As the school year comes to a close, it’s the perfect time for Brands to begin planning back to school sampling campaigns. Whether back to school means logging in virtually or returning to the classroom, consumers will be searching for products to set themselves or their children up for a successful school year.
By mid-summer consumers will begin to stock up on various items – including school supplies like pencils and notebooks, food items such as snacks, and personal items like shampoo, soap, and laundry detergent to get them through the semester. The best way to connect with a first time consumer is through product sampling; sampling is a powerful component in getting consumers to try your product and leaves them feeling confident and excited to purchase.
Though consumers are braving the stores in higher numbers to make these purchases, they’re not as likely to revert to traditional in-store product sampling. COVID-19 may have torpedoed the way we traditionally sampled products in-store, but digital sampling campaigns allow brands to reach back to school shoppers online, deliver products directly to their homes, and prime them for purchases.
Digital sampling brings the traditional in-store sampling experience online and direct to consumers, allowing brands to engage with consumers on a deeper level and educate them about their brand – ultimately driving behaviors and influencing the path to purchase in time for the back to school season. With this foray into the digital world, brands can meet their target consumers – whether that means high school and college-aged students or mothers of school-aged children, on the social channels where they spend their time most like Facebook and Instagram, TikTok and Spotify, or their favorite digital publications and offer them a way to sample products.
How can you reach your target back to school audience?
1. Reach high school and college-aged students on TikTok
According to TrueList, 85% of Gen Z consumers learn about new products from social media.
TikTok, with 800 million+ users, is an emerging platform for product discovery and discussion – brands can activate a sampling campaign on TikTok to drive awareness and education, attract new consumers and spur word of mouth recommendations and user-generated content, and ultimately influence purchase behavior.
2. Meet Mothers of school-aged children on their go-to online resource
Among other behaviors, digital sampling campaigns can drive review generation – a strong component in influencing a mother’s path to purchase. “Moms are more likely than adults in general to visit social media sites, product reviews, and blogs (Halverson Group)” for product research prior to purchase.
With this in mind, brands looking to target mothers for back to school can activate a campaign on a digital publication or Spotify podcast geared towards mothers.
Abeo can work with your brand to custom-design a sampling campaign to reach your back to school audience and meet your goals and KPIs.
Interested in learning more about a back to school digital sampling campaign? Contact us!