• If someone looks at your site – main page, pricing page, sign-up page, whatever – for 5 seconds, what will they think your app does?
• If your ideal customer looks at your site – for 5 seconds or even 5 minutes – will they know they are your ideal customer?
• Are you reaching your ideal customers where they are in their Buying Cycle and doing so with an appropriate call to action?
• Are you reaching your ideal customers where they are on the Awareness Ladder and doing so with an appropriate call to action?

In case you aren’t familiar with the “Awareness Ladder” concept, it comes from the amazing book “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene Schwartz, first published in 1966 (a book, BTW, that I keep by me all the time; it is even MORE relevant today!).

The ladder looks like this, from the top rung to the bottom one:

5 – They are Convinced and ready to buy your solution
4 – The know the Benefits of your solution, but aren’t convinced yet
3 – They know Your Solution exists
2 – They know Solutions Exist to solve the problem
1 – They know they have a Problem
0 – They don’t know they have a Problem

You need to know where the people in your market are on the Awareness Ladder so you can speak to them where they’re at and provide the appropriate call to action.

If they don’t even know they have a problem, you probably shouldn’t try to close them.

If they are convinced, you probably don’t need to get them to understand your benefits.

Understanding where your market is on the Awareness Ladder can absolutely transform your sales pipeline from a weak trickle to a powerful deluge!

Now, those are definitely some interesting — and potentially business-changing — questions to ask yourself, and yet those were just a portion of what we covered during the live Group Coaching call this week!

In fact, the Free Trial Dominator members are making awesome progress, and the weekly Group Coaching sessions are a big reason.

But the Free Trial Dominator is a whole system; the Group Coaching combines with awesome Content you won’t find anywhere else and an amazing Community of like-minded SaaS & Web App entrepreneurs and pros to make this program one that simply can’t be beat!

Which reminds me…, I’m going to open up the application process for membership in the Free Trial Dominator program soon, so join my mailing list (below) so you won’t miss that announcement!

Have a great day,

Lincoln
(972) 200-9317

Quick… What does your App do? is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

If I’m not doing that, I’m not doing my job.

Some I will help be more successful by working with them 1-on-1 or through programs like the Free Trial Dominator (which is awesome, IMHO).

But others – like you – I will help through my blog posts.

So… what’s the biggest issue you’re dealing with right now?

If I can’t help you because your issue is outside of my expertise… I’ll find someone that can and we’ll help you together!

So take 30 seconds and post in the comments below what you’re dealing with – a problem you need to fix or an opportunity you want to take advantage of – and I’ll try to help.

Thanks!

- Lincoln

(972) 200-9317

What's the biggest issue you're dealing with right now? is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

When your sales process fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Which is why even though you offer an amazing SaaS or Web App that meets a real market need, you’re not making sales.

Even though you worked hard, created amazing content, made a bunch of cold calls, and used strategic advertising to get plenty of traffic to your site, you’re not making sales.

Even though you’ve optimized on-site conversions and are able to get people to sign-up to try out your product… you aren’t making sales.

Even though people try your product for 30 days, you aren’t making sales!

But I can help you make more sales.

Look, whether you realize it or not, a low conversion rate almost always points to your Free Trial as the culprit!

And that’s not just my experience talking… I’ve got industry numbers to back me up on that claim.

Softletter – an industry research firm – recently published the results of their Annual SaaS Survey and their numbers jibe with my own experience:

- 66% of SaaS vendors report they convert less than 25% of their Free Trial sign-ups to customers

- 44% of SaaS vendors report they convert less than 10% of their Free Trial sign-ups to customers!

Now, if you believe as I do that a Free Trial has one singular purpose – to create customers – then you’ll agree that those ‘industry’ numbers are not good.

If you have anything near the industry average, I can help you make more sales.

In fact, even if you think you’re doing well compared to those industry numbers, I can still help you make more sales.

That’s because numbers like this can be deceiving as they might cause someone with a conversion rate of more than 25% to think that they’re actually doing good!

They’re not; they’re just doing better than most.

Look, if you have a 29% conversion rate, that still means 71 out of every 100 people that sign-up for your Free Trial – the ONE part of your sales process over which you have the most control – end up NOT becoming your customer!

That is not good no matter how you look at it.

Especially if the majority of your sales go through your Free Trial, which is the case for most SaaS and Web App vendors I’ve worked with.

But I have some great news for you!

You’re actually closer to making more sales than you realize and I can get you there.

I’ve spent the last 6 years working with literally 100′s of SaaS & Web App companies from around the world – many names you know like KISSMetrics, Constant Contact and Zendesk, and names you don’t yet know, but will! – and I can tell you that the bottleneck in the sales process is almost always the Free Trial and it CAN be fixed!

But you have to realize that seemingly small mistakes in your Free Trial process can have a huge impact on sales, causing drag and ‘trial to purchase friction.’

Unfortunately, few vendors are just making small mistakes… most are making MASSIVE mistakes that aren’t just causing friction in the conversion process; these mistakes stop the conversion process dead in its tracks!

Many vendors try to overcome these problems by ‘fixing’ other problems, like trying to get more traffic to their site.

Without fixing your Free Trial process though, it’s like pouring more water down a clogged drain; it still just drips out the other side!

But when you actually fix your Free Trial strategy, you fix the big problems holding you back; you unclog the drain!

Oddly, while Free Trials are hardly new, and every SaaS or Web App vendor offers one, finding out what has worked for others, pulling together industry best practices (that don’t seem to exist), and then – if you actually find something – trying to figure out how to apply that to your situation is not easy.

While you want to increase your Free Trial conversions, the last thing you want to do – or have time to do – is hunt down answers from random sources.

But even if you wanted to, that assumes you know what the right questions to ask are in the first place.

Okay, but if the answer is out there – the idea that the Free Trial is the bottleneck and the ways to fix it – why has it eluded you?

I can give you 6 – possibly controversial – reasons this information is hard to find:

1) The SaaS, web app, startup, cloud, and tech ‘media’ – pundits and analysts included – focus on the unusual successes; and unusual successes are unlikely to take YOU down the right path!

2) The concept of survivor bias in that ‘media’ coverage; you rarely hear how many used the same strategy and crashed and burned!

3) The very real notion of branding and momentum of newly- and heavily-funded, as well as popular companies, or those companies with a massive amount of community support external to their SaaS products (example: 37Signals created the web framework Ruby on Rails) who can make even major mistakes and still get customers; mistakes that you simply cannot make!

4) A focus on tools, metrics, measurement, instrumentation, etc. but no basis for why those metrics matter in the context of engagement & conversion.

5) Causation vs. Correlation and the power of social networks to spread 1 person’s experience as the gospel; if that person is an investor, it will spread even faster (though the fact that it’s an investor is often lost on the bootstrapped startups reading the ‘advice’).

6) The people that really know how Free Trials work and have found success keep it to themselves or within their portfolio companies because they realize that this knowledge is a MASSIVE part of their competitive advantage, the key to long-term growth in Customer Lifetime Value, and the cornerstone of a scalable customer acquisition process; even for those with a higher-touch, human-powered sales process!

Luckily, I’m not going to keep what I know to myself.

I’m going to show you the 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials during a Live, Free Training session to help you avoid mistakes made other by SaaS and Web App vendors and to move you toward higher conversions… and higher revenue!

But I need to get real with you for a second.

Too often, when you figure out that it IS your Free Trial that’s the bottleneck in your sales process, you’ll search around, not be able to find the answers you need, and just give-up.

You’ll stop trying to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your Free Trial and revert to their your old ways.

But you aren’t going to do that, right?

You want to actually fix your Free Trial… to unclog the drain, right?

Awesome, then join me for a 100% free training session where I’ll show you exactly how to turn your Free Trial into a Customer-Creating Machine!

 
 
 
 
 
 
- Lincoln

Thanks!

7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

When we look at broad Free Trial conversion ratios, I would assume some of the variances may depend on how much information is required to sign up for a free trial.

For example, there are a number of sites that require very little, if any, prospect information (i.e., just an email).

Others required name, phone, email, address, and some other information.

These are two approaches to pre-qualification.

I would expect the former will allow the casual less-than-curious person to take a peak, many of which may not be a fit for long term use.

They wouldn’t buy regardless. In the second model, these “non-prospects” would steer away and not even become a statistic in the conversion ratios.

It would be very interesting to hear you opinion and experience on the data capture sign up approaches.

- Paul

And my response to him was:

Paul, I’d say variances are more likely tied to the sources of the data.

Consider whether it makes real sense to lump together a light-weight Project Management App like 37Signals’ Basecamp, a vertical-specific vendor like RecruiterBox, and an Enterprise HCM product like Workday when looking for “average” conversion rates… or “average” anything to do with SaaS for that matter?

But you bring up something that is rarely talked about or generally glossed over: Free Trial sign-up forms, and their importance in the overall Sales Process for a SaaS or Web App vendor.

I’ll start with your point about pre-qualification.

The way I look at it, pre-qualification should start long before the sign-up process.

How you position your product, the sales copy you use, the imagery and social proof, and even what you do to engage with your prospects before they sign-up (webinars, whitepapers, etc.) will all help in the pre-qualification / self-selecting process.

I really can’t see how asking for a phone number or title on a sign-up form qualifies or disqualifies a prospects. It does add data points, but qualification based simply on the existence of that information is a stretch.

On the other hand, there is a massive body of evidence from years of testing in the e-commerce and Internet Marketing industries that indicates asking for too much information on a form will reduce the number of people that fill out the form or in this case, sign-up.

Yes, a longer Free Trial sign-up form with good marketing (sales copy, social proof, imagery, etc.) might get more people to complete it than a short one with no marketing, but what about a shorter sign-up form WITH improved marketing?

So I always ask for the bare minimum – which will vary from vendor to vendor and can be as little as just the email address – on the first sign-up form – surrounded by all of the afore mentioned marketing elements.

Then I rely on a strong Free Trial strategy backed-up by psychological factors – such as the rules of Commitment and Consistency put forth by Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – to complete the prospect profile in the post-signup & in-app engagement process.

The rule of Commitment and Consistency basically says that people are much more willing to give you information AFTER they’ve made a commitment – even if very small, like entering their email address – than up-front without any previous commitment.

But it isn’t just collecting the information from them, it is HOW you do it. It should be done in a way that allows them to provide information not so you can sell or pitch them, but instead to improve their in-app experience and help them complete the evaluation of the product in a timely and efficient manner.

But this requires a completely different approach to Free Trials than most SaaS & Web App vendors take – one that gets away from “evaluation” as the basis for the trial and moves toward Engagement – which is why the Free Trial Dominator program is so awesome. IMHO, of course.

I cover all of that – and a lot more – in the Free Trial Dominator program and right now you can become a Member and get a full 3 months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

Your Signup Form is Hurting Your Free Trial Conversions! is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

Our current app has two pricing tiers – free and paid. Simple pricing has its advantages!

We’re coming out with a major redesign of the product (plus new features) in early 2012 and need to decide how many pricing levels to have. So far, the discussion is free plus two pricing levels.

I have also questioned whether we should continue to have both Free and Freemium, as this combination seems to be the minority case.

And here was my response to him…

Steve… thanks for letting me know what your biggest 2012 Challenge is.

You’re right that having a Freemium version and paid version w/ Free Trials is not common, and while I have seen it more lately, only 7% of those I’ve surveyed report having both Freemium & Premium w/ Free Trials, so it is pretty rare.

That doesn’t mean it is a good or a bad thing, though… just that it is rare.

But to make it work, there are a couple things you need to make sure you do if you continue going down that path:

1. Clearly understand the psychological differences between Freemium – free forever – and Free Trials.
2. Have a clear path to conversion for BOTH Free Trial users and Freemium users.

Where most companies fall short with Freemium is the same place people fall short in everything else… they fail to map out how – once you have someone’s attention – you can move them through to becoming a customer.

Whether that takes 14 days in a Free Trial or 6 months as a Freemium user, you need to know what that path looks like and actively move the user closer to becoming a customer every day.

And if you have a Free Trial that ‘downgrades’ to the Freemium version if they don’t convert – which is what most vendors with this hybrid approach do – you need to have a clear idea of how to move them back to becoming a customer again, or how to get them to spread the word for you, or how to monetize / leverage / productize them in other ways.

Otherwise why just let them hang out as a free user – after they didn’t become a customer the first time around – and waste resources?

What’s the quid pro quo for on-going free use of your product?

But you should also work diligently to get those in your Free Trial to convert rather than failing to convert and falling back to the Freemium level.

I cover all of that – and a lot more – in the Free Trial Dominator program and right now you can become a Member and get a full 3 months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

How to Handle Freemium and Free Trials? is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

But almost everything boiled down to these two things: Convert Leads & Reduce Churn.

I didn’t just get terse answers to my query, some folks sent me very detailed challenges and I – in turn – responded in detail.

And I’m going to post those conversations – anonymized to protect the guilty – for your edification and enjoyment over the next few days.

Here’s the first one I got:

Hi Lincoln, I’d like to hear your perspective on minimizing churn, especially in an industry with steadily declining prices, Adding more value with a better customer experience and more product functionality to mitigate price erosion and churn helps. Better segmentation. What else?

I responded with the following that seemed to expand her thinking a bit… which is always the goal!

Churn happens for many reasons, but especially when people think your product doesn’t do something they need it to do (especially if they thought it would), if it doesn’t do that thing as easy as it should, or if the experience is incongruent with the price paid.

Clearly these are just a few of the reasons for Churn… but in many ways, these are the basis for the other reasons, like Customer Service problems or post-sale price sensitivity.

Up-front price sensitivity often results from directly comparing your product to a cheap competitor’s product… when 12 different products seem to be identical, price becomes the main differentiator and the lowest price “wins.” (Does anyone really win the race to the bottom?)

What is really interesting to me is that Reducing Churn and Converting Leads share many of the same requirements.

It starts with attracting the right crowd and managing expectations properly early in the process.

It is easy to say “add value” so you can charge more, but what does that mean?

Where I’ve seen success in “adding value” is in what I call pre-sale or pre-signup Indoctrination.

How you position your product, the sales copy you use, the imagery and social proof, and even what you do to engage with your prospects before they sign-up (webinars, whitepapers, etc.) will all help in that Indoctrination process.

And it will help better prepare your prospects and customers for the post-signup experience, allowing them to become more Engaged – faster – thus leading to a deeper level of Investment and, of course Conversion.

So the goal of pre-sales lead nurturing / Indoctrination is to get them engaged, then get them invested in the product.

Churn Reduction / Lead Conversion are the same in that respect…

Get them and keep them engaged, then get and keep them invested in the product.

And never stop doing that.

So yes, a great User Experience, managing expectations, Engagement, Investment (time, energy, resources, etc.) are all part of the conversion – and the retention – process.

But the secret to both is having a plan for conversion.

When someone enters your Free Trial or becomes a lead in any other way, you need to have a specific conversion path that they get on as soon as they sign-up (or hopefully before they sign-up).

Now everything you do should lead them down that path, never letting them fend for themselves or virtually wander around.

Well, the same thing should happen after they become a customer, too… you want to up-sell, move them to a more expensive version or incorporate add-ons into their current plan, etc.

To keep converting customers and growing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) requires a clearly defined path and you should guide your customers down that path in everything you do.

And, of course, if you’re constantly moving them down that path, then you know you’re engaging them and they aren’t a churn threat.

I cover all of that – and a lot more – in the Free Trial Dominator program and right now you can become a Member and get a full 3 months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

- Lincoln
(972) 200-9317

The Secret to Reducing Churn is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

So my question as we go into 2012 is this:

What’s Your Biggest Challenge as a SaaS or Web App Vendor in 2012?

Is it making your Free Trials more effective at creating customers? Coming up with the right Pricing? How to handle Competition? Whether to go Freemium? Overall Business Model issues? How to handle Accounting? How to Manage Recurring Revenue? How to keep Churn to a minimum? Or something else?

I’d love to hear from you – whatever the challenge – in the comments below.

Next week I’ll aggregate your comments, responses from those on my mailing list, and insights from Free Trial Dominator members to give you an idea of what your peers consider to be challenges in 2012.

Happy New Year!

- Lincoln
(972) 200-9317

PS: If your challenge in 2012 is how to turn your Free Trial into a Customer-Creating Machine, the solution is to become a Member in my Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 Months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

What's Your Biggest Challenge in 2012? is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

But since I’m not an analyst or researcher I don’t have industry-wide datas, but even if I did, well… you’ll see.

Softletter (the SaaS University folks) on the other hand collects and publishes this type of information, so we’ll look at their stuff.

A brief disclaimer: I don’t like this kind of survey data because it lumps all SaaS & Web App vendors together and – other than a shared business architecture – they offer different types of products with different use cases that serve different industries, verticals, niches, and markets that all behave very differently from one another… but, this is what we have to work with so it’ll have to do for now.

What Softletter published indicates that 66% of SaaS vendors report Free Trial conversion rates of 25% or less.

That means that for most SaaS vendors – 66% of them – at least 75 out of every 100 sign-ups they get for their Free Trial DO NOT BECOME CUSTOMERS.

75% of the time, it fails every time.

Even more interesting – or frightening – is that 41% of SaaS vendors reported less-than 10% conversions to Softletter!

So let me once again point out the obvious… for 41% of SaaS vendors, >90% of the people that sign-up for their Free Trials DO NOT CONVERT TO PAYING CUSTOMERS.

In real numbers, for 41% of the SaaS vendors Softletter talked to, 90 out of every 100 free trial sign-ups does not result in a paying customer.

And this < 10% number is closer to the reality that I’ve seen when folks first contact me to help them improve their Free Trials.

And frankly… that sucks. (Ugh… language)

I’m sorry, but all of these numbers suck… even the 25% conversion rate.

But the thing I hate about “averages” or data like this is it might make someone with a 26% conversion rate think “WOW! We’re doing great!”

I literally had someone tell me the other day “we have a 29% conversion rate so we must be doing good…” to which I said nothing and simply shed a solitary tear.

Like it or not, when average numbers are put out by industry experts, analysts, researchers or pundits… people make those numbers their goal.

They shoot for the average.

They plan and strategize around the average numbers they put in their spreadsheets!

Now when someone tells me 29% is a good conversion rate for a SaaS Free Trial – and if I’m not rendered speechless – I gently remind them that they’re still losing 71% of their sign-ups.

Yes, at a 29% conversion rate – what someone might consider good – for every 100 sign-ups you get, 71 will be squeezed out of your sales process.

71 out of 100.

To me, that represents wasted ad spend, marketing costs, support and infrastructure resources, and lost potential revenue.

Yeah, you know what?  Forget the costs; this is money left on the table!

So 71% of your Free Trial sign-ups opting not to give you their money when you had their attention in the ONLY PART of the sales process you have any real control over is a FAILURE, even if you are doing better then everyone else.

Unfortunately Softletter published the data in their newsletter and don’t have the archives available to the public so I can’t link directly to it. Maybe you can find it on their site somewhere.

Softletter also noted that 15% of the SaaS vendors reported 70% or better conversion rates, which sounds great on the surface.

But then they followed that up by saying these are what most people would refer to as “enterprise” sales cycles and “a great deal of personal interaction takes place and in many cases a trial program is not launched unless a great deal of pre-sales qualification has taken place.”

One of the goals of a Free Trial strategy should be to reduce the amount of human interaction required to make a sale, even if there is a customer-side requirement for a “higher-touch” sales process, which – by the way – is often just a customer perception requirement.

You can do things within the Free Trial process to streamline and create a more scalable (read: leverage through proper Free Trial strategy) sales process as a whole.

But to do that – whether with a low-touch, self-service, e-commerce based sales model or high-touch, human-centric sales model – you really need to understand the true nature of a Free Trial, the four phases – Attention, Engagement, Investment, and Conversion, and know how to create and execute a strategy around your Free Trial.

I cover all of that – and a lot more – in the Free Trial Dominator program and right now you can become a Member and get a full 3 months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

Average Free Trial Conversion Rates… and why they don't matter is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

I get asked that a lot.

Sure, the 30-day Free Trial is common among B2B SaaS & Web App vendors, but there aren’t any rules.

And with everything from 14-day to 60-day (and longer) trials appearing frequently I understand why this the question persists.

So, the short answer to what the ideal Free Trial period is “there isn’t one, but…”

The longer answer – one that will actually help you make smart decisions with your SaaS Free Trial strategy – requires some setup and a going a little deeper into what Free Trials are really all about.

First, you need to understand that Free Trials – from the vendor standpoint – are not there for the user to evaluate the product.

Nope, Free Trials have one job and that is to create a customer.

A well-designed Free Trial strategy should create an efficient, scalable and cost-effective method of customer acquisition.

One of the key psychological elements of a Free Trial is its time-limited nature.

Paradoxically then, the quest for the mythical “ideal Free Trial length” is a red herring.

Look, when it comes to the length of a Free Trial, many people want to believe there is a magic number – 7, 14, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90; like playing the lottery – that when applied to their Free Trial will skyrocket conversions.

And of course the flipside of that way of thinking is that if the Free Trial isn’t converting customers, it must be the length that is the culprit.

But very rarely – never in my direct experience – does the length of the trial have a major impact on conversions.

From the customer side, if the trial is perceived to be too short, they might feel rushed and not get started.

Even worse, they might not sign-up in the first place.

So it can cause a problem in the Attention Phase of the Free Trial.

And there are examples of using shorter trial periods to position a product or a version as simple; like how Salesforce.com has a 7-day trial on their simple Contact Management product vs. a 30-day trial on their “Enterprise” product.

But without the immediate version differentiation or an “anchor” trial length for comparison against, a short trial length may actually do massive damage up front.

Now, from your standpoint as the vendor, you want to get them into the trial and convert’em ASAP.

Yes, ASAP!

That means not waiting until the end of the trial to convert, but leveraging the Free Trial experience, and using a strategic view of the Free Trial, as a way to accelerate customer acquisition!

In my experience, the average time from sign-up to conversion with a 30-Day Free Trial is… 31 days.

That’s because SaaS and Web App vendors like you simply don’t understand how to use a Free Trial to efficiently create customers.

You think Free Trials are for “evaluation” or that your product will sell itself once they get in there.

Let’em poke around and they’ll see just how awesome your app is, right?

So you just let people in and hope they convert when the trial is up.

Or you take a credit card up front and just bill them on day 31 (which has its own potential pitfalls).

Maybe you send an email reminding them that their trial is expiring soon and hope the user will be like “oh, yeah… my trial is expiring, I guess I better sign-up!”

Right… good luck with that.

Look, the ideal Free Trial length from the customer standpoint – what you use in your marketing – is one that gives the perception of being long enough to adequately evaluate the product and not feel rushed.

From your side – the vendor side – however, the ideal Free Trial length is as short as possible!

And to make it as short as possible, you really need to understand the true nature of a Free Trial, the four phases – Attention, Engagement, Investment, and Conversion, and know how to create and execute a strategy around your Free Trial.

I cover all of that – and a lot more – in the Free Trial Dominator program and right now you can become a Member and get a full 3 months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

What's the Ideal Free Trial Length? is a post from: Sixteen Ventures

You have 6 days – including today – until the year 2011 is over and done with.

So what are you doing to convert those currently in your Free Trial to customers in 2011?

It isn’t too late to convert them!

I’m willing to bet that you have some users in your Free Trial that signed-up at a point in December 2011 who, if they convert on the last day of their trial, will convert well into 2012.

Now I’m no accountant, and there are different ways to book revenue, but a trial started in 2011 that converts in 2012 doesn’t usually count toward 2011 revenue.

And since you spent the money in 2011 to get them to your site and to sign-up for the trial in the first place, wouldn’t it be great to get some money from them this year?

I want to convert them in 2011 to maximize my revenue for this year AND I want to start off 2012 with THAT MUCH MORE recurring revenue!

So… what if you could take some small action that would result in the conversion of 10% of your current trialists to customers in 2011?

25%?

50%?

Well, have you thought about simply asking for the sale right now? Today?

This really shouldn’t be as wild of an idea as it is, but far too many SaaS and Web App vendors think that their product will magically sell itself, I guess.

You’d think that the super-low conversion rates most vendors get from their Free Trials would be the first indication that this strategy is failing.

So ask for the sale.

And here are two ideas on how to do just that.

Sit down and craft an email that is written by a human for a human, keeping in mind that a real person will read your email.

Make the email more about them and their needs than you and your product.

And make them an offer to convert right now.

Give them one thing to do in the email – click a link – and send them to a page to enter payment information and become a customer.

Make sure that page is a marketing page that reminds them why they should convert today, and includes trust factors, social proof, etc. – in other words not just an info-collecting page.

Now… if you know what version, bundle, or tier they signed-up to try out, we can get fancy and come up with a truly irresistible offer… a discount on the next level up.

This is one of my super-secret Ninja techniques that works like crazy all day long.

Consider this… if they signed-up for the trial at the $20/mo level, and the next level up is $40/mo… offer them the $40 level for only $30/mo for the first 6 months.

Of course, that assumes you created pricing tiers differentiated on value-based metrics/features/benefits and you’re able to make that next level up sound really cool or valuable, that you tied your trials to the different tiers, etc. but you get the idea, right?

Honestly, there are a lot of ways to convert trialists to paying customers, and many of those are especially applicable right now at the end of the year.

I cover all of that – and a lot more – in the Free Trial Dominator program and right now you can become a Member and get a full 3 months access for ONLY $297.

That’s a Paypal link, by the way, but you only need a valid Credit Card to make it work.

And when you join the Free Trial Dominator, you’ll get access to all of this:

• Core Free Trial Dominator modules
  - Rethinking the ‘Free Trial’
  - Attention Phase
  - Engagement Phase
  - Investment Phase
  - Conversion Phase
• Free Trial Resources and Tools
• My Super Ninja Free Trial Tactics
• Pricing Page Success Formula videos (the full 5-hour series that was priced at $397 by itself!)
• Master Class on Beta Testing & Pricing (60-minutes / $97 value)
• Complete Group Coaching Call Archive
• Private, Members-Only Discussion List where we talk about all-things SaaS & Web App Marketing

PLUS… you’ll get to join us for our Weekly Group Coaching Calls – every Wednesday @ Noon Eastern

Don’t wait… Join the Free Trial Dominator program today and get 3 months access for ONLY $297!

- Lincoln
(972) 200-9317

Year-End Free Trial Conversion Ideas is a post from: Sixteen Ventures