The golden secret.

I'm often asked what is the golden secret for success, that one thing that will propel you to overnight profitable success. Sadly such a thing does not exist, but I do believe that two things are imperative to driving the basis of awareness and consideration. These are trial and validation.

Humans for the large part are creatures of habit, they tend to gravitate to what they know and who they trust. To go off course and try something different, they have to believe that the new item is better suited to solving their needs than the product or service that they would originally have used. Yes, this is grossly simplistic, and it is important to note that there is a magnitude of conscious and unconscious purchasing decisions at play, the product attributes, the consumers understanding of the problem (more on that next week), the category landscape (other products that would do an adequate job of meeting their needs and their relationship to it), but at a broad sense, consumers need to be convinced of the validity of the product.

Irrespective of whether you are a digital or physical product, trial/sampling should be a crucial component of your acquisition strategy. This should be creating opportunities for people to physically experience the product for themselves. With brands with a higher COGS this might not be giving the product away but instead thinking of branded experiences to enable people to see it in action for themselves. It may seem like a stretch but I consider test driving a car a brilliant exercise in product sampling.

The other thing to debunk is that sampling doesn't have to be free. Scrumbles a pet food company have created a pet advent calendar. With a low price point, these provide a great entry into the brand. And even if the advent calendar is not bought the novel nature of a pet advent calendar is inherently shareable, which means that it is likely to be shared far and wide amongst the pet-loving community.

Image credit: Scrumbles

The second is validation. There is a reason why platforms such as Amazon, Airbnb and eBay have been built around ratings and reviews. People are inclined to place trust in what others have said, even if they are strangers. Make sure that you are building in reviews into your messaging and then using them within your communications at all stages of the customer journey.

The importance of product validation also describes why influencers have been so successful in helping drive product considerations. Whatever your view of influencers, customers look to them because they trust their opinions, their point of view or perceive them as an expert in a particular niche. Data from MuseFind shows 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement, with 71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.

As you build out your market strategy make sure that trial and validation are key components of the strategy.


Sprowt is a creative studio that helps purpose-driven challenger brands that believe in the triple bottom line - people, planet and profit - stand out and scale. 

We apply the tried and tested strategies of building memorable brands and then rip up the rule book to create disruptive brand and marketing strategies; growing the brands that matter into the household names of tomorrow.

Because the world needs brands that care.