Back to school season is considered the second most important sales period of the year after the holidays. Back to school (kindergarten through high school) spending in 2010 was estimated to reach $21.35 billion, and combined with college spending was estimated to reach $55.12 billion. Even if you’re not selling school supplies or clothing, in-store demonstrations are a great way to attract back to school shoppers to your products.

Teenagers and pre-teens said they used more of their own money for apparel, supplies and accessories in 2010. When it comes to how much influence children have in parents’ buying decisions, 61.1% say their children impact half or more of their back to school purchases. CosPro Agency executed a 150 store back to school event last year and sales exceeded 1,400 – selling approximately 10 pieces per store. There were three brands involved and we distributed over 4,000 samples for one brand while the other two had almost 1,700 demonstrations with their products.

Price is a major driver now, but trust, quality, and familiarity also come into play. Try creating change in usage or consumption occasion by reframing your value. For instance, you might want to position your skincare product as something that saves trips to the dermatologist. Offer solutions that are a convenient response to the consumer’s need, i.e. you can put “save money while saving the planet” on in-store signage about your eco friendly packaging. If your products aren’t obviously school related, then use a tie in. For instance, a hair color brand might say “the prices of books may be going up, but college students can always save on trips to the salon.”

The BIGResearch survey showed 17% of shopping will be in drug store chains. The survey also found one-third (33.1%) of college shoppers will begin hitting the stores one month before school starts, with 23.2% preferring to wait a bit longer and go one to two weeks before school starts. One in five (20.2%) will start at least two months before school starts, 12.6% will wait until the week school starts and 10.9% will go after they’ve already started school. These are the highest traffic times to execute in store demos geared towards back to school.

Your entire back to school campaign (displays, product offerings, etc.) should be tied together. For instance, you could do in store promotions to correspond with your direct mail, TV ads, and print ads in August issues of magazines. Now is the time to start setting up your demos, don’t wait to secure your spot for back to school and contact Cospro Agency today!