampling techniques, be sure to balance the sample with the content piece. Don’t give away the whole store, but give them enough to chew on.

Not sure where to start with content promotion in general? Download Relevance’s Quick Guide to Content Promotion: