It’s Time to Radically Improve the Content Sampling Experience

The goal of the content sample is to acquire new customers, right? So why are publishers settling for sample content models that are outdated and largely ineffective?

Look at ebooks, for instance. Publishers mostly rely on retailers for discovery and distribution, just like how they sell the full ebook. To make matters worse, most of these samples are under lock and key inside each retailer’s walled garden. What if you want to send your friend the great sample you just read? Even though publishers should fully embrace and encourage readers to pass samples around it’s next to impossible in today’s model.

Newspapers and magazines aren’t much different. Yes, they tend to offer some number of free articles on their websites. They even offer email campaigns where the links to these articles automatically appear in your inbox every day or month. But one of the benefits of the old newspaper and magazine format is the original container. Even though containers are disappearing over time there’s still a benefit to having the material presented in a curated manner as envisioned by the editor. So why not make samples available in that format as well as the website version? Put it in an app and make it portable, so prospective customers simply download and go. And don’t forget to include the ads; after all, samples can also represent another revenue stream.

Speaking of containers, why aren’t more publishers doing cross-container sampling? My local newspaper knows my reading habits. I use their mobile app to stay up-to-date with local news while I’m on the road. So why aren’t they using that information to offer me samples of books on those topics I tend to read most often? Book publishers would love this opportunity and I’m sure an affiliate deal could be cut with the newspapers so everyone enjoys a portion of the resulting revenue stream when I purchase an ebook through this sampling model. It’s also a way for the newspaper publisher to add some value and show me they’re really paying attention to my interests.

Next, how about making these cross-container samples bigger and therefore more valuable than the ones I can get elsewhere? Again, it’s a way of adding value to existing subscriptions or prior purchases.

Lastly, once and for all, publishers, please start encouraging a frictionless sharing model with your samples. Make it super easy for me to email the sample to a friend. All my friends don’t use the same ebook platform I use. So if I’m enthusiastic about a new sample I just read, make it easy for me to share all the popular formats with my friends. And please, please, please…remove DRM from samples. You want these assets to become a viral sensation, so it’s time to remove all the obstacles that prevent this from happening.