3 Building Products Sample Tips for Retail Locations

In many retail settings, building product samples have one opportunity to make a meaningful impression. Your brand doesn’t just need to stand out from the competition; it needs to also convince potential customers that your products are the best choice to bring their vision to life. Samples must bear a lot of responsibilities in retail locations and are often a critical part of successful shopper journeys.

While there are a lot of variables to consider, there are some tips that can help your samples perform their best. Join us as we break down three tactics your building products brand can use to improve retail sample experiences.

1. Design Samples with Your Target Audience in Mind

For a retail building product sample to be successful, it helps to design it around the target audience. To get started, ask yourself:

• Who is the sample for? Homeowners? Contractors? Both?
• What type of retail stores is the sample going to be in?
• Are there salespeople who will be there to talk about the sample? Or does it need to perform on its own?
• What is the main point you want potential customers to take away from the sample?

The answers to these questions will help your brand work out the specific design and messaging to use for retail sample development. For example, let’s say the samples are going to be in a product showroom that is often visited by homeowners. In this case, going for a visual “wow” factor could be a good approach. A memorable visual helps your products stand out from the rest. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why tile brands build sample boards with grout. It’s a beautiful way to showcase the aesthetics of the product in a real-world application.

2. Choose the Right Packaging for Your Samples

While the star of many marketing tools is the sample itself, does your brand have the surrounding packaging optimized? Whether it’s a sample board, take-home sample, or another marketing tool, the surrounding message needs to be consistent with your brand. It also never hurts to have additional marketing touchpoints with your samples. Many building product brands include a QR code that customers can scan in retail locations. QR codes can take customers to a website for more information or to view a product video or demonstration.

The messaging around a sample needs to include supporting points that emphasize what makes your products unique. If you manage a wood flooring brand, that could mean including a piece of printed collateral with every sample showcasing the eye-catching grains your products offer. The benefits of your products should be reflected in the packaging surrounding your samples.

3. Adapt and Optimize Your Samples Based on Demand

Once your samples are in retail locations, keeping track of their performance and demand is beneficial. A great way to accomplish this is to utilize a sample inventory management tool. By tracking sample usage, your brand will help ensure that retail locations will always be stocked with your samples. This not only creates opportunities for more sales, but staying on top of sample inventory provides insight into the efficacy of your sample budget.

The process of implementing an easy-to-use sample inventory management tool doesn’t have to be difficult. A marketing partner like Sampco can track the samples being used by your brand at multiple retail locations. After compiling a report, you’ll have the information needed to make changes to get the most out of your marketing budget. Sampco can also help your brand optimize existing samples by adding printed collateral, QR codes, and more.

Sampco Helps Your Retail Samples “Win the Moment”

At Sampco, our team has proven expertise in helping building product brands create engaging retail samples. We also have the capability to manage sample inventory and develop any supporting printed collateral you might need. Contact us today to learn more about all the services we can provide as a marketing partner.