United States In-Store Sampling Benchmarks Report for Experiential Retail Marketing

United States In-Store Sampling Benchmarks Report for Experiential Retail Marketing

With the safe return of in-store retail sampling, marketers are eager to get their products back in sample sections as a prominent marketing strategy.

Expert market analysts at PortMA are excited to reveal a ground-breaking report that shares invaluable Retail Marketing insights based on extensive research carried out over ten years involving interviews from over 42,000 consumers!

Portland, ME, USA – Retailers, and manufacturers recognize in-store sampling as an important experiential marketing strategy. Whether at the supermarket, hardware shop, or department store, in-store sampling is one of the strongest experiential marketing tactics. According to data obtained by The Associated Press, in-store food sampling converts browsers into buyers at a 20% higher rate than customers who did not sample the product. For personal care and beauty products, the conversion rate is 30% higher.

PortMA is an established full-service market research firm that uses data analytics to develop and evaluate marketing communication strategies for experiential marketing agencies, advertisers, and leading brands. In line with its commitment to help its clients make the most out of their investment in Retail Event Marketing, PortMA has published a comprehensive research report titled ‘In-Store Sampling Benchmarks Report for Experiential Retail Marketing.’

In the words of Chris Clegg, President and Research Director at PortMA: “We’re excited to share this report with the Retail community. It has been ten years in the making. Over that time, the team at PortMA has had an opportunity to measure and evaluate hundreds of retail sampling activations. This experience has allowed us to share trends and insights that can help retail marketing get back on its feet.”

Getting back on their feet is exactly what merchandising professionals are hoping to do. Earlier this summer, Sam’s Club’s brought back samples for its customers. Sam’s Club’s sampling program, one of the driving attractions for customers over the past 35 years, recently started back up. According to Megan Crozier, CMO at Sam’s Club, their members want to do more than just shop – “they want to have an experience.” In-store sampling helps reinvent this experience for consumers.

The ‘In-Store Sampling Benchmarks Report for Experiential Retail Marketing’ data collected via field staff event recaps from 8,456 activation days were combined with 42,669 consumer exit interviews. The consumer exit interviews were immediately conducted onsite after an experiential engagement at a retail venue. In-store/Retail sampling is categorized as an intercept event that takes place at any parking lot or in-store activation. Shopping malls and farmers’ markets are examples where sampling data was gathered for this report.

The report comprises detailed instructions on using Benchmarks to build more robust experiential campaigns using evidence-based strategy and efficiency data tables defining budget and engagement benchmarks. It also contains data tables explaining the demographic profile of consumers and ROI benchmarking tables classified among various industries and activation strategies.

Tags: Consumer Goods, In-Store Sampling, Experiential Retail, Product Sampling, Experiential Marketing, Retail Sampling, Retail