Marketing Hack – Try before you Buy

Sampling or trying a new product before purchasing gives a customer a whole lot of confidence and value for money spent. This is a great way for businesses to get additional visibility and to increase their customer conversion rates as well. Most FMCG companies either offer small satchets of products for free or at a nominal price. This is primarily to make customers try out the product.

An interesting application of this hack was seen by me in a startup based in Gurgaon, India. Fitnessathome is a fitness equipment rental cum sales startup. Customers can take an equipment, say a treadmill, for rent and if they like it, they can purchase it and the rental amounts they have paid will be deducted from the sale price. The startup’s main margin comes through fitness equipment sales and they have seen good results with this ‘try before you buy’ tactic used by them.