Could this be the best sampling program ever?

Oct 1, 2023

LEWIS R. FLOYD
President | Business Valuation Consulting LLC & Affiliates

Some usual goals of sampling programs follow, as well as not-so-typical sampling ideas.

Your publication gets picked up rather than piled up in the delivery area.

Your publication gets read before being placed in the trash.

Ideally, your publication gets read cover to cover, not just glanced at.

Your publication gets shared and read by several people.

Here is what I consider the best sampling program ever: hospital delivery.

This can be sponsored by an advertiser, public donations or you can make it your community contribution. You can do any or all of these — just do the delivery and let the sponsorships come in.

So why is a hospital program the best sampling program you can do?

Your publication is delivered to the room and there are no messy piles in the driveway.

Most patients have lots of time on their hands, so reading from front page to last page is far more likely to occur, and reading most of the newspaper is almost certain.

Most patients have visitors, and some have to wait hours in a waiting room, so these will also be readers, and some of them will take your paper home with them.

POINTS ON KEEPING THE COST DOWN

While you will want to provide subscription cards, you could keep these at a minimum by finding out the days of the week that most discharges occur.

REVENUE THOUGHTS

You could only include inserts that pay to sponsor or help sponsor, or perhaps sell a wrap for the hospital papers to multiple advertisers, and you could include space on the wrap for your subscription offer. NOTE, you will probably be sampling subscribers, as well as non-subscribers. I suggest honoring any subscription offer presented from the program; why risk making them quit just because they could not get your “special?”

In some cases, the hospital will not want you to deliver to the rooms, so you might see if you can provide some incentive to the volunteer staff to deliver along with the meals.

Most audit agencies treat this type of program under their bulk sales or sponsored sales rules. Since this could affect your cost, I would suggest discussing your program with your audit company. Just an FYI: you could report both paid and unpaid hospital distribution. Depending on sponsorship, this would likely be all paid some months, half paid other months, and unpaid some.

Lewis Floyd is the president of Business Valuation Consulting LLC & Affiliates. Email busvalconsulting@gmail.com or call (850) 532-9466.