I am not the kind of person who eagerly forks over $10 for a teensy tin of organic lotion. But you wouldn’t have thought so today when I asked my husband to turn the car around.
It started innocently enough – while wandering around my favorite shop in Jamesport, Missouri, a basket of spiced candles on my arm, I saw a display of shea butter. Tiny cute jars with tiny cute labels and a tiny cute spoon where you could dish yourself a tiny cute sample. But oh, ladies – as I spread that whipped butter on my dry hands, it was the Ritz Carlton of skincare experiences. So airy and fluffy you wanted to eat it. Then it sunk into my hands like melted butter into homemade bread. But it was $10. I left the shop with just my candles.
As we drove down the road, I kept rubbing my hands together. Thinking about the dry winter ahead. How my hands always chap in the cold. Marveling at how smooth my hands felt still, thinking wait – this stuff isn’t going to just wash off like regular lotion. How awesome will that be all winter long….and that’s about when I asked hubby to turn the car around. I am now the owner of a tin of Cranberry Spice Shea Butter.
Why do samples work? Four simple words, baby: Samples take away risk.
People hate risk. Risk aversion powerfully drives how we spend our money.
We would rather live with lousy things that we are familiar with than take a risk to spend money and try something new. It’s why clients buy 8x10s when they should be getting 20x30s.
We THINK samples just give us a chance to see if we like something – which sure, they do. But even more powerfully, samples show us that we’re not going to throw our money away. People are far more concerned about the possibility of wasting time and money than they are about missing out on something they’ll like.
I walked away from the shea butter the first time even though I liked it. I WENT BACK because I saw that it had staying power, it wasn’t going to just wash off like regular lotion – it was going to do what it promised, and this would make my life more comfortable. In short, it wasn’t going to be a waste of $10.
You’d do your business a HUGE favor by examining every possible way to remove the risk of a client trying your services. One way is to offer samples. I know what you’re thinking: “Aren’t my blog photos samples of my work?” Well, sure. But if you’re only in the business of selling photos, it’s going to be tough to stay in business.
Get your products physically into their hands. Show them what their photos would look like on their walls or in an album. Show them what other clients have bought, and what those products look like in their homes. When someone places a big order, give them a small gift of a product they didn’t buy (ornamental metallic prints, your custom photo cards, whatever) so that they’ll be already thinking about those products in the future. Not all samples have to be free. You might market your next mini-sessions as “a great chance to try you out for folks who like your work but haven’t yet booked a full session.”
The more familiar they are with what you offer, the less risky you seem to their checkbooks. Give ‘em baby steps.
Risk bad. Samples good.
Do it.
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