I’ve been married for over 20 years and apparently I have date night all wrong.  

My wife needs to forget movies, concerts, and snazzy restaurants.  We’re going to Costco, baby!

Penn (of Penn and Teller) used to take dates to Costco.  https://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/201003?search_term=&pg=79#pg79

It could be the beauty of concrete flooring, those cuddly boxes, or perhaps the delicious free samples.  

People love free samples and sampling is a great marketing tool you should swipe and deploy from our good friends at Costco.

A lot of businesses don’t like to give away free samples though  Samples are a great way to find and hook customers.  Even if you’re offering a service.

I harp about not giving away your services too but there’s a difference.  On the surface it may appear the same.  Like bodies of water.  Most of them look great from a distance but when you get close you see all garbage, ick, and debris.  

Offering your services whilly-nilly hoping something can come of it and strategically offering a limited freebie as a marketing device is totally different.  You get different results too.

The company that runs Costco’s free samples said sampling boosted beer sales by 71 percent and frozen pizza by 600 percent.

In My Life in Advertising Claude Hopkins said, “the hardest struggle of my life has been to educate advertisers to the use of samples.  Or trials of some kind.”

And lemme tell ya, it’s a helluva lot easier to ‘close the sale’ too.  

Why?

Because you’re not asking someone to buy you’re asking them to try.

How easy is that?

One word of caution though.  Don’t think you still don’t need an irresistible offer.  In many cases it’s just as hard to get someone to take the free thing as it is the NOT free thing.  So don’t rest on your marketing laurels.

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Adam