Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team. 
Activewear subscription brand Fabletics is looking to cover a new market — clothing for medical professionals.
In February, the company launched its first line of medical scrubs, which it calls “The World’s First Activewear Scrubs Collection.” The collection launched with 12 pieces for all genders, as well as the ability to customize with embroidery.
In addition to creating a style quiz potential customers can take to find the items that will suit them best, Fabletics focused on a community-oriented launch.
The brand pledged to donate 25,000 pairs of scrubs to medical professionals across the U.S. and has tapped company spokesperson Kevin Hart to help distribute scrubs to an organization in Philadelphia.

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Why did an activewear brand start making medical scrubs?
The scrubs market is expected to be worth over $236 million by 2025, and Fabletics saw an opportunity to tap in.
Fabletics surveyed its two million subscribers (referred to as VIP members) and discovered 15% of them wore scrubs for work each day. Realizing there was demand from its existing group of customers for scrubs, the brand got to work.
During the development process, Fabletics got feedback and insights from over 6,500 professionals who wore scrubs to create the initial collection.
Since Fabletics announced the launch of the line on social media, feedback has been generally positive. Social media users have expressed excitement over being able to purchase scrubs from the brand, and have requested additional styles and colors.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Fabletics Scrubs (@fableticsscrubs)

Competitors in the direct-to-consumer scrubs market include FIGs and Jaanuu, both founded in 2013. The success of these brands showed clear demand for functional, fashion-forward scrubs.
Marketing Snippets
The latest marketing news and strategy insights.
Diversity efforts: how media companies are measuring on-screen diversity.
Podcast advertising: what a slowdown in the podcast industry could mean for advertisers.
New app alert: ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, launched a new lifestyle app called Lemon8.
YouTube is rolling out a new feature that dubs videos in multiple languages.

Oh, samples, the small gifts that help justify any Costco membership. You can get everything from a warmed pizza bite to a smoothie to hand lotion, all in one pass-through.
And don’t get me wrong, this strategy is an incredible tactic that can increase sales, in some cases, by as much as 2,000%. But there is much more to the sample marketing strategy than just enticing snacks and perks.

Product sampling marketing offers benefits to brick-and-mortar companies, online B2C and B2B brands, and everything in between. You can expand your reach, grow customer loyalty, and ultimately increase conversion and decrease churn rates. Sounds intriguing, right? Keep reading to learn how sampling marketing can help your company.
In this article, we will discuss:

What Is Sampling Marketing — In More Detail
Why Sampling Marketing Works
Sampling Marketing Best Practices
Sample Marketing Examples

This can manifest in a variety of forms, from Sephora’s free gifts with a purchase to HubSpot’s 14-day free trial.

Why Sampling Marketing Works
The strategy behind sampling marketing is rooted in psychology and behavioral economics. Giving a customer a glimpse of your offering can show them the benefits before they buy.
Here are three major benefits of sampling marketing backed by research.
1. Reciprocity
As Dan Ariely, the modern-day king of behavioral economics at Duke University says, “Reciprocity is a very, very strong instinct. If somebody does something for you, you really feel a rather surprisingly strong obligation to do something back for them.”
At Costco, the impact of this theory is clear. The graph below shows the direct translation from samples to purchases.

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This same theory stands true for the digital space as well. Giving a potential customer the ability to test out the service before committing creates the same sense of reciprocated obligation.
When they create a relationship with your brand, there is then a further incentive for them to complete the transaction, increasing the number of sales your brand can achieve. You can then build a lasting connection with users that will keep them coming back.
2. Customer Loyalty
Cornell University professor Miguel Gomez conducted a study about wine tastings.
Results showed that customers who enjoyed a tasting were 93% more likely to spend an extra $10 at the winery. They were also highly likely to buy from the business again in the future.
This study furthers the notion that a free sample not only encourages the first purchase but also it promotes a sense of loyalty toward the company.
Customer loyalty is an indispensable tool for growth. In fact, B2B companies with referrals experience a 70% higher conversion rate. This sense of trust will further your business’ customer retention and help you reach new customers alike.
3. Loss Aversion
Sampling marketing works because of our innate human physiological fear of loss, no matter the size. Esteemed of behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman, dedicated much of his studies to this notion and claims that “the concept of loss aversion is certainly the most significant contribution of psychology to behavioral economics.”
Here, when one receives a free trial or sample, they are made to feel as though they own that product. They become much more reluctant to lose it once it’s in their possession. According to Kahneman, the pain of losing is almost twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining.

Sampling Marketing Best Practices
How much do I give for free? How do I implement these free samples into my marketing strategy?
You’ll need to answer these age-old questions. But not to worry. These best practices can help you build the right sampling marketing strategy.
Find the sweet-spot quantity.
You have to find the sweet spot for your free offering. Don’t give too much, which would remove the customer’s need to purchase your product. Don’t give too little, or they won’t have the chance to try your offering thoroughly.
Databox found that over 40% of B2B SaaS companies have a free trial between 14-29 days.

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This timeline is often a sweet spot for software offerings. It’s long enough for users to see how the product can impact their bottom line. However, it’s not so long that users can accomplish everything before the trial is over.
Time-based models won’t work for physical products. For these goods, Shopify shares, “offer a sample that they can use at least two or three times … and customize your sample offering to fit the consumer profile.”
For example, an online news business may offer, on average, five articles a month before asking for a subscription payment.
Bolster new product launches.
The best way to spread the word about a new product is through the users themselves. Product sampling increases the number of users and sales while also promoting user-generated content marketing (UGC).
When these lucky users try out a product, they are more willing to review it and advertise it on their own due to their innate sense of reciprocity.
Today, 89% of shoppers check reviews before making a purchase. Get the word out about your new product through user-generated reviews to reap the benefits.
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Use feedback to inform product development.
What better way to understand how your product works for your user than to ask them directly? By giving them a sample of your product for free, with no strings attached, they can try out the product honestly.
Take this opportunity to gather genuine feedback, user reviews, and ratings.
Find ways to tap new markets.
Over 70% of customers look for perspectives that reflect their own, meaning you need to find ways to market to the specific target demographics.
Through product sampling marketing, you can get your foot in the door to these market segments by speaking to them in a relatable way with your UGC strategies.

Sample Marketing Examples
There are thousands of stellar examples to guide your product sampling journey. Here are three case studies to inspire you.
Warby Parker

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Warby Parker is a prime example of how sampling marketing allows the user to try before they buy. The modern, sleek, and trendy eyewear company allows you to choose any five frames to try on at your home for free.
Then, after five days, the customer can buy what makes them feel their best. The rest are shipped back (for free, of course).
After five days of wearing glasses that make me feel like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, I wouldn’t want to return them either! Warby Parker uses product sampling marketing exactly how it was intended — giving me a taste of the life I could have, but then taking it away before I get too comfortable in my Bradshaw era.
What we love: The personalization of their free samples. Customers can find the perfect frame and then actually use them in practice before committing.
Spotify
If you are an Apple Music user, it’s okay. We all have that friend and still love them. However, I hate to admit it, but Spotify may have you beat in more than a few ways, such as its personalized interface and accessibility.
Yes, Spotify does have a free tier, but it is definitely not as used as their Premium model. That’s why Spotify offers all of its users a three-month free trial to experience all that Premium has in store.
This free trial really does work. In 2019, they had 217 million active users and 100 million subscribers — meaning a 46% conversion rate.

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What we love: Spotify’s three months get you hooked. You’ve made an investment in the app by cultivating playlists that, after three months, you can’t part with. Once you lose that advantage, you can’t go back to the free tier again — with advertisements, worsened audio quality, and no exclusive release access.
Zoom

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Whether COVID made you a Zoom fanatic or an avid Zoom hater, video conferencing is here to stay — and Zoom is at the forefront of that.
However, if you are just using a free personal account, you are limited to 40 minutes. Yesterday, I received an email to upgrade my account with the words: “Sick of the 40-minute limit? This holiday season, stay connected through it all — for free! Today only, claim your FREE MONTH of Zoom!”
What we love: Zoom uses seasons and holidays to target its promotions. The holiday season is a time when everyone wants to connect, and Zoom knows it. They are able to tug on our heartstrings and make us feel glad that they are making their service more accessible at a time when it is needed.
Making the Most of Samples
We’ve all made purchases after using a sample — whether that be Spotify, LinkedIn Premium, Costco, or Sephora. There are plenty of benefits to letting customers try a product, getting them hooked, then closing a sale.
Start small by offering samples of select products. Once you prove out your strategy, you can expand your sampling marketing.

When you watch a creative TikTok or read a blog post that resonates deeply, you may often wonder how the creator does it. How do they keep coming up with content that excites or inspires? It’s the “creative process”, which looks different for everyone. Some creators might be consuming content constantly, setting aside time to come up with ideas, or even just learning what works through trial and error over time. Regardless of the method, everyone has one. The creative process is an essential aspect of any artist’s journey. It involves ideation, experimentation, and implementation of ideas that eventually manifest into creative works. In this article, we explore the creative process of three creators: Jayde Powell, Dre Fox, and Katie Xu. Each of these creators has a unique style and approach to their craft, making them stand out in their respective fields.How to figure out your creative processThere are five steps to help you build out your creative process: consumption, incubation, ideation, evaluation, and creation. Here’s how to use them to figure out yours:ConsumptionContent creation doesn’t start from the great idea that comes to you in the shower. It starts from the things you consume: that one trip when you were 10 that has stayed with you into adulthood or the comic book you came across and never stopped reading. The earliest advice you’ll be given as a creator is to “do what you know,” closely followed by “show how you’re learning something new.” You can’t pour from an empty pot, and you can’t create if you’ve never consumed. Practically, this boils down to: take note of everything. You’re already consuming daily by reading books, interacting with people, and spending 4 hours on TikTok. Out of every experience you have, from the mundane to the exciting, remember what engaged you and why it did.Let’s say you want to direct your consumption to more specific sources. From personal experience, building expertise in all things social media and content creation didn’t happen because I took a class in a controlled environment. It happened through all the people I followed within the niche across all my social media, reading blogs and newsletters, and watching every video/listening to every podcast I could find. In many ways, I use the tools at my disposal and take advantage of The Algorithm to keep serving me similar content, so I never run out of inspiration.IncubationThe incubation stage is where you let your thoughts run free. This is where you have a bunch of shower thoughts or ideas that came while you were on a walk down in a notebook or Word doc, but with no form to them. At this point, you must do something counterintuitive – instead of doubling down, let your ideas go. You can work on other, more developed projects or take a break entirely with an activity that doesn’t overlap with your other train of thought. Whatever you choose to do, let it be something that ensures you’re not trying to work on your new idea.  By allowing your ideas to breathe on their own, you can let them fully form and come to life without restriction.InsightAfter incubation comes the insight stage, where ideas begin to take shape. This is the time when structure and templates come into play as you start to organize your thoughts. You may start to flesh out your ideas by adding detail to them. You may also start to research to see what has been done, to see what makes yours stand out. EvaluationAt this stage, you can begin to determine what is and isn’t practical. You may weigh your idea against alternatives and realize you can’t beat what’s already there or realize your idea isn’t as concrete as you had initially imagined. You can also think about your ideas against where you are as a creator. Some things may be too out of scope or just not aligned with your audience – this is the stage where you figure this out. If, after evaluation, you’re left with nothing, that’s okay! Take the lessons you’ve learned about what is good and what isn’t, and apply them to your future ideation exercises. If you’ve landed on some great ideas, even better – forge ahead.CreationThis is where the fun (and hard work) begins. You have that one idea that you’d love to turn into a full project, whether that’s filming a video of you making a sculpture for TikTok or creating an educational online course to share. Once you finalize this stage, you can share your content with the world. 3 creators on their creative processThree creators – Jayde Powell, Dre Fox, and Katie Xu – shared with us how they create content, from idea generation to execution.Jayde Powell combines strategy with creativityWhen planning out episodes of her LinkedIn Audio series – #CreatorTeaTalk – Jayde Powell had one thing in mind: to entertain and provide insight. She also had to think strategically about what would captivate an audience for the two-hour-long live show. View this post on Instagram A post shared by jayde powell • content creator (@jaydeipowell) The series’ topics are based on cultural conversations among creators, so Jayde doesn’t start planning episodes until a week before the event. The first episode covered pay rates and transparency because that’s always top of mind for creators, and that initial episode set the tone for the rest of the series. The idea for the series was already in the Insight stage and went from Evaluation to Creation easily because Jayde came up with a creative idea and then built a strategic framework to support the generation of more content ideas.Dre Fox and the Content TreeDre Fox, a content creator and social media coach, needs a consistent flow of ideas for all her content creation. She calls her ideation method a “content tree”. As she describes it, “You have a lot of different branches, and then those branches have other branches coming out.” This visualization helps the content creator and social media coach create dynamic content. The tree method is a sister of the content pillar or bucket methods, but Dre mentions that can get repetitive. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dre – IG Monetization Expert | Biz Coach (@timeofdre) The creator takes one topic, breaks it down into six sub-topics, and those into smaller ideas. This exercise helps her turn four general topics into 100 ideas within 30 minutes. Next comes figuring out how to visually communicate that value (because her main social platform is Instagram). So if it’s an info-driven idea, like a 5-step process, she’ll go with the Carousel. If it’s more personal, where she’s telling her story about how she started her business, she’ll use a photo. And if it’s a more trendy or light-hearted topic, she’ll use a Reel. Deciding what goes where is usually determined by a mix of gut instinct and technical knowledge.Katie Xu bucks convention with intentionally raw videos @katiexsocials Replying to @neigehq Quick follower growth is an ILLUSION. Every time a video does super well, you will guaranteed grow quickly for the next couple of weeks. While you might think it’s various strategies you’ve developed that are attributing to your growth, it’s probably just the success of a couple videos. You should pay attention to your analytics to figure out what is truly working.#greenscreen #katiexsocials #futuremillionairekatie #tiktokgrowth #tiktokgrowthtips #socialmedia #contentcreation #becometheniche #socialmillionaire #nichedown #tiktoktips ♬ original sound – Katie Xu | Future Millionaire TikTok creator Katie Xu’s method of coming up with ideas is part of the unconventional goodness of her content. She mentions working backward in terms of strategy, starting from identifying her personal brand to determining what ideas would come from it. She asked herself: “What do I want my brand to look like and what kind of content am I good at making?” Then, “What is the best method for me to get there to be putting out and doing well with that content?” A lot of the conventional thought processes can restrict the kind of content you can make because it’s geared towards the algorithms of each platform, which is fine in Katie’s estimation but can take the creativity out of the creator. Katie shares advice for creators that goes against common convention using a lo-fi format because she wants her content to speak for itself.ConclusionDespite the formats and formulas we’ve shared, the creative process is unique to everyone. Some people have no problem developing innovative ideas on the fly, while others regularly get blocked (like me!) We merely hope to suggest ways to standardize your process and make it a bit easier to generate content. When you’re coming up with ideas, writing them down somewhere you won’t forget is vital. Buffer Ideas can help – just open Buffer on web or mobile and draft in the Ideas section, so you never lose your content to that one notebook you only open once every other month.

Hello everyone! I was thinking of building a marketing backlog platfom. It would basically track the changes I make in my campaigns and it will track the most popular marketing channels. I sometimes have a decrease in conversions and I would like to see what changes in my campaign caused the issue and on what channel exactly. Tracking my campaigns would make the process much faster as I can see the latest changes. I am now using spreadsheets but I would like it to be automated. Please, let me know if this is something you would find useful submitted by /u/Medinutz [link] [comments]

Email marketing is the marketing holy grail for most businesses. Given that the ROI for email marketing is around $36 for every $1 spent, it’s no surprise. Email marketing builds customer loyalty, provides valuable information, nurtures leads, and increases awareness and direct sales.  The most important part of running a successful email campaign is to…
The post The Most Impactful Features Your Email Marketing Software Needs appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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